The wine was lighter than Beatrice expected. Crisp and subtle, not unlike the queen herself.
The rest of dinner unfolded with surprising ease. There were no servants, no guards posted near the doors. Just three chairs, three people, and the low hum of a fireplace behind them.
For a long while, they spoke of nothing.
Beatrice didn't mind. Silence, she had learned, was not the absence of power. It was its quiet display.
But then King Marshall cleared his throat and leaned forward with the sort of mischievous gleam that belonged more to a stage actor than a sovereign.
"So," he said, cutting into a roasted fig with perfect indifference, "how long have you been secretly in love with my son?"
Beatrice nearly choked on her wine.
Queen Cecile didn't blink. "Marshall."
"What?" he said, shrugging. "I'm old, not dead. I've heard every version of what had transpired in the courtyard. The whole she's my queen now bit. Very dramatic. Frankly, it upstaged the assassination attempt."
