A Jewel for Royals

“Get up,” she told herself. “You’re dead if you stay here. Get up.”

She forced herself to her feet, trying to think. The Dowager had tried to kill her. The obvious thing to do was run, because who could stand up to the Dowager? She needed to find a way out of the palace, perhaps make it to the docks and set off for her family’s lands overseas. That or sneak out through one of the city’s smaller routes, avoiding any watchers that had been set and making it out into the country. Her family was powerful, with the kind of friends who could raise questions in the Assembly of Nobles over this, who would —

“They’ll do what the Dowager tells them,” Angelica told herself. If they acted at all, it would be so slowly that she would undoubtedly be murdered in the meantime. The best she could hope for was to run and keep running, never being safe, never being at the heart of things again. It was an unacceptable solution to it all.

Which brought her back to her earlier question: who could stand up to the Dowager?

Angelica dusted herself off carefully, rearranging her hair as neatly as possible as she nodded to herself. This plan was… dangerous, yes. Unpleasant, almost certainly. But it was the best chance that she had.

While the people below shouted, she set off at a run back through the palace.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sebastian’s eyes were starting to get used to the near dark of his cell, the damp, even the stench of it. He was starting to adjust to the faint gurgle of water somewhere in the distance and the sound of people coming and going beyond. That was probably a bad sign. There were some places that no one should get used to.

The cell was small, just a few feet on each side, with a front of iron bars, fastened with a solid lock. This was not some fine tower prison, where a man’s family could pay for his upkeep in style until the time finally came for him to lose his head. This was the kind of place a man might be thrown into for the world to forget him.

“And if I’m forgotten,” Sebastian whispered, “Rupert gets the crown.”

That had to be what this was about. Sebastian had no doubt about that part. If his brother made him disappear, if he made it look as though Sebastian had run off never to return, then Rupert would become the heir to the throne by default. The fact that he hadn’t killed Sebastian yet suggested that might be enough for him; that he might release Sebastian once he had what he wanted.

“Or it might just mean he wants to take his time about killing me,” Sebastian said.

He couldn’t hear other voices in the near dark at the moment, although from time to time they drifted in from further away. Sebastian suspected that there were other cells down here, maybe other prisoners. Wherever here was. That was actually a question worth thinking about. If they were beneath the palace somewhere, then there was a chance that Sebastian could attract enough attention to get help. If they were somewhere else in the city… well, it would depend on where they were, but Sebastian would find a way to get help.

He tried to think about the journey that they’d taken to get there, but it was impossible to say for certain. Not the palace, he guessed now. Even Rupert wouldn’t be arrogant enough to stow Sebastian there. His brother, his family, had enough money that he could have bought other property around the city. Some extra house kept for liaisons or murky business.

“Probably both, knowing Rupert,” Sebastian said.

“Shut up, you,” a voice said. A figure came out of the dark: a nondescript man who served as one of his jailers. The man only came down a couple of times a day, bringing brackish water and stale bread. Now, he rattled a wooden club against the bars of Sebastian’s cell, making him start at the sudden noise after so long in the silence.

“You know who I am,” Sebastian said. “I’m Rupert’s brother, the Dowager’s younger son.” He gripped the bars. “She will kill anyone involved in harming her sons. You know that, you aren’t an idiot. Your only chance to survive right now is to be the one who lets me go.”

Sebastian didn’t like making the threat. It was the kind of thing his brother might have done, but it was also no more than the truth. His mother would tear Ashton apart looking for him if she thought that he’d been taken, and when she found him, anyone who had harmed him would die for it. When it came to her family, his mother was every inch the cruel, implacable monarch people believed.

“That only matters if she finds out,” the guard said, swatting at Sebastian’s hands almost casually with the club. Sebastian grimaced in pain, but managed to grab hold of the club, pulling the other man closer, his hands going to his belt.

It wasn’t a good strategy. After all, the other man was armed, and Sebastian was trapped in a confined cell, without the ability to get around him, or avoid him. The guard struck him with his free hand, then jabbed him in the gut with his club. Sebastian felt the air rushing out of him. He went down to his knees.

