•T W E N T Y - O N E•

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To say she never expected to be Queen would be a lie.

She never anticipated beating the beloved Marguerite to this crown, but Adelaide had a sense of royalty. It coursed in her veins—the poise, the grace, the vocabulary. She always knew someday, she'd have rubies on her head and jewels falling down her milky neck; maids and ladies at her beck-and-call, men to fawn over her beauty. A wondrous throne to sit upon.

Alone in her quarters, she sucked in a deep breath of the vanilla-scented candles burning on her dresser. Red threads dripped from her shoulders, her fingertips, her hips. Shimmering satins and soft velvets covered her from head to toe, concealing constricting bustiers and wide hoops. Her wedding dress blanketed her figure like the most decadent fur glove—fit for a Queen, its patterns elaborate, and its decolletage sure to attract heaps of ogling courtiers.

She twirled, admiring her figure in the floor-to-ceiling mirror—the only thing in the demure, understated room that she'd keep. The depressing navies and dreary slates would become bright crimsons and boisterous scarlets, and she'd switch out the faded water-color landscapes for canvases of French Kings and heroes. And that dreadful portrait of former King Edouard—oh, that had to go. She'd already enlisted a handful of page-boys to transport it to her dear King's rooms where it would be better suited.

She sighed, shoulders drooping as she realized she had little to decorate her new quarters, aside from the belongings her father permitted her to bring. Her chambers on the guest floor were more modest, and though she had a myriad of gowns—which would fit in all the wardrobes, thank the Heavens—she had few items she treasured. Few possessions, few admirers, few friends.

"You are too vain, Adelaide," a lady in her father's entourage once told her. She was twelve at the time, young and vulnerable and throwing tantrums to get what she wanted. Some thought it to be due to the shock of losing her mother that same year; others called her spoiled rotten.

That ladies' words haunted her for years to come, but she did nothing to change her attitude; instead, she intensified it. She used her vanity to win favors and entice nobles to invite her to private aristocratic parties.

"Cease your narcissism!" her father said more than once, impatient with the complaints several in his staff had made of her. "Quit the bratty performances, would you? I love you, I do; but you cannot presume to live your life like this!"

Such comments from him only worsened her desire to act out. As an only child, she received no punishment when she rebelled. And she didn't later, when she frolicked with foreign dignitaries and ambassadors visiting her father. Or when she scampered off on night-outings with daughters of her father's business associates. She never hesitated to steal from the mansion's alcohol reserves, to entertain the guests she snuck home.

Yet despite his yelling, her father, the knighted Lord of Avignon, respected by Général Napoléon himself let her get away with everything.

At least, until her eighteenth birthday. When he started alliances with new men who had grand ideas to transform Avignon into something bigger, more noticeable by the Versailles court. When he received different advice: stop spoiling his daughter and put her to good use.

"You swear by all that is holy that she is what matters most, Sir; so, if that is the case, rethink your position."

They told him to devise plots, to join Napoléon's more secretive causes, to make Adelaide more useful.

"She must marry someone of means, Sir. Someone she might rally to us and our actions."

So Adelaide discovered she'd be moving to Totresia.

"Such a dull and dead country," she said to herself, pouting her berry-hued lips, pleased that their hue matched her wedding outfit. "Kings die here! And their Queens become old crones who nag."

She would have preferred Giroma and all its splendors and riches and luxuries, but Father said to be patient. Father said everything happened for a reason.

"You will rise through the ranks in due time, daughter dearest."

She hadn't understood his meaning then, when he shoved her into the carriage that would carry her to Torrinni; but soon enough, she comprehended. His relentless drive for her success, his sudden strictness—he wanted the best for her.

When he first mentioned King Edouard sought eligible ladies to compete for his eldest son's hand, Adelaide's father appeared so nonchalant and cold, she'd refused out-right. "No! I will not go to Totresia!" She ran to her room and cried for hours, unable to shake the shivers shuffling up and down her spine.

Totresia? Why? Such a boring place; nothing like the countries she yearned to visit. Like the vibrant palaces in Giroma, the mountainous cabins in Switzerland, the looming castles in Germany—

When he found her later, his demeanor warmer, she listened.

"I promise you his son is charming, or so the women whisper," he said, sitting on the edge of her apple-red covered mattress. "I have plans for you, Ade, I told you this. I know you abhor my advisors, but they are right. Staying here in Avignon will amount to nothing for you. You are my most prized jewel—my strongest weapon."

If she couldn't travel, Adelaide would rather stay in the oversized manor she'd lived in all her life. In the place where she ruled the city. Where all spoke of her in hushed tones and gushed about her exquisite outfits and fiery mane. The red-headed beauty, they called her. All stopped whatever they were doing when she arrived in a shop, a tavern, a square.

"Father..." She plopped out her lower lip—once an infallible gesture; but that time, it didn't work.

"They want a French girl at their court. Of all the counties and duchies and petty provinces, they want us. You. It is an honor, trust me. I need you to do this. Heed my every request, and they will crown you their Queen."

Queen of Totresia?

