Chapter 3

"Don't worry. Whoever I marry, she's only ever going to be a screen.

"I'll make sure she never carries a child of mine.

"When you deliver ours, I'll bring him home and enter him in the records as hers.

"That makes him my heir. He'll hold this house one day.

"And you think he'd ever forget who his real mother is?"

It all lined up. Every last piece of it.

The dream hadn't been a dream.

Something out there had felt sorry for me and sent me a warning.

Vivian believed it now too.

On the way back from the lodge she wrestled with herself for a long while before she got it out.

"Caroline. Thank you. For saving me."

I flapped a hand at her.

"Don't make it weird.

"Honestly, when you think about it, Dorian was the only thing we ever actually fought about.

"Neither of us wants him now. So what's left to fight over?"

Vivian smiled.

No sneer in it, no edge. Just relief, and something like honesty.

"Fine. Old business stays buried. From today we're friends.

"You said you'd help me deal with them. Let's hear it."

I gave her a slow smile.

"Sabine said Dorian's wife has to come out of Beaumont or Whitaker.

"She never once said it had to be the trueborn daughter.

"And Celeste is Beaumont blood, whatever else she is."

Vivian looked doubtful.

"She never said it because she has no idea my father has a daughter he won't own.

"If we come out and tell her, there's no chance. She'd never take a mistress's child for a daughter-in-law.

"My father lost interest in the pair of them years ago. A match like that buys Dorian nothing but a laughingstock."

I jabbed a finger at her.

"Do you only think in straight lines?

"If they'd say no when we ask, then we don't ask. We just deliver her.

"You act like you've accepted him. On the wedding day, we swap the bride.

"Sabine set the terms herself. A daughter of one of our two houses. That's all she said.

"We give her exactly what she asked for, and there's nothing for them to grab hold of."

You could watch it land on Vivian's face.

"Caroline, how did I go my whole life without noticing how clever you are?

"Thank God I turned around when I did. Otherwise I'd never have known what hit me."

I still couldn't tell whether that was a compliment or an insult.

Didn't matter.

"There's one more thing worrying me, Vivian.

"Sabine can't move against our families out in the open, but she's not going to let this go quietly.

"We need someone behind us before we start."

Vivian frowned.

"She isn't the Queen and Dorian isn't the heir, but the King dotes on the pair of them.

"Who's going to stick their neck out against that?"

I stared at her.

"Think about who you are. Think about who Celeste is."

Vivian's eyes went wide.

"Frederick and Wesley?"

"Obviously. They're the Queen's own sons. There's nobody better placed."

That same night, the two of us went quietly to the royal brothers.

Frederick and Wesley are both far too sharp to have missed it. They'd worked out long ago that binding Whitaker and Beaumont to the Queen's side was all upside.

The problem had always been that Vivian and I were hopelessly gone on Dorian, and neither brother was willing to force it.

So they'd let it lie.

Now that we'd turned up on our own, they couldn't have been happier to move.

The next morning, before the sun was up, betrothal gifts arrived at both our family estates — one set from the Crown Prince's household, one from Prince Wesley's.

Vivian and I sat in a private room at the Red Oak Inn with the signed compacts in our hands and finally let ourselves breathe.

The ink was barely dry when Dorian pushed the door open.