Page 37 of Whiskers and Wiles

Waldorf straightened, though his mouth continued to hang open, and blinked at the queen.

“Do not gawp at me as though you are a fish, Lord Waldorf,” the queen said. “Have you not wondered whose service you have been in for the last twenty years?”

“I—” Waldorf had, indeed, wondered. He’d wondered multiple times when given orders to pursue a certain course of action, or even to grow his whiskers.

It seemed as though the time for wondering was over.

“Mercia is far more powerful than any of the other kingdoms of the New Heptarchy imagine,” Queen Matilda said, standing taller and clasping her winkled hands with their many, shining rings in front of her. “We have been steering the course of events in Britannia for far longer than most people are aware. It was Mercians who funded the expeditions to the New World, and to the Orient. Mercians supported every past effort to unite Britannia. Mercians were even the ones who infiltrated the ranks of Bonaparte’s inner circle and passed along information that eventually led to his downfall.”

Waldorf felt as though his chest were being squeezed in a vise. He’d had no idea. Neither did anyone. The knowledge made him feel suddenly insignificant…and yet, a part of something grand and awe-inspiring at the same time.

“Mercia has stood on the brink of success in uniting Britannia as it should have been united centuries ago,” the queen went on. “And now, between the two of you, those efforts have been thwarted.”

Waldorf tamped down the urge to deny that he had anything at all to do with the night’s failures, until Queen Matilda went on with, “Your unresolved emotions and misapplied flirtations have caused nothing but distraction, divisiveness, and failure in the last week.”

Waldorf lowered his head. The queen was counting the debacle of Lady Thistlewhite’s supper among the recent failures he and Kat were to be blamed for. Possibly the scene in Hyde Park as well.

“Your Majesty, I am so very?—”

“I have not asked for you to speak yet, Lady Katherine,” the queen silenced her.

Kat let out a trembling breath and lowered her head.

“I have counted the two of you among my best spies these past twenty years,” the queen went on. “You have each performed exceptionally in your own ways. I believed that part of your effectiveness was born from keeping the two of you apart and allowing you to continue your work without the complications of affection or relationship.”

Waldorf snapped his head up in tandem with Kat. He gaped at the queen, then peeked sideways to see what Kat thought of the new kernel of information they’d just been handed. Had Queen Matilda deliberately kept the two of them separated and prevented them from reconciling sooner?

“I saw immediately, when the two of you were first introduced to me at Oxford, that you had the potential to either accomplish the impossible together or to destroy everything,” the queen went on. She narrowed her eyes and twisted one of the rings on her finger as she said, “I am disappointed to see that it was the latter.”

“Twenty years of service has not been wiped out by a single week of ill-advised behavior, your?—”

“I did not give you leave to speak either, Lord Waldorf,” the queen cut him off as he had Kat.

She adjusted her stance and spent a moment studying the two of them.

That moment seemed to stretch into eternity. Waldorf’s back itched, and of all times for it to happen, his bladder felt remarkably full, though that could simply have been nervousness.

“I sometimes wonder what might have been if I had taken the different path and paired the two of you together in the beginning, allowing you to work as a partnership,” the queen said, lowering her head a bit.

Something within Waldorf tightened with a rush of promise. Perhaps he and Kat were not dangling over the fire as much as he’d feared they were.

Queen Matilda must have seen Waldorf’s moment of relief. She glared at him again and said, “My regrets are not your salvation, Lord Waldorf.”

“No, Your Majesty,” Waldorf said, bowing his head.

“Nor is it yours, Lady Katherine.” The queen turned her ire on Kat.

“No, Your Majesty,” Kat said, curtsying a bit.

The queen stared at her. “You have obliterated not only your own efforts to assist the cause of unity, you have exposed and potentially undermined a long-standing and highly effective organization that has answered to Mercia in my time, in the time of my mother, and in the time of my grandmother.”

“I am so sorry, your majesty.” Kat bowed her head in genuine contrition.

The queen paused before saying, “The Badger Society can be salvaged, but changes must be made.” She turned to Waldorf and said, “You will remove your whiskers at your soonest possible convenience.”

“I will, your majesty,” Waldorf said, nodding and absently stroking one sideburn.

“But you will no longer continue as a member of the Badgers.”

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