Her eyes grew blurry with tears as she got up to stretch her curtains apart. Rays blasted over her cheeks—another heated southern French day. "I would have preferred Giroma."

"You will take this and spin it to your profit. He is the Crown Prince." He stood straight, his faded blue irises sharp like steel. "You will have a list of objectives, and I will write to you often and expect progress reports. Do not disappoint me, daughter."

Her heartbeats turned erratic. Marrying a Totresian man? Not what she'd aspired to. She would have rather snuck into Versailles, to canoodle with the higher-bred ladies and obtain a prize-worthy spouse. Or run off with that marvelous noble-boy she'd had a brief stint with a few summers prior—

"Totresia? Are you certain?" Her belly fluttered at the recollection of that pretty boy. Handsome, muscular, a dashing smile and the darkest eyes, yet full of warmth when he—

"Yes, Totresia. Do you not recall as a youth, when you said you would marry no one who would not put a crown on your head?" He approached her and seized a thin strand of her curls between his thumb and index, and gently lifted it before the window, where it glimmered like fire.

"I am no longer a child." She yanked herself out of his grasp and fixed her tresses, cheeks inflamed. "I am eighteen, and my desires have changed. I wish for fame and fortune, yes, but not there."

The Lord of Avignon, a man of stone if ever there was one, had no emotion in his features as he crouched to set his forehead against hers. "Mine have not. Totresia is peaceful, isolated from European quarrels, and I want you there. Queen of Totresia is your goal, and you will obey. Seduce Prince Antoine; that is an order."

Prince Antoine.

She scoffed, twirling on her heels, getting a feel of how restricted her movements would be in her wedding gown.

"Antoine."

The name now roused ravenous sensations in her abdomen, but it didn't upon first meeting him. He lacked the regal demeanor of Romain of Giroma—that she'd met and fawned over—or the gripping gaze of the high-bred Swiss fellow she'd encountered at a royal Ball in Paris; but he was good-looking. Seeing him in a more official manner, she found him awkward, but dashing. True, she preferred lighter hued-hair, thick accents, men with class and tact, but eventually, Antoine's dark locks and light eyes and broad chest prompted her to swoon like the other contenders; but she kept her groveling to a minimum.

He appeared unappealed by her—invited her to dance in third place the night of their introductory Ball—but she had no qualms about seducing him, as her father asked. She had her ways and understood how to use them.

When the moment is right, I will deploy my wits and snag him.

The Lord of Avignon didn't care what Prince Antoine looked like, or so he mentioned, the eve of Adelaide's departure; he only wanted her to impress his mother, Queen Clémentine.

That name never settled on Adelaide's tongue.

"Arrive before the other debutantes, woo the Queen, and make certain she chooses you—if she has her sights on you, soon enough all in Totresia will, too."

The half-French Totresian Queen—now Dowager—had such a snippy temperament that even those in northern France knew of her. Her insults were famous—anyone who uttered one wrong word about her family never saw Torrinni again. Her looks wowed men around Europe—deep-set, dark eyes full of wonder and mystery, shiny curls that no one knew the real length of, and the classiest gowns created from the richest materials. Queen Clémentine wasn't someone to trifle with.

Adelaide wondered, on her way to Torrinni Castle, how she would convince this disapproving woman to pick her. Her father trusted her, and she would not disappoint.

If only she had known how massive of a lion's den Torrinni was. Getting Clémentine's attention without a sneer was hard; approaching her, difficult; befriending her, impossible. The Queen despised Adelaide right away and criticized her at any chance she got, despite them sharing origins from France.

"She was my choice, yes; but she scares me," Adelaide overheard her telling one of her ladies. "Her hair is too wild, she will clash with the entire castle!" or "She has too much of a temperament; Antoine will not be able to control her." Always within earshot; and always on purpose.

Yet Adelaide turned out to be the woman's only alternative to rid Antoine from his obsession with the Duchess of Torrinni.

Oh, Maggie.

Marguerite, a wispy blonde with a svelte but attractive figure, with toned-down dresses and an easy attitude, kept to herself most days. The innocent type, with big emerald eyes that swam with a yearning to please, and a voice that never raised above the right level for a proper lady. She feared Adelaide too.

But Clémentine hated her more than she abhorred Adelaide. She despised her love-bird games with the Prince, her never-faltering smiles, and her unknown origins—that appeared to render the Queen nauseous whenever anyone brought them up.

That hatred was Adelaide's ticket into the Queen's good graces. She could spy on the Duchess, provide information, gain praise, and win access to Antoine's hand.

Though she schemed against the sweet girl, Adelaide took a liking to Marguerite. A friendly girl by nature, the Duchess offered the competition polite comments on their attire, guided them around court, whispered pointers on the various aristocrats and how to navigate the treacherous Torrinni Castle hallways. Adelaide preyed on her sweetness—Clémentine raised Marguerite, so if anyone knew the Queen, it was the Duchess.

She had the answers to all my questions.

Maggie, those "in the know" nicknamed her. Not a soul at court spoke ill of her, though Adelaide recalled they once wished her out of the castle and off to the Torrinni Palace that belonged to her. She wondered if tarnishing the girl's reputation, bringing back her past, would give her a better shot at winning over Clémentine; but she had no need to over-work herself. The Queen, bitter and broken, dejected and desperate came to her.

