Chapter Thirty-One #2
This catches his attention, and he eyes me up and down. “I’m not planning anything, and I’ve no idea who this Dylan bloke is. What secret?”
“Not good enough,” I say. “Try again.”
“I have nothing to give you except the tru—”
“What time is it?”
My question seems to take him by surprise, and he glances at his mobile again. “Two-fourteen. Are you going to open the damn door or—”
“Perfect.” I pick up my tablet from its spot against the wall and unlock the device. I already have it queued up to the right channel, and I angle it toward Ben. “My favorite show is about to start.”
Ben blinks, bewildered. “Evangeline, what the hell are you—”
“Shh,” I say, and I turn the volume up just as Venetia’s face appears on the screen beside a middle-aged man in a gray suit. “This is supposed to be a good one.”
“—Venetia, Duchess of York, married to the Duke of York from 2003 to 2005, has joined us today to discuss His Majesty’s marriage to American Laura Bright—”
“I’m afraid what I’m here to discuss today has nothing to do with the royal wedding,” says Venetia, and her usual heavy makeup is replaced by a more natural look, giving her an oddly youthful glow that’s at odds with the grief in her eyes.
“I, like the rest of the world, have been devastated by the recent accusations against my niece, Princess Mary, and all the turmoil my son, Prince Benedict, has caused.”
“It has certainly been a difficult time for the royal family, and with the news of His Majesty’s abdication and the crown passing to your former husband, the Duke of York—”
“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of,” says Venetia, her voice loud and clear.
Even Ben’s heavy breathing can’t drown her out.
“Because…well, I have a confession of my own to make. One that I’m afraid my son has figured out, which may have in turn caused him to act out against the family that has so graciously treated us as their own for his entire life. ”
Beside me, I feel Ben stiffen, and I don’t dare look at him. I need him to keep watching. I need him to hear all of it.
“I’m afraid…” Venetia hesitates, and I can tell that this part, at least, isn’t acting. She really doesn’t want to say it. But she has to. Everything is counting on it. Everything. “I’m afraid that Nicholas is not the one who had the affair in our relationship. It was me.”
Gasps escape from those behind the cameras—producers, makeup artists, and whoever else is waiting in the wings, watching Venetia lie her arse off. Ben’s breath is hot on my neck now, and I inch away, but he only moves closer.
“That’s a lie,” snarls Ben. “What—”
But Venetia is talking again, obviously unable to hear him.
“The timeline of our marriage isn’t a secret.
Benedict was born eight months after we were wed, and at the time, Nicholas and I both thought…
well, I never gave him any reason to think otherwise, of course.
But I’m afraid that shortly after his birth, I confessed that I’d had…
a fling. That I had made a mistake, and there was a chance…
that Benedict wasn’t Nicholas’s. And I fear, when Nicholas had a paternity test done… ”
Venetia trails off, and two fat tears slide down her cheeks. Beside me, Ben is frozen yet again, and I can feel waves of horror—of sheer, uncontrollable shock and panic—rolling off him like they’re real.
“What did you do?” he chokes. “Evangeline, what did you—”
“Nicholas and I have known for Benedict’s entire life, of course, and Nicholas has been the most wonderful father to him regardless of biology,” continues Venetia as she dabs her face with a tissue.
“It was a terrible deception on my part, and Nicholas was only trying to protect us both. For that—for my role, for all the responsibility I carry in this hoax—I deeply, deeply apologize to the nation and the Commonwealth, and to His Majesty, Her Majesty, and Her Royal Highness. Benedict recently found out about his paternity and grew…upset, and rather than speaking to us, he tried to…project the situation onto his cousin. Which is unspeakable.”
“No,” says Ben, his eyes wide as he grabs the tablet.
I release it without a fight. “No, no, no—this is a lie. It’s all lies.
My father is my father—I’ve checked myself—there was no deception—Maisie is the bastard, not me—you’re the bastard—it wasn’t me—I’m supposed to be the heir—the real heir—not you—not Maisie—me—”
“Sure about that?” I say, taking a step back. There’s not much I can do if he decides to throw the tablet, but I can at least stay out of swinging range. “It’s over for you, Ben. You’ll never be crowned. The palace is already removing you from the line of succession—”
“No,” he heaves, clutching the tablet in his fists like he plans on breaking it in half. “I’m the heir. I’m the heir.”
“Even if you could prove it was a lie, it wouldn’t matter. Maisie’s still ahead of you. And now my family line is, too.”
