♦YOU MUST HAVE READ THE PREQUEL, THE GOLDEN PRINCESS, TO READ THIS BOOK!♦
BEWARE--spoilers in this blurb, for those who have not read previous books! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Kings. Queens. Princes & Princesses. Duchesses and Dukes. And... regents?
Eve...
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Romain's presence still haunted his quarters. His tattered, old hunting boots sat slumping near his changing panel. His grass-green coat hung over his favorite chair by the second fireplace. All his documents were still spread all over the oak table where he took his private meals.
Gold patterns were everywhere—on his dense emerald wallpaper, framing his paintings, dotting over the bedspread, covering the tops of chairs, weaving into every fabric in the space. The longer she stared at his décor, the more Marguerite wondered if gold had flowed in his veins.
After two nights of sleeping in her Study, she'd finally consented to take up residence in his room—now her room, as Queen regent. Her old chambers were still under repair, and her mother's had endured severe damage, too; not that she would have been comfortable in her silky surroundings. She couldn't spend another night at her desk, passing out on her chair. She needed a real bed.
She'd cried several times after first tiptoeing into the space. Everything within screamed Romain. Everything smelled like his rosy scent, everything reminded her of how little she knew about him.
Once she'd wiped her tears, more crept down her cheeks as she thought of the danger she lived in. Sébastien, risking his title and skin to stay by her, to organize her troops. And Duke Henry Auer of Spestein, her cousin, who crusaded home at that very moment, desperate to protect his loved ones.
She fretted over her people, her court, her ladies and servants and butlers and pages, all undergoing interrogations with her General, begged to reiterate their tale of the dreary events from a few days prior.
To Marguerite, those events felt like they'd taken place yesterday. The images played on repeat in her brain, and the harder she prayed for them to dissipate, the longer they remained, to persecute her.
Dead. Dead. They are all dead.
Yet it felt like an eternity since she'd glimpsed Romain's golden curls and his gem-like eyes and his perfectly pressed breeches. Decades since she'd heard his stern voice and seen his toothy grin, reserved for her and their mother.
The best parts of Marguerite's past, the people she'd learned to trust were gone. All so that an ungrateful Duke could snatch a crown that was never his, and never would be.
Simmered in darkness, she settled near her partially opened window. The day before flashed over and over in her mind. Cornelius' unpleasant envoy, her meeting with Henry to advise him of the perils he was in, and his departure with some of her guards, headed to Spestein. He'd refused additional aid, at first; but she'd insisted, worried someone would ambush him on his path.
She appreciated having a true blood relative in her vicinity, but still, she had no clue how to act in front of Henry. Cold? Comforting? Friendly? Familiar? At times she struggled to look at him, as his facial tics were like Pauline's, and every shimmer of his eyes like Romain's.