A brief, foreign pang of sympathy crept into Adelaide's semi-inexistent heart. "Poor thing. So trusting."

She remembered Marguerite's face; paling, drooping, devoid of hope as Antoine chose the Lady Adelaide of Avignon. Her upper arms weakened and twitched, her mouth seemed to slide down past her jaw, and she melted to her knees. Her glimmering gown—worthy of a future Queen, Adelaide had to admit—lost its brilliance as the kind and generous Duchess lost her love. Stuck in a painful curtsy, voice drowning in her throat, she glared at the Crown Prince, at the Queen, at Adelaide—and ran.

"How distasteful."

In the days that followed, as news spread across the kingdom—Crown Prince Antoine to marry Lady Adelaide of Avignon and assume his father's crown in one fell swoop—the mourning Dowager had a mess to clean. Oh, how she scrubbed; how she washed Marguerite's name from existence, as if she'd erased someone from history before. She enlisted librarians and nuns to scratch out Duchess of Torrinni from any book that mentioned her, and bribed courtiers to ensure they never talked of her again.

"She is to cease existing. As far as all know, she is dead, and will never resurface again."

Adelaide wasn't sure she believed the fair and flighty maiden had died, but to move forward with her father's plans, she had to conform to whatever Dowager Clémentine ordered. She ruled Totresia; any who thought otherwise were fools. The Lord of Avignon had said as much in one of his weekly letters to Adelaide, days before the Masquerade, urging her to dig her claws into the Prince.

"Your future depends on this. Play by their rules, but creep behind the scenes. You had skills in your seduction games here; use that knowledge to your advantage. Fight for the Crown Prince, I beseech you."

If her father required her to leak all clandestine meetings between Marguerite and Antoine to the Queen, if he wished for her to play the double-agent to end up with a tiara of garnets atop her head, she would.

The morning of the masked Ball announced her true success. Sipping on spiked tea in her contender chambers, Adelaide had heard gossip of the King of Totresia not attending the events. Clémentine would speak in his stead, the ladies whispered, and Adelaide wondered how that would affect the evening's outcome.

Edouard favored Marguerite, but Clémentine has begun to favor me.

In the late afternoon, as she cloaked herself in her signature crimsons, glancing at her bejeweled mask on her coffee table, the Queen crept into her chambers and cleared her throat.

"Lady Adelaide," she said, her tone curt as ever, not a shred of emotion in it.

Gasping, Adelaide dropped the fan she'd been holding and curtsied. "Your Majesty? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Clémentine snarled—it was obvious she had no joy in visiting Adelaide, nor did Adelaide feel any happiness at her intrusion. But they played their polite games and exchanged their polite banter—to reach their goals.

"I have come to warn you that tonight, my son will call you forth." Garbed in her astonishing evening satins, hair pulled back so tight it tugged her eyes into snake-like slits, the Queen dropped into a chaise by the door. The scratch in her voice and the slight slouch of her shoulders showed something was amiss. Adelaide wouldn't pry—not when she had won. "I only caution you so you might find the correct reaction and not embarrass yourself or us."

Ah, the tides have turned. Marguerite is out?

The party was a blur of alcohol and pastries and giggles; of mockeries and dances with men she couldn't pronounce the names of. Torrinni's reputation for its year-end Masquerade preceded it and Adelaide delighted in every second. But the air soon grew thick and a heavy silence filled the Ballroom when Antoine clinked his glass and gaped at his ladies, biting his lip. Before she knew it, she was atop the dais holding Antoine's ice-cold hand. His demeanor was just as glacial, as the debutante he loved ran away and he could do nothing to stop her.

Adelaide smoothed down the creases in her skirts, adjusted the ruby and diamond necklace dangling from her neck, and stood up straight. She didn't have the new King's heart, but she had his body. A means to secure her spot in Totresian royalty—by laying with Antoine and carrying his heir.

Her father's ultimate letter specified just that. "You must be with child as soon as possible. Tether yourself to Totresia, to the King. Become Totresian."

While others mumbled about Edouard's funeral and tried not to get caught muttering about the disappeared Duchess and her potential death, Adelaide prepared for her union. For her coronation—Antoine's took place a few days prior—and her entry into the Totresian royal family. She fretted about the train her four hand-picked ladies-in-waiting would hold as she marched to the altar and exchanged vows. When, hours later, she'd receive the blessings and rites and confirm her position. The role of a lifetime; the role of her dreams.

Queen.

A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts, and she spun around to glare at the barrier as it opened. A lady—a less pretty version of Marguerite—curtsied and scurried inside. "Your... my Lady... you... are you ready?"

This one will not last long.

She batted her lashes and raised her eyebrows. "Another moment, s'il vous plaît," she said, swirling to her appearance once more.

Her creamy complexion, her vibrant pout, her accentuated curves beneath the pristine gown made for her—oh yes, she was ready.

"Shall we go make me a Queen?"






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