Throne of the Fallen

“From what you’ve told me, Lady Fleur was never a shrinking violet, which is why they still speak of her ten years later,” Kitty said, sensing where Camilla’s mind wandered. “And she was right that all those doltish mothers just envied your talent. Do you remember what you told me she said?”

Camilla huffed a laugh. “They didn’t envy my talent, Kitty. They thought me odd and didn’t wish for their sons to court me.”

Kitty’s smile turned devious. “She said, They are all fools who seek only to divert attention from their idiotic heirs and their undeniably tiny members.”

“You must have remembered that story wrong,” Camilla said, amused.

“Perhaps I might have embellished. But I think they were worried you’d paint unflattering but horridly accurate nude portraits of their flaccid noble cocks.”

Camilla covered her face with her hands, trying to get that imagery from her head.

Before she’d left, her mother—Fleur—used to smile mischievously and tell Camilla she’d send an army of fleas into the bedchambers of the nastiest nobles, ensuring that the insects bit their bottoms so they’d incessantly feel the need to scratch their rumps at the next ball.

The idea of the prim and proper lords and ladies struggling to maintain decorum with rashy backsides gave Camilla a perverse glee. For all her faults, Fleur knew how to make Camilla smile with her wicked sense of humor.

“Has she written?” Katherine asked, her voice quiet now.

Camilla shook her head.

“No. I imagine she’s exploring the world the way she always wished to.”

Katherine sipped her sherry, giving Camilla a private moment to collect her thoughts. She always felt conflicted when conversations turned to her mother, though it was easiest to recall the confusion and abandonment she’d felt when Fleur left.

Yet, when Camilla was a child, Fleur had been the one to start telling stories almost too fantastical to be real. She’d speak of shadow realms filled with curious creatures. Goddesses, demons, vampires, and shape-shifters. Seven demon princes, each wickeder than the last.

Camilla would curl up on the settee beside her, close her eyes, and dream.

Pierre had listened intently to each story too, and Camilla suspected it was the magical way her mother spoke that had inspired her painter father to turn his brush to the scenes she’d depicted.

At first, Fleur had been enchanted with his art, encouraging him not to worry about his title, to pursue his passion and open the gallery. But as he’d become obsessed with capturing the elusive fables she retold, he’d begun demanding more stories, more descriptions. Fleur grew annoyed, then bored, and then withdrawn.

Looking back, Camilla should have seen the signs. Fleur had become restless, leaving the house nearly every day, never settling when she finally was home.

She’d never told a soul, but her mother had left her one thing: a locket, one last secret she shared with her daughter.

Camilla didn’t want to dwell on the past. She felt the loneliness creeping back in, an ache that never fully went away, only quieted with the passage of time.

Nervously, she toyed with the locket, which she still wore every day.

Katherine noticed her friend’s familiar gesture. “You’re hiding something.”

“I met him earlier,” she said, drawing the conversation back to less treacherously emotional grounds. “The mysterious new lord.”

“You rotten bore!” Kitty’s eyes rounded. “Why wasn’t that the first bit of news you shared? Was he handsome? Or did his eyes look as if he could burn your soul from your body?”

“Who on earth do you speak to?”

“Live a little, darling. He’s either handsome or homely. Though beauty is rather subjective, isn’t it?”

Camilla lifted a shoulder casually, then dropped it, not committing to revealing anything.

“There’s not much to tell,” she said.

“Humor me, then. What were your first impressions?”

“You’re impossible,” Camilla said teasingly.

“Curious, not impossible. You do know how much I adore learning secrets first.”

“Very well. He’s tall, arrogant, and probably has a tiny member. I can’t imagine why else he’d behave so boorishly. You should have seen the way he walked in, demanding a commission. Men like him are abhorrent. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s convinced the sun rises and sets because he wills it to. Forget laws of nature. Lord Synton is God the Creator and don’t you dare forget it, peasant.”

Kitty’s eyes sparkled with barely suppressed mirth.

“I see there’s nothing to tell at all. Except you’re going to fall madly in love with him. Or maybe he would be the perfect loyal companion!”

Camilla was going to do no such thing and he would absolutely not be her anything. She held her glass up when her friend offered a refill, keeping her convictions to herself.

With luck, the troublesome Lord Synton would never darken her doorstep again.

FOUR