“Arrogant nobles,” the man snapped, spitting on the floor beside Sebastian. “Think that everything will work out for them, whatever they try. Well, it won’t. Your mother won’t come for you, you’re not getting out of here, and I’ll be standing right there when your brother decides to start cutting bits off you.”

He hit Sebastian again with the club, then backed away into the dark. Sebastian heard the sound of a bolt.

He didn’t mind the pain then, even though it ran across his ribs like fire. He didn’t care about himself, or what Rupert might do, or what might be happening now to let all this take place. Even like this, Sebastian found his thoughts turning to Sophia, and Ishjemme, and his child.

How far along would her pregnancy be by now? Far enough that it would be visible; far enough that it wouldn’t be so long until their child was born. Sebastian couldn’t stand the thought that he might miss that moment, might miss hearing their child’s first cries in the cold air of the dukedom. He couldn’t stand the thought that he wasn’t with Sophia now, standing by her side and protecting her from whatever harm the world tried to throw at her. He had no doubt that, once they learned that she lived, whoever had tried to kill her would make the attempt again. Sebastian needed to be there to stop it, whatever it took.

“Which is why,” he said, taking out a key that he’d snatched from the guard’s belt, “I need to escape.”

Sebastian moved slowly and carefully, not wanting to make any more noise than he had to. He fit the key into the lock and managed to turn it, the grating sound of metal on metal seeming far too loud. The creak of the cell door was louder, sounding like it should summon guards at any moment.

Even so, Sebastian kept going. He edged from the cell, into the corridor beyond it. It was a short, cramped, dark corridor which, instead of a door at the end, had barrels, stacked up as if to hide the entrance to it. There were other cells too, set in a line, although for the moment at least, they were empty. Sebastian was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure that he could escape himself without trying to take others with him.

Sebastian went to move the boxes and found that some of them were already set on a small wheeled cart, easy to push out of the way. It wasn’t quite a secret door, but it served almost the same purpose. Sebastian pushed it aside, and now he could see that the corridor that held his cell was set back from a wide, vaulted cellar, lit with candles. Even the light from those was enough to sting his eyes after the dark.

He moved through the space carefully, looking at where butts of wine and casks of ale sat alongside beef, venison, and other supplies. A length of hard salt beef sat waiting to be consumed, and Sebastian tore off a hunk, chewing at it with the lack of grace of a starving man. He looked around, hoping to find, not a sword, because who would keep one of those in a cellar, but at least a carving knife or a butcher’s hook. Something he could use in his escape.

There was nothing, and no time to hunt further. Sebastian didn’t know how often people came through this space, and he needed to be gone before any of the guards got back. He hurried over to where a flight of stone steps led to a door, suggesting a way out. Sebastian hurried up those steps, ignoring the pain that came with each movement, and made it to the top.

He half expected the door to be bolted, but a door leading down to a cellar couldn’t be, or how would people fetch things up for the house above? Sebastian was convinced now that it was a grand townhouse, and not the palace, simply because, as impressive as this space was, it didn’t hold enough food to feed a whole palace of courtiers and servants, soldiers and nobles.

Sebastian swung the door open and found himself standing face to face with the guard who had beaten him, sitting on a chair, waiting for him. Two more men stood beside him.

“You thought I wouldn’t notice my key was gone?” he asked. He laughed. “You think I would carry my key so close to you unless there were a reason?”

The truth seeped into Sebastian then, and the shock as it hit him made him stand there dumbly. They’d let him get this far. It was all some trick, some game.

“Do you think we don’t watch the ones his highness tells us to?” the man said. “You think he hasn’t had all kinds down there, trying to get out all ways? Oh, you should hear some of the women cry when they think they’ve escaped, neat as you like, only to be dragged back.”

Sebastian threw himself forward at the man. It didn’t matter in that moment that there were three of them, or that he was weak from the lack of food. What mattered was getting out of there, getting to Sophia, even if it hurt. He’d realized back at the wedding that he couldn’t spend his life without her. Now was the moment when he proved it.

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