“That’s why you told Marta you’d never forgive her,” I said. “Because she helped manipulate you into a situation that tainted everything that came after it, and you hated her for it. How could you do the same thing to them?”

“My dear,” Eleanor said, not unkindly. “I’ve told you before that I learnt at her knee. People can bend. The key is knowing how to trust which ones won’t break.”

“You may have backed the wrong horse there,” Nick said hotly. “Every time you scolded us, or used my birthright and protocol and duty to get your way, you were using something you knew didn’t belong to me. It makes me so angry I could scream it from the rooftops.”

Eleanor made a fist, then flexed it. “But you won’t,” she said. “This news will die with all of us, one by one.”

“Or, we’ll stop lying to the British people, and the throne can pass to Edwin, where it belongs,” Nick said.

“Don’t be fools,” Eleanor said, but she sounded worried.

“He’s right,” Richard said. He had begun pacing in time with Nick. “If you love this country, how can you bake a deception like this into its DNA?”

“Not you, too,” she said. “Right, would you like me to give the throne to King Edwin, then? He doesn’t even take himself seriously. How could he possibly represent the United Kingdom with the kind of dignity that I have for nearly sixty years?”

“Because it’s his birthright. Not ours,” Nick argued. “Perhaps he’d surprise you.”

“Richard,” Eleanor said, turning to appeal to him. “You surely understand. You are of royal blood. You were raised for this. You are passionate about duty and—”

He held up a hand. “Stop it, Mother,” he said. Then his lips curled. “Mother. A word I’m not sure you deserve.”

That hit her in the gut.

“You may not have been my child, but you are my son,” Eleanor all but whispered. “I fed you. I changed you. I gave you a family. I am the one who came when you called. That is all that matters.”

“That’s just it, Your Majesty,” he said, stopping by the doorway. “I’m not sure it is anymore.”

Seconds later, the door slammed behind him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Richard did not simply leave the room. He left London. He might have left the country. The only person he spoke to before he vanished was Barnes, and if that toupee knew anything, it certainly wasn’t talking. But he must have been given instructions, because the day after Richard’s disappearance, we were delivered a note on a silver tray—not a formality that was customary in our house—that read simply, You had yours. Now it’s my turn.

“His turn to what?” I asked.

“Disappear, I suspect,” Nick said, tapping the note against his left hand and then abruptly ripping it into pieces. “The tit-for-tat would be funny, under other circumstances. What if he doesn’t come back?”

“He will,” I said. “We did.”