♦YOU MUST HAVE READ THE PREQUEL, THE GOLDEN DUCHESS, TO READ THIS BOOK!♦
BEWARE--spoilers in this blurb, for those who have not read previous books! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
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The world is upside down, and those you thought you knew... you no longer...
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"That damned Esther!" Céleste threw her shoe across the room, watching as it landed against her door. Seething, she stomped over to grab it and put it back on. "She said would keep quiet!"
How was she to get her letter out? The first she'd written had likely sent—Prudence might have even received it—but this one mattered more. Now Céleste's brother had had access to it, threatened her, and used it to punish her.
No one was trustworthy in Torrinni Castle, including those she called family.
Céleste growled as she thundered up to her vanity and grabbed her lace gloves. "I hate him!" Her footsteps were so heavy, she wondered if the floor-boards would give out under her weight and send her crashing onto the Dining Room table below. She'd never had such rage inside, such disgust at a person's antics and invasion of privacy.
My own brother!
She was to be a Princess—why did Emeric constantly undermine her, embarrass her?
"He employs his fiancée to confuse me and plot to ruin us all?"
After shoving the letters into her bodice, she skirted out of her room, praying her hideous appearance would not shock anyone that she marched past.
The Reading Room had such significance for her and Emeric. It was where they'd had their first big argument at court, where they'd spoken of Eugene Thatcher's intentions. The space brought memories of bad history, and she wished he would have picked a different area to discuss her transgressions.
Preoccupied, she paid little attention to where she walked, and bumped face-first into a broad chest clad in a navy and gold cloak. She winced, tumbling a few paces backwards, her nostrils invaded by a floral aroma with a touch of pine that she didn't recognize.
She was somewhere in the Long Corridor, she surmised; but how had she been this clumsy?
Muttering curses under her breath, she tilted her chin up—and shrieked.
"Antoine?" She covered her mouth upon noticing other men in the vicinity, their eyebrows raising in surprise at her informality. "I mean, Your Majesty!" She curtsied, sensing her cheeks heating to a boil.
"Miss Richel." Antoine whirled to the men accompanying him. "Gentlemen, I will find you later in the Meeting Room." He moved back to Céleste and waved her up. "Where have you been? My brother mentioned something about your brother keeping you locked up?"
Céleste bit her lip as she peered up at the monarch. "Emeric is worried, so he claims. I have plenty of choice comments to describe how he treats me, his sister, a future Princess, but now is not the time." She reached into her décolleté and produced the notes. It wasn't what she'd planned, and it went against all that Clémentine had told her, but she had no time to reach Sébastien, to divulge the secret, and to wait for him to deliver the news to Antoine. She had to do it, and use a hefty amount of tact she wasn't sure she had. "Can we speak in private, Majesty?"
