Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(23)
I had to smile at that. As loyal and adventurous as he can be, Lord Aaron is soft. I couldn’t imagine him so much as washing his own tea dishes, much less laboring for a living.
“So when I turned eighteen and received full control of my assets, I started those wheels turning.”
It was almost too much to take in. Except that he was still in the palace. “What changed your mind?”
“Do you have to ask?”
“Sir Spencer?”
He shrugged and smiled sadly.
“But I don’t have any assets. And I can’t simply leave—I’ll have to hide.” Of that I felt certain: if I were to walk away from Versailles before my eighteenth birthday, Mother would find a way to claw me back. The only way out of this arranged marriage was to disappear. For that matter, as a witness to his crime, the only way for me to be safe from the King would be to disappear forever.
That, the Foundation couldn’t manage—in fact, while I remained underage, they couldn’t even get me out of Sonoman-Versailles. But they had referred Lord Aaron to a contact they sometimes used to perform…special extractions. Enter the esteemed Reginald.
“The room isn’t so bad,” I say with a tight smile, finally answering Lord Aaron’s inquiry after my well-being. “It’s only the most elegant boudoir in the palace. That softens the blow some.”
“Are you going to last?”
“Last?”
“Until your birthday. Until you can leave.”
My heart feels hollow. “Just lasting. I wish it were that simple.”
“Isn’t it, though? If you’re ready to go on your birthday, the Foundation can finalize your paperwork and whisk you away.”
“To where? To what?”
“So you’re not going to leave?”
“I didn’t say that.” I pull a fan from my reticule and waft air toward my chest, where beads of sweat are nestling around the vial of Glitter. “Even when I reach my majority, the Foundation’s help won’t be sufficient. The Foundation offers rehabilitation. What I need is witness protection.” I hesitate. “I need someone who can give me a new name, a new face, even, so that when I leave, no one will be able to find me.”
“Not even me?”
A twinge in my heart. “Not even you,” I say, smiling to cover it.
He clears his throat and looks away. “So you still think that man from the catacombs is the way to go?”
“I do,” I whisper, realizing that in saying so, I’m halfway to committing to my insane scheme.
“But how will you pay for it?” His face splits into a grin and he chuckles wryly. “Please don’t ask me to help you steal the Zhào jewels again. I’m not sure I’d survive.”
I laugh. “That was quite a night, wasn’t it?”
In addition to titles, pensions, and room and board at one of the world’s premier architectural landmarks, the first Sonoman King—Kevin Wyndham—persuaded board members to participate in his unusual endeavor by making gifts of historic jewels that came as part and parcel of his purchase of the palace. The particular piece Lord Aaron and I purloined—a cluster of glittering sapphires on a golden chain—is rumored to have belonged to King Louis XV’s mistress, the famous Madame de Pompadour. The Zhào family displays it rather garishly, right in the front atrium of their apartments. Lady Mei is always complaining of how gauche it is, but her comments over the years gave Lord Aaron and me just enough information—on top of our hacking skills—to steal the necklace from her family in the dead of night.
“Taking it wasn’t half so bad as having to put it back three hours later,” I say wryly. I remember the tingling of my fingers, the sweat rolling down my back as the horizon grew pinker and we were still crouched in front of the elaborate jewel case, trying to break through that final firewall before the household awoke.
“Indeed,” Lord Aaron said, chuckling. “If I’d known you were going to be such a failure, I’d have left a few back doors open.”
I ignore his faux rebuke. “You must have been furious—me bursting in on you at sunrise, demanding your assistance.”
“I wasn’t pleased to see you at that hour, I do confess.”
“I was so stupid,” I say, sobering now. “I thought I could have everything.”
We stroll through the orchard, veering away from a rowdy group of young ladies who’ve been edging closer to us. “What’s your plan now?” he asks.
“I haven’t decided for sure. But I have…potential.”
“Spill.”
“It’s illegal,” I whisper.
“So is killing the lady you’re trysting with.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Sometimes I think perhaps they do,” he says, stopping and looking at me gravely. “I’d do something illegal to save your life; I hope you’d do the same for me.”
I let out a short, skeptical laugh. “That’s the beginning and end of your standards? What if it hurts people?” I don’t want to think too hard about that, so I clear my throat and continue. “Or the kingdom? What if it brings down the kingdom?”
“Then you leave, I leave—I imagine a goodly number of others leave—and to the devil with the kingdom,” he adds with a little more heat. “At its heart it’s only a corporation full of massively wealthy people.”