25. Violette
VIOLETTE
TWO WEEKS LATER
Drumming my nails on my desk, ripe with a bitter melange of boredom and frustration, I stare at the fucking wall. I’ve been open for weeks and not a single bloody client. And Arturo is late for work.
Again.
The sound of the bell above my storefront’s door jingles happily as it opens.
My heart leaps with excitement.
A client, at last!
Child-like glee erupts in my chest at the realization as I fold into the storefront, only for my jubilance to be extinguished.
Arturo stands there, shrinking the room with his massive body.
“Sorry I’m late, darling.”
I scowl.
“How dare you address me in such a familiar manner? I should punish you for such insolence.”
His lips twitch with amusement as one large hand gives a dramatic turn in the air, and he wills a gilded scroll into his open palm.
“I have something for you.”
I already know what it is, and my chest aches with jealousy.
I snatch it from his hand, hesitating as my thumb gingerly passes over the blood-red wax seal, stamped with the Halthwaite Persitio’s family crest.
With a huff, I tug on the silk ribbon beneath it to break the seal and unroll the scroll.
To the address of:
Violette Lark of Caerwynath, Bellorum
You are cordially invited to the sacred matrimony of
Arturo Aurelius Silvanus
and
Veera Halthwait Peresitio.
Emotion clogs my throat, and I find my hands rolling the scroll closed before I can finish it, lest I burst into tears on the spot.
My lower lip quivers in time with the watering of my eyes as I meet Arturo’s gaze, “Congratulations, darling... You’re fired.”
Arturo’s head tips back with resonant laughter that even I find contagious. As our humor settles, his sharp features soften, and he pulls me firmly against his broad chest. It takes all of half a second for choked sobs to escape me. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was hugged. Embraced.
Held.
Arturo shushes me softly, stroking over my hair with his palm. Unable to hold back, my arms weave around his waist as I weep with as much grace as I can muster. My words are muffled by one large, muscled pectoral.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s come over me.”
A few moments pass as he soothingly strokes my hair.
“It’s okay to feel lonely, Violette.”
His words hit home like a stake to the fucking heart just as another chime rings at the door, drawing our gazes.
And I nearly have a fucking heart attack.
Royal sentries pour into the room like an unwelcome horde of finely uniformed and lethally armed rodents.
Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck.
Arturo sidles closely beside me, as though he’ll be able to protect me from their wrath.
One of the royal guards begins to make an announcement, his voice somehow distant, as I descend into panic. The only words my mind registers are Queen Theia, and a moment later, she appears, closely tailed by a wretched, pompous male that I immediately recognize.
Duchess Paramount Winnow Ardelean’s vizier.
Fuck.
Sacred, divine, holy fuck.
Did she find out I’m the one who kidnapped her cousin?
There’s no way.
No one else was there...?
Could it be the crown jewel Winnow paid me with? I returned it ages ago, unable to sell it on the shadow market knowing that it belonged to her mother.
Her deceased mother.
A wandering hand seeks the comfort of Arturo, squeezing his forearm as one might a life raft set adrift on a thrashing sea.
“Violette Lark, under the authority of Her Majesty the Queen, you are?—”
Theia takes another step forward, raising one regal hand to silence him. My throat works as my heart pounds a trepidatious beat.
“Miss Violette Lark, might I have a word? In private.”
Her pointed look flicks briefly to her guards, then to Arturo.
The sound of my voice is a foreign squeak.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”