“The rest of the family,” Grantham said softly. “The family you wish to destroy.”
Ilaria stepped forward. “Grantham, it…it may be more complicated than that. I wish you had received our earlier missive. I explained some of what was told to us.”
Grantham shook his head, but before he could say anything further, the door to the parlor opened and the rest of the family streamed in. His mother first, and Miss Fowler flinched ever so slightly. Remi and Sasha came after.
They all stared at their guest with as much surprise as Grantham had felt. He sighed. “Yes, this is she. Marabelle Fowler is her name.”
“None of the spouses?” Miss Fowler said.
Remi arched a brow. “This is a royal matter first. Who are you?”
“That is the material question,” the young woman said, and her eyes drifted back to Queen Giabella. Softened with what almost looked like regret. “Since Princess Ilaria’s message didn’t reach you, I fear what I’m about to tell you will be a shock.”
Giabella shifted slightly. “There have been a great many shocks as of late. I assure you, we can bear it.”
There was a flutter of a sad smile across the young woman’s face. Almost a grimace, as if she was causing herself pain. “Let me tell you about my mother.”
Grantham stepped toward her. “This is folly. You have come here to treat with the king, have you not? Then why don’t we start the negotiation rather than drag it out with all this nonsense.”
She didn’t back away from him. She showed no fear. And her bright blue eyes held his without wavering. “My mother’s name was Violet Croix.”
The queen made a soft sound in her throat and staggered back. Jonah stepped to her, holding her elbow gently to steady her. For half a second, not even a heartbeat, Grantham didn’t understand why that name would cause such a reaction in his mother.
And then he recalled it. “My father’s…my father’s mistress,” he whispered.
“One of them,” she said. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” She directed that toward the queen, who was still staring. “She was one of the mistresses your father placed in the palace. Our father.”
Once, when he was fifteen, Grantham had fallen out of a rowboat he and Remi had taken out to sea. He’d heard his brother shouting from above the water, but it was all muted and echoing until he’d been pulled to safety by Dash, who had followed them to the beach, suspecting they were up to no good.
This moment reminded him of that one. The others were talking, but he was under the sea. Cut off from everything in his shock. He looked across the room to his mother and found the queen also silent, her face entirely pale and her hands shaking as she gripped Jonah’s arm.
He shook his head and brought himself back to the surface. To reality.
“—cannot be possible,” Sasha was saying. “It was only fifteen years ago that his mistress lived here! You are in your twenties, I would wager.”
“He kept more than one woman under this roof over the years,” Giabella interrupted softly, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment and pain. “Under my nose.” She tilted her head. “Look at her eyes.”
Giabella released Jonah and began to cross the room. She stopped a foot from Miss Fowler. Her bottom lip trembled. “Look at her eyes,” she repeated. “And then look at Remi’s.”
Grantham did so. Remi was the only one who had inherited their father’s bright blue stare. And the queen was right, Marabelle’s was the same. Her nose was like Ilaria’s. As was the way she tilted her head just slightly.
He shut his eyes a moment, and when he opened them he pushed back his shoulders. He had to be king, not brother, not son. King took precedence.
“Let us assume for a moment that I believe you,” he said softly. “That you are the illegitimate child of King Alistair. Is this why you’re doing all this? Out of some fit of pique?”
“No,” Miss Fowler breathed. “Not at all. When my mother became with child, she was pushed from this house and foisted onto a man who married her and raised me as his own…reluctantly. He made it abundantly clear who I was and what I was. That I was not wanted by him because I was the king’s bastard. That I was not wanted by the king, either. When I got old enough, I began to research the monarchy. I was obsessed.”
Grantham pursed his lips. “Obsessed enough to want to destroy it.”
“Obsessed enough to realize it should be destroyed,” she corrected in a surprisingly gentle tone. “This monarchy is rotten to its core, Your Majesty. Yes, we are a more progressive society than many. Yes, there are good things about what your family has done over the centuries of power. But there are also terrible things.”
Grantham shifted. “Yes. I won’t deny that. I cannot.”
“Nor will I deny that you are a good man on the whole. There has been nothing to be found that says you are anything like your father. Like many of your worst grandfathers before you.” She held his stare. “But there are no good kings, sir. Only tolerable ones. Power at this level, it corrupts. It must in order to believe that it should hold sway over those beneath it. So yes, I believe that this monarchy should fall and the rule of the people should rise in its place, as it has in many other nations.”
He turned away, pacing to his desk and leaning against it with both hands. She was saying out loud the things he had thought himself many times. Things he had feared.
“I’m sorry,” Marabelle said. Grantham turned back toward her and saw that she was speaking to Giabella. “You and my mother were both victims of the last king. I am truly not trying to hurt you.”
Remi stepped forward, his cheeks bright with color. “How can you say that when you tried to kill my sisters in London? Your…your sisters.”
Marabelle’s mouth dropped open and she stared first at her accuser and then at Grantham. She looked truly shocked at the accusation. “No. No, I never did that.”
“Of course you did,” Jonah said, moving to stand with Ilaria. “The attack on my wife and later on Sasha was played out by members of your group. They claimed it, they left your flag.”
Marabelle looked truly confused and upset by the accusation. “Why didn’t you confront me with this lie earlier?”
Ilaria tilted her head. “Because we wanted you to come with us.”
Marabelle sighed. “I see.” She pivoted toward Grantham. “My group has made its moves, Your Majesty. We protested at the presentation of Prince Remington and Princess Priscilla. We have posted flyers and gathered support from those on our side. We have walked away from the unfair treatment by your counts. But I swear to you, on my life, that I never made any moves to harm the princesses.” She glanced at Ilaria. “You and I have spent two days in a carriage. Please tell me you believe me.”
Ilaria looked at her and then to Grantham. “I…I would have a hard time believing it. Miss Fowler seemed honest in all she told us. And never unhinged or violent.”
Grantham ran a hand through his hair as he exchanged a look with Remi. “If not you, perhaps someone else in your group. Someone with more extreme methods.”
Marabelle swallowed, pacing the room. “I don’t believe so. And if they were violating the tenets of what our group believed, they would also have to be connected to the palace.”