Living in royalty can't be so bad, right? But... what if you're not technically royal?
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In late eighteenth century Europe, nestled in eastern France, is a peaceful kingdom called Totresia. A carriage wreck disturbs that peace when found by Totr...
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King Edouard of Totresia always had secrets. Tidy secrets kept from advisors, family, his spouse. Dangerous secrets he stuffed under the rug and prayed no one would decipher, snuff out. All secrets he expected to take to his grave, though he imagined he'd reveal them to someonebefore departing this world. Someone who'd carry his burdens for him.
His ever-elusive, sneaky, conniving wife fit thatrole with each passing day.
"I know what you did," she whispered once, a year or so after they wed. Prince Edouard, he was back then, and his parents were the reigning monarchs of the peaceful place he called home.
He'd just returned from a stress-ridden event he hadn't permitted her to attend, as she carried their first-born. Yet she waited for his arrival in his quarters, poised in her satin robe that barely concealed her swollen belly. She glowered at him, ice coating her eyes, shoulders pulled back, nails digging into the cushions.
Startled, he brushed her statement off, pretended he had no notion what she implied. He had done nothing, in truth; but chaos haderupted at the event and he wondered how she would have gotten wind of it. Those in attendance were sworn to secrecy, and it took place leagues from Torrinni Castle. But Clémentine, his exotic half-French Princess, a woman of woes and wonders, read right through him.
She knows? But how?
He soon learned not to question her sources.
Near a decade later, in the same susurrating tone she'd employed that night, she repeated the words, clarifying he'd never conceal anything from her.
"I know what you did, Edouard."
This time theywere the monarchs, sitting atop their thrones, overlooking their constituents. She was heavy with their fourth child, and he tensed at her comment. Thistime he had no chance to cover his wary expression or feign indifference. Their gazes met; she squinted, he nodded. A solemn and unspoken agreement to never speak of it, to never let whatever she'd uncovered filter out.
"Kings cannot tell everyone everything," his father had informed him, months before his death. "You will conceal things from your men, your people—and you must ensure your wife never finds out."
Clémentine was no regular wife. She employed spies in her staff; individuals that changed every few weeks. She taught her ladies to eavesdrop on conversations and educated her serving-girls on ruffling through paperwork and glimpsing important parts to report. She unraveled all he'd been hiding but never confessed the full extent of what she'd discovered. Never admitted to him she'd snooped, and that what she found didn't please her.
In public, she smiled, waved, kept up appearances; but behind closed doors and in the comfort of their adjoining Parlor, she scowled. She picked fights, criticized decisions she disagreed with, stuck her nose into business she shouldn't have.
