Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(14)
The King sighed as though this had all become, at worst, a tiresome inconvenience. “Sierra. Sir Jared Jamison’s daughter.”
“A nobody, then,” my mother said, and my jaw dropped. Not only because it was so cold and unfeeling, but also because before my father’s promotion, this dead girl would have been my social superior in every conceivable measure. Even now, it’s only my potential to inherit votes from my father that raises me above her. And only just.
The titles and social status embraced by the court never mattered much to me. Perhaps because I had neither. But to dismiss a person entirely because of that lack? The sentiment struck at my belly like a bare-knuckled punch.
“That’ll make things easier. A coroner will need to be bribed, false scans produced…of an aneurysm, I think. And any sign of bruising covered thoroughly enough that the entire world will be able to scrutinize high-resolution footage from her open-casket funeral without finding any sign of misdeed.”
“We can’t have an open casket,” the King piped up impulsively. Foolish man. You don’t argue with Angela Grayson.
“A closed casket for a nobleman’s daughter—even a minor one? You may as well release a public statement that you’ve something to hide.”
“Mother—”
“I don’t need you,” His Majesty spat, anger overriding his pathetic act of contrition. “I can fix this myself.”
“Can you?” She paced slowly before him, her eyes never leaving his. “How will you find a coroner? How will you justify his bribe to your accountants? Do you intend to mask those bruises on her neck yourself? And those are just the easy parts. The sad truth is that a boy stupid enough to accidentally kill his own lover is far too stupid to cover it up.”
My fingers rose to my mouth at my mother’s boldness.
“Or,” the King said, sounding bored, “I could simply make you and your lovely daughter disappear. Tomorrow.”
Shards of fear ribboned down my spine.
“Can you?”
My mother and the King stood toe to toe. It looked like a perfect stalemate—until she raised her head so the Lens in her right eye caught the dim light.
“You’re recording this!” the King accused. And in the most foolish action I’d ever seen him take, he grabbed a lace-edged handkerchief from the dead woman’s décolletage and used it to cover his face.
“I think the European Parliament would be fascinated to see the footage of the last few minutes, don’t you?” my mother said with a razor-sharp edge of danger in her voice.
The King swallowed visibly. My mother had made sure to capture everything in her recording. And the lack of sound made no difference with our lip-reading technology. Creating an accurate transcript would be child’s play. Possibly not admissible in a court of law, but since when was the legal system required to utterly ruin a man?
“You may feel powerful, Justin; you may be the King and CEO of one of the most prosperous companies on Earth, but if you don’t cooperate, you’re going to remember the hard way that this is not the seventeenth century, no matter how your employees live and dress. You are not God, and you are not even the Sun King. Can you imagine, I wonder, the lengths to which France might go to see you dethroned? This kingdom disbanded?”
“This—this is blackmail!”
“And this is murder,” my mother said, flinging one arm toward the body on the floor. “Take your pick.”
“She’s a child!” he snapped, flinging an arm in my direction. “An enfant!”
“Danica is hardly younger than your illustrious self, my liege,” she said acerbically. “You’re nineteen; she’ll be eighteen in six months. You marry within a week of her birthday or this deal goes away.”
That snapped his mouth closed. He stared at her. And though the seconds rolled past slowly—drawn out in that way terrible situations have of bending time—I was certain that a full minute ticked by before something changed in the King’s eyes and I saw surrender.
For both of us.
And I said…nothing.
“HOW CAN WE bear such secrets?” my father asks, as though sharing in my silent rememberings. He sounds oddly lucid as the drug takes hold of him. “You had such a bright future ahead. With your computer programming and math skills, you’d have been a brilliant researcher, or engineer. But a Queen hasn’t got time for such things…all that potential, squandered,” he whispers, his eyes closing in an expression of bliss that makes bile rise in my throat.
Typical. Even after recognizing his responsibility, he does nothing. I sit back on my heels and try to think clearly. He’s grinning to himself, and though his eyes are closed, he’s conscious. He does look happy, and the drug obviously works quickly. Temptation licks at my conscience, and I pick up one of the patches and hold it up to the light. Six hundred euros a week. Six hundred. A prickle traverses my spine. I know a lot of people who would pay well for such euphoria.
I shake my head against the thought, but math has always been a strength of mine, and the sums are stacking up and multiplying in my brain without provocation. I stand and pace. There are several thousand people living and working in the palace. Could I get one hundred buyers? More? Numbers add themselves in my head until I reach a quite satisfying total. It puts me into the realm of possibility in a way that selling jewelry never did.