Chapter 3

Everyone knew the Crown Prince was sickly. He'd been poisoned as a child, and doctors had given him until twenty-five at most.

The Prince Caspian, meanwhile, was notorious for his indulgent ways. He spent his years drifting from one pleasure house to the next, and there wasn't a season that went by without a new mistress carried into his residence.

I was about to turn and leave when Melanie grabbed my arm. Her eyes glittered with open malice.

"Don't you all know my sister already has a lover? Those days she went missing, she was off somewhere carrying on with him."

Several of the noble ladies immediately pressed handkerchiefs to their noses, recoiling from me like I carried the plague.

"How shameless. How is a woman like that fit to be called the finest lady in Kingsmere?"

"If you ask me, that title should go to Melanie. Even His Majesty praised her poem."

My face went rigid, and I opened my mouth to defend myself, but a shriek cut through the hall from the head table.

"My face!"

A crowd had gathered around the Royal Consort, fussing over her, and a box of face powder lay spilled on the floor.

"Who brought this powder? Someone's tried to poison me!"

The Royal Consort's face had broken out in a rash of angry red welts, as if she were violently allergic to something in it.

An attendant picked up the powder box, her eyes darting between me and Melanie. "If I remember right, this box was brought by the two young ladies of the Knight family."

"Your Grace, please look into this!" Melanie's face had gone pale. She dropped to her knees in a panic and jabbed a finger at me. "This is the powder my sister prepared. She said it was made especially for you. She meant to hurt you all along!"

I shot her a glare. What an idiot. Whichever of us got pinned with attempting to harm the Royal Consort, the whole household would pay for it with their lives.

Melanie and I were both held under guard until the royal physician finished examining the Consort. The powder itself wasn't poisoned, but it had been mixed with a heavy dose of peach blossom extract, and everyone in the palace knew the Royal Consort couldn't tolerate so much as the sight of peach blossoms, let alone having them rubbed onto her skin.

Melanie was nearly frightened out of her wits. She'd meant to win the Consort's favor, and instead she'd made things far worse.

"Which of you sent this powder?"

"It was Elizabeth!" Melanie shuffled forward on her knees and pointed toward Julius, standing off to the side. "Your Grace, if you don't believe me, ask that guard. He arranged everything we brought to the palace today."

She turned and looked at Julius, pleading with her eyes.

My heart sank. I already knew he'd take her side. And still, some foolish part of me kept hoping he wouldn't, that for once he'd tell the truth and not play favorites.

But his next words nailed my guilt in place for good.

"Your Grace, Lady Elizabeth ordered me to prepare that powder."

"Elizabeth Knight, do you have anything else to say for yourself?"

I laughed bitterly and swallowed the sourness rising in my throat, then knelt before the Consort.

What was there left to argue? Julius was of noble enough standing that he had a hundred ways to pin this on me if he wanted to. I would simply call it repayment for the life debt he owed me.

"I acted carelessly and brought this disaster on myself. I await Your Grace's punishment."

The Royal Consort's lips curved into a faint smile as she toyed idly with her nail guards. "Very well then. Thirty lashes, as a warning to others."

I was dragged to the flogging bench and stripped down to my underclothes. The cane came down again and again, and the pain soaked me in sweat. I bit through my own lip trying to hold back my cries.

All around me, mocking eyes watched like knives carving me apart piece by piece.

I dug my nails into my palms until they drew blood, just to hold on to some shred of clarity. I searched the crowd for Julius and found him tucked into a corner with Melanie, his hands cupped over her eyes so she wouldn't have to see anything so gruesome.

Tears mixed with blood and dripped to the floor. Whatever warmth I had left in my heart went cold.

So be it. Once these thirty lashes were paid, I wouldn't owe him anything ever again.

Old wounds hadn't healed before new ones piled on top. When I got back to my quarters, I came down with a raging fever and stayed unconscious for three days.