On her way back, she saw that the rest of the group was still in the dining room. Sam wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but when she overheard her own name, she stopped in her tracks.
“You and Samantha seem to be spending a great deal of time together,” the duke was saying.
Marshall’s mother interjected. “Of course he’s spending time with her! She’s the princess, and she’s here in Orange for the month. What would you suggest he do, ignore her?”
Sam held her breath. Light spilled out of the doorway a few feet ahead of her.
“The newspapers are paying more and more attention to you both.”
Finally she heard Marshall’s voice. “Isn’t that what you wanted, Grandpa? You’re the one who encouraged me to date her in the first place, because you thought it would be good for Orange.”
“I encouraged you to be her date to her sister’s wedding, which didn’t even happen! And because she was a nice change from those starlets you used to run around town with.” The duke snorted. “They were an embarrassment.”
“I’m aware,” Marshall said impatiently.
Sam’s stomach twisted. She knew that Marshall’s grandfather had encouraged their relationship, back when they were only pretending to date. But it still hurt, knowing that he’d only ever thought of her in terms of what she could do for his family—for their image.
The duke sighed. “When I encouraged you to go out with Samantha, I assumed you would move on after a few months, the way you always do. I certainly didn’t expect it to get serious.”
“It’s not serious,” Marshall assured him.
Sam sucked in a breath. She must have misunderstood, or misheard, or…
“Of course it’s not serious!” Marshall’s mother chimed in. “He knows better, don’t you, Marshall?”
“I hope so. You could never actually have any kind of future with a Washington.”
There was so much anger packed into the way the duke said Washington that Sam wondered if he hated her family for ruling over his. The Davises were former kings, after all—maybe Stephen thought that the Davises should never have given up Orange’s independence to join the union.
Maybe the transfer of power from Marshall’s family to hers, over a hundred years ago, hadn’t been as amicable and easy as the history books made it seem.
“Trust me, you have nothing to worry about,” Marshall told his grandfather. “Sam and I certainly haven’t discussed the future.”
Sam’s eyes stung. She retreated back down the hallway, trying to rearrange her face into something like normal. She could do that, because it was what being a princess had trained her to do—to pretend that everything was fine, even when her heart was breaking.
Daphne breezed through the revolving door to the King’s College library, where students were busy typing at their laptops or flipping through books. She wasn’t particularly worried about being seen; anyone who recognized her would assume she was on campus to visit Jefferson.
The guy behind the reference desk looked up at her approach. From his blank expression, it was clear that he had no idea who Daphne was. “Can I help you find something?”
“I’m looking for Nina,” Daphne said brightly. “She’s still on her shift, right?”
“She’s here,” he started to say just as Nina emerged from the back room. Her eyes widened when she saw Daphne at the desk.
“I’ve got this one, Greg.” Nina’s voice was deadly quiet.
Greg shrugged and vanished into the back. The moment he was gone, Nina whirled on her. “Seriously, Daphne? You’re stalking me now?”
Daphne held her gaze. “I tried calling you, but you never answered.”
“Because I have no desire to talk to you!” Nina spluttered. “How did you even get my number? Did you hack my phone?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I asked Jefferson for your info.” At the mention of the prince, Nina hesitated, and Daphne hurried to keep talking. “I told him that we bonded at the library event, and said I wanted your number, since we’re friends now.”
“You and I are not friends,” Nina snapped.
Daphne gave a cool smile. “Of course not. But I want to talk. I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Just hear me out, okay?”
Daphne wasn’t used to working this hard for attention. Her words were falling on deaf ears; Nina grabbed a cart laden with books and began pushing it toward a freight elevator. “I have to shelve these.”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
Nina rolled her eyes but didn’t argue as Daphne followed her into the elevator. She leaned over the cart and pressed the lowest button, presumably taking them all the way to the basement.
“We’re going somewhere quiet, right?” Daphne wished they weren’t having this conversation in a public place.
“You don’t want anyone to overhear your dark, twisted plots?” Nina asked sarcastically.
“Not really. I’d prefer the dark and twisted stay between us.”
Nina made a hmph sound, though Daphne detected a note of amusement beneath the annoyance.
When the doors opened onto the C floor, Nina pushed her cart out into the deserted stacks. The lights of each section flickered on at her approach, only to dim again when she’d passed. Daphne trailed along in her wake, footsteps echoing in the stillness.
It should have been creepy down here, but Daphne didn’t really mind. There was something oddly comforting about being surrounded by thousands of books.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about our respective problems,” she began, “and I realized that we can work together.”
Nina removed a cloth-bound volume labeled Theodore: The Boy King and knelt down, tracing the spines until she found whatever call number she was looking for. She wedged the book into its spot on the bottom shelf, then stood. “I’m not interested. Find someone else to be the pawn in your scheme.”
“Even if the scheme is to take down Gabriella?” Daphne replied, and Nina fell still.
This was an outrageous, outlandish proposal. A week ago, the thought of asking Nina for help with anything would have made Daphne burst into laughter. Yet she’d been toying with this idea for a few days now, and the more she thought about it, the more appealing it seemed.
“I don’t like this any more than you do, but it makes a weird kind of sense. We both want to get out from under Gabriella’s thumb,” Daphne hurried to explain. “We just need to find something on her—”