Page 94 of Thrones We Steal

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m upset she didn’t tell us anything useful.”

“What do you mean? Of course she did.”

“I’m sorry, but were you listening? How is hearing about a baby turtle she once adopted helpful in any way?”

“She told us how the diary was found. Now we know it’s legitimate.”

“Hardly. All we know is that she has a penchant for telling stories.”

“You think she made it up?”

“It doesn’t matter because it doesn’t prove anything either way!”

He looks at me strangely then, and I realize that in my emphatic need for proof, I’m showing my hand. I can’t let him see how badly I need this or why I need it. He would sabotage everything.

“I just like black and white answers,” I say before he can answer.

“I know,” he muses.

“Why are you helping anyway?”

He pulls the car back onto the road before speaking. “My father took something valuable from me.”

Chills prickle my body. I want to murder King William for what he did.

Henry’s knuckles flash white on the steering wheel. “His position as king is the most important thing in the world to him. He’s so convinced the diary is rubbish …” He lifts his shoulders and drops them again like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I guess it feels like the universe has given me a chance at retribution.”

It makes sense, even if it’s completely twisted and selfish. I feel a white-hot rage welling up inside me when I think about what William did to him, his own bloody son, for god’s sake. You certainly won’t catch me telling Henry he shouldn’t want vengeance.

Before I’m even aware of what I’m doing, I reach over and cover the hand on his leg with my own. It’s warm, pulsing with his blood, and he splays his fingers so mine slip between them, then curls them together. It’s such an intimate gesture, I clench inside.

After a few beats, I pull my hand away and tuck it under my leg. The first splatters of rain hit the windshield. “Why were you asking Mrs. Schumann about the employment records?”

“Assuming Philip didn’t die on board The Caledonia, they were likely going to try getting him work in the palace, right? To make it possible to be together?”

“You think Helena was going to what—smuggle a gardener into her room?”

“What other choice did she have? He wasn’t even gentry.”

I should have thought of it myself. I cross my arms over my chest. “He wouldn’t have used his real name anyway, so how will the records help us?”

“He could have taken the name of the man who actually died.”

“Assuming, of course, Philip himself didn’t die.”

“Hey, it’s a theory we have yet to disprove. I’m sticking with it until we know otherwise.”

“So you want to cross the records of the people who were hired after The Caledonia landed to the ship’s manifest?”

“Can’t hurt to try, right?”

No, it can’t hurt. But it won’t make a difference. Because even if a man aboard the ship was hired on at the palace, there won’t be irrefutable proof that he wasn’t exactly who he said he was. Nothing to prove that my lineage is the one that solely belongs on the throne.

Rattle the shackles around my wrists all you want, but at the end of the day, I’ll still be married to the man who is the gasoline on the fire burning me alive.

* * *

The rain has picked up until it’s getting hard to see the road. A strong wind whips the sheets of rain nearly horizontal. Even the lights of Henry’s car make little difference in the blinding wall of precipitation.

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