“Reset,” Brian called, causing her to flinch.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. For a moment she’d forgotten he was even there, and she at least had the awareness to sense the red flag in that disconnect. She didn’t forget her place on a set. Not ever. She didn’t slip out of character. Not for illness or injury, not for inopportune working conditions or idiot directors. Certainly not for a woman who was more than capable of dealing with anything that arose on her own damn estate.

She returned to her mark, and when Brian called action, she began to shout. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be born a woman in a world where your only job is to marry and mate?”

“I’d imagine that sort of mandate would make your choices rather easy,” the man standing beside her said, his voice as dismissive as the side-eye James had taken to giving her.

“Choices?” she scoffed. “Where’s my choice? You pick the marriage. The man will decide when and how to mate. Is there a choice for me? The choice of what to wear while playing the part of chattel?”

“Would you prefer something weightier? The choice between financial ruin and military ruin? The choice of taxing your subjects into starvation or cutting the forces who protect them from invasion?”

“Is that really what you’re doing here, Father?” She lowered her voice without softening it. “Is it the weight of your responsibility, or the weight of your pride?”

For some reason the recitation of this line brought to mind James, the way he’d spoken to Vic, the way she accepted it, the way she accepted the opinions of so many wholly unqualified people. All for a system she hadn’t chosen and for people’s misplaced sense of ownership or abhorrence.

“The fact that you think those two things could be separated shows how unqualified you are to make decisions for your kingdom, how little you understand the mantel of divine rights and absolute sovereignty.” He slammed his fist on the table with a thunderous crash that caused her to startle and jump back.

“Cut!” Brian shouted. “Brilliant. Well done, Your Majesty.”

The king nodded his agreement. Sophia blinked and looked back and forth between them. Had the compliment been directed at her?

“The way you shrank slowly, turning inward, only to be shaken back out was a nice touch,” the man playing her father added.

She forced a smile. The emotions she conveyed might have fit the scene, but they hadn’t been intentional.

She’d lapsed.

She’d gone somewhere else, become someone other than the person she’d meant to be. Getting away with it this time did little to assuage the panic trying to work its way up in her. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.