With Spoilers, I Conquered the Palace

Steam curled up from the fertility tonic in my hands, its bitterness needling at the back of my nose, but it wasn't the smell that turned my stomach. It was the lines of glowing text hovering in front of my eyes.

Had I been drinking a slow poison this whole time?

The person across from me was a woman disguised as a physician?

And that line still rang in my head: every time the King "visited" her, she would get drugged first, so his guard could take his place.

I went quiet for a long moment. Strangely, the first thing that came to mind wasn't anger.

It was the memory of Connor Browning standing under the corridor eaves a few days ago, shielding me from the wind on my way back to my chambers.

Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, the veins on the backs of his hands drawn tight, his throat moving slightly as he bowed his head to greet me.

I remembered thinking, at the time, that the King's guard was the perfect guy.

And remembering the ache in my legs after every night the "King" supposedly spent with me, I decided my taste hadn't been half bad after all.

"My Lady?" Doctor Saylon's voice was soft. "Your medicine's getting cold."

I lifted my eyes to look at her.

She wore pale blue official robes, delicate and neat, her gaze demurely lowered. However you looked at her, she was a strikingly handsome young physician.

But with those glowing words as my guide, everything about her now looked wrong.

This was the woman the King had hidden away in the Royal Infirmary as his secret love.

And she was also, apparently, the one who'd been poisoning me all along.

I let out a small laugh, then lowered my head and brought the cup to my lips. Shielded by my wide sleeve, I only wet the corner of my mouth before tipping the rest of the tonic into the hidden lining sewn into my sleeve.

"So bitter." I frowned lightly. "Doctor Saylon, your prescriptions get worse every time."

She only saw me drink it. The faint wariness in her eyes dissolved without a trace.

"Good medicine is always bitter," she said quietly. "If my lady wants a child, some suffering is only natural."

I raised my head and studied her fine, delicate eyes. Why hadn't I noticed the hint of defiance there all along?

"Doctor Saylon, you're right. Anything I truly want, I've always known I'd have to suffer for myself."

Her lips curved, as if she were laughing at me for still pining after something that could never be mine. She lowered her head and murmured, "As my lady wishes," before taking her leave.

Once she'd gone, I handed the tonic soaked into my sleeve to my maid, Helen Powell, to have tested, then sat down at my mirror and began unpinning the ornaments from my hair, one by one.

The woman in the mirror had striking features, her eyes naturally tilted up at the corners. However gentle I played myself in public, that underlying sharpness never quite disappeared.

When Helen came back, her voice was shaking.

"My Lady, the fish in the tank. They're all dead."

I nodded. "I know."

She dropped to her knees. "My Lady, let me go fetch the Queen Mother right now!"

"And what good would that do?" I glanced at her, unmoved. "Let the King pick some convenient scapegoat, then hold me and tell me how sorry he is that I've suffered?"

Helen froze.

I set the last gold hairpin back into its case and said quietly, "If we're going to make a scene, we wait until the evidence has grown legs and walked itself right up to me."

I paused, then looked up.

"Go. Bring Connor Browning here."

By the time he arrived, the sky had already gone dark.

He stood in the middle of the hall in his black guard's uniform, the sash at his waist cinching his frame into a hard, lean line, his eyes lowered, not daring to look at me.

I leaned back against the couch, chin propped on my hand, studying him for a long while.

I used to believe the King truly loved me. Even though he'd turned out delicate and frail as a willow in the wind, nothing like the man I'd once pictured for myself, I'd never once stepped out of line.

Now that he'd delivered exactly the dish I liked straight to my mouth, it would be an insult to Heaven itself not to accept it.

"Connor." I let the words come out slow. "Look up at me."

He obeyed, though his gaze still stopped a careful inch short of the hem of my skirt, not daring to cross the line.

Very proper.

So proper you'd never guess he'd already been in my bed.