“Olga departs tomorrow morning by stage,” Angbard announced. “You shall travel with her, and on arrival at court in Niejwein she will help you select your ladies-in-waiting—of low but family rank, not base servants such as you have had here. Your maids are already packing your bags, by the way.” He fixed her with a coldly unamused smile. “Think of it as a test, if you like. You do see this is for your own long-term good, don’t you?” he asked.

“Oh, I see, all right,” Miriam said and smiled at him, as sweet as cyanide-laced marzipan. “Yes, I see everything very clearly indeed.”

Miriam politely declined the duke’s invitation to lunch and returned to her apartment in a state of barely controlled fury. Her temper was not made better by the discovery that her maids had packed most of her clothes in heavy wooden trunks.

“Fuck!” She spat at the bathroom mirror. “You will be good, won’t you,” she muttered under her breath. “Patronizing bastard, my dear.”

Murderous bastard, a still small voice reminded her from inside. Duke Angbard was quite capable of killing people, Roland had said. Paulie’s words came back to haunt her: ‘If you back down, they own you; it’s as simple as that.’ And what the hell was that crack about luring lice out of the bedding meant to mean? She sobered up fast. I need advice, she decided. And then a thought struck her—a thought simultaneously wicked and so delicious that it brought a smile to her lips. A perfect scheme, really, one that would gain her exactly what she needed, while simultaneously sending an unequivocal message to the duke, if she went all the way through with it. She raised one middle digit: “Sit and swivel!” she whispered triumphantly. Yeah, that will work!

She headed back into the suite, chased her maids out, shut the door, and picked up the phone. “Put me through to Earl Roland,” she demanded in her most imperious voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” the operator confirmed. “One moment.”

“Roland?” she said, suddenly much less confident. ‘Roland the dreamer,’ his uncle called him. Roland the disruptive influence, who looked too good to be true. Did she go through with this? Just picking up the phone made her feel obscurely guilty. It also gave her a thrill of illicit anticipation.

“Miriam! What can I do for you?”

“Listen,” she said, licking her suddenly dry lower lip. “About yesterday. You invited me to…dinner? Does that invitation still stand?”

“You’ve seen the old man?” he asked.

“Yes.” She waited.

“Oh. Well, yes, the invitation still stands. Would you like to come?”

“As long as it’s just you and me. No servants, no company, no nothing.”

“Oh!” He sounded amused. “Miriam, have you any idea how fast word of that would get around, now that the palace is fully staffed again? That sort of thing just doesn’t happen you know. Not with servants.”