The Heiress Queen (Season Series Prequel)

Chapter 22

Isabelle spent the better part of a week trying not to think about the Countess of Tarlsburgh. Thankfully, the prince had been otherwise occupied by the king's council, absent from a number of daytime and evening events. Isabelle savoured the blissful reprieve, but his words still haunted her.

Determined to put the matter to rest, especially since Leopold still hadn't written to her, she ventured down to the palace library one rainy morning when the rest of the debutantes were playing card games. The stuffy old head librarian, a man with too much grey hair on his face and not enough on his head, adamantly refused to help her. When she harassed him enough, following him through the stacks like a very insistent gnat, he finally informed her that women were not welcome in the library.

So Isabelle recruited an ally.

The next morning, Sam met her before the great wooden doors, their hinges squeaking as he pushed them open. The clouds had parted overnight, bright yellow sunbeams dancing off the library's polished floors. Dust motes swirled and eddied in the air currents from their footsteps, Isabelle leading Sam directly to where she'd found the head librarian the day before. Sure enough, he was seated at the very same mahogany desk, with even more piles of books surrounding him as he stamped and sorted them.

As they'd planned, Sam spoke first.

"I'd like to learn more about the genealogy of the noble houses of Germania," he said, not bothering with a greeting. When Isabelle had described the librarian's less-than-courteous welcome the day before, Sam had bristled and grumbled about respect and the utter lack thereof in the palace.

"Certainly sir, might I...oh, it's you," the librarian said, looking up at Sam before he noticed Isabelle. "I'm sorry, sir, but women are not permitted in the library."

Sam and Isabelle's arms crossed at nearly the same time.

"The lady stays with me," Sam said, leaning over to loom as imposingly over the other man as he could. The librarian gulped before relenting. He muttered and wrung his hands as he led them through the aisles, stopping briefly to inspect the spines of a few books before hauling one out. Dust plumed from the reading table as he hefted the book onto it, flipping open the worn pages.

"Here is the royal line," the librarian said, peering down through his spectacles at a branching family tree. Each entry was handwritten with dates of birth, death, and marriage. Isabelle's eyes instinctively strayed to the bottom, where she found Leo.

"The rest of the noble lines will be here as well. May I assist you in finding one in particular?" the librarian asked Sam.

"No, thank you. That will be all," Isabelle said, already reaching to turn the page. The librarian huffed and blustered until Sam folded his arms once again, curtailing the librarian's protests and sending him scurrying away.

"Let's see if there's any truth to this," Isabelle said, tugging out a chair. Sam took the one beside her, the book large enough that the pair of them could each scrutinize a page.

"What's the name again?" Sam asked, flipping a page before Isabelle peeled it back again to double check the family tree she had been inspecting.

"Tarlsburgh. Or at least, that's the land. I haven't any idea if we'll even find her here. For all I know, she may not be a real person," Isabelle said.

They flipped and inspected pages in silence until Sam made a hesitant noise in his throat.

"The Countess of Tarlsburgh?" he asked. Isabelle nearly climbed over him in her haste to examine the page he'd found.

"What does it say?" she demanded, running her eyes along the slender lines of the family tree.

"Here, at the bottom," Sam said, pointing to where the tree abruptly ended in a single entry. "Julia Andover, ninth Countess von Tarlsburgh."