His gaze snaps to me, and I can see the question in his eyes, even though his face is red and patchy purple.
“Oh, did no one tell you?” I say, feigning innocence. “You’re about four hours late to the wedding. I was officially legitimized this morn—”
“You bitch!”
Ben launches himself at me, and I have no time to dodge before he tackles me to the floor. The back of my head hits a cobblestone, but while stars explode in my vision, they quickly fade, leaving me with a slightly blurry view of Ben’s twisted features only inches away.
His knees pin me to the cold ground, and he reaches into his jacket, undoubtedly for the flick knife—switchblade—that Singh warned me about.
But I’ve been training for this exact moment for weeks.
Using all of my strength, I use his body weight against him and flip us over, pinning him instead, my knee digging into his groin.
“It’s Your Royal Bitch now,” I correct as he howls in pain. “What are you going to do, Ben? Kill me in a locked room while no one else is here? How are you going to explain that one? Ghosts? A temporary loss of sanity? That didn’t work for Hamlet, and it won’t work for—”
A flash of metal glints between us, and suddenly Ben plunges a sharp blade directly between my ribs. The impact is enough to take my breath away, and I stare down at the hilt in his hand, my eyes wide as I weakly try to grapple the blade from him.
“I’ll take my chances,” he growls, and he twists the knife. But as he does so, it slips against the Kevlar beneath my violet dress, further ripping the delicate fabric, and Ben’s sneer turns into a frown. “What the—”
Seizing the opportunity, I pull a small box cutter from my bodice and, with one quick jerk, stab the sharp blade into the skin between Ben’s thumb and forefinger.
He shrieks with pain, dropping his knife and instinctively pressing the injury to the front of his suit, no doubt ruining the expensive fabric.
“Really?” I say. “Really?” I press my box cutter to the base of Ben’s tanned throat, until a single bead of red wells up in the hollow.
Somewhere nearby, footsteps scramble and voices shout, but I ignore them, keeping my eyes locked on Ben.
“All you had to do was tell us where Dylan was, and you could’ve given the palace something to work with—a way to spin the story so you wouldn’t come off as a mustache-twirling villain.
But now you had to go and do this, and how’s that going to look on the front page? ”
I gesture at the slashed fabric of my dress, exposing the protective vest beneath it, and Ben glares at me, the heat of his hatred so intense that the cold chamber suddenly feels ten degrees warmer. “Do it,” he hisses. “Get it over with, because I’ll never stop, Evangeline. I will never stop.”
“Never is a very, very long time,” I say as the door finally bursts open, and no fewer than half a dozen PPOs pour inside to join the MI5 agents that already form a wide circle around us. All point their firearms at Ben. “And you’ll have bigger things to worry about than me for a while.”
As if on cue—which, knowing Maisie’s flair for drama, is absolutely intentional—the supposedly ancient tapestries drop from the ceiling, revealing nooks on the ground floor that hid the MI5 agents, as well as a narrow walkway that wraps around the room at least a full story up.
And standing on that walkway are more than a dozen witnesses, all with lengthy Wikipedia pages to their names.
My father, for one, who looks ready to jump from the balcony and throttle Benedict into unconsciousness.
Maisie, who’s practically preening with satisfaction.
Nicholas, who can’t even look at his son.
The prime minister, who stares at Ben with his mouth slightly agape, as if he’s witnessing the climax of a horror movie.
The petite blond Director General and head of MI5, who is stone-faced and deeply unamused.
Leaders of Parliament I don’t recognize.
A man who earlier introduced himself to me as the Commissioner of the Met, which is apparently British for the head of the London police force.
Several high-ranking aristocrats. People I didn’t get the chance to meet before we set everything into place, ready to bait our trap.
And at the opposite end of the room, on the biggest screen I’ve ever seen outside of a movie theater, is a clear image of me pinning Ben to the floor, my box cutter pressed to his throat, recording in real time.
“What—” Ben gasps, but even that’s enough to make his Adam’s apple press against the knife, and he tries to shrink away from me and into the hard floor.
“Choose your words carefully, Benedict,” says my father. “The rest of your life depends on what you say next.”
“But—I haven’t done—anything—” Another drop of blood wells in Ben’s throat, and Singh touches my shoulder.
“We have him from here, Your Royal Highness,” he says as he picks Ben’s knife up off the floor. “Thank you for your assistance.”