Money-Minded and Plot-Aware novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Ninety Thousand

She finds the vault empty, walks into the Prince's morning audience and demands the crown's debt, and he agrees to pay if she attends Midsummer.

I did not sleep that night.

I sat on the edge of a bed the size of a small boat and tried to remember everything I knew.

I knew the plot, chapter by chapter.

I knew that Sorrel would faint in a garden and be poisoned at Midsummer.

I knew the book ended with the villainess on a platform.

I did not know where in the house the money was.

In the morning a freckled girl in a grey dress came in with a tray.

"Your tea, my lady."

"You're Betsy," I said.

She nearly dropped the tray.

"You've never remembered my name before."

"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it more than I had meant anything in a week.

"Betsy, I need to see the household books."

"There aren't any, my lady."

"Your father keeps them in his head."

It turned out the Marquess kept them in a drawer in his dressing room.

He opened it for me at nine o'clock, blinking.

Ambrose Hallowell was a round man with silver hair and a silk robe.

He loved his daughter.

"Rosie, darling, whatever for?"

"I'm curious about the vault."

"There's nothing in the vault," he said cheerfully.

"There's the Prince's note, and a few trifles."

"How much is the Prince's note?"

"Ninety thousand crowns," my father said.

"Isn't it splendid?"

I looked at the paper he handed me.

It was a war loan, signed in the Prince's own hand, due on demand.

It was also three years old.

"Has anyone ever asked him for it?"

"Darling, you don't ask a prince for money."

"Why not?"

"It isn't done."

I wanted to cry.

In my old life I had chased late invoices for six years.

I would have taken this man on as a client for free.

"Betsy," I said.

"Order the carriage."

"My lady, the Prince holds his morning audience at ten."

"I know."

"Only petitioners go to the audience, my lady."

"Good," I said.

"I have a petition."

The Prince's audience hall was gold and cold and full of people waiting with hats in their hands.

I went to the front of the line in my second-best dress, with the note in my glove and Betsy holding a folder of nothing.

The Prince sat on a low throne, with Sorrel on a cushion at his feet.

She was in white again.

"Rosamund," he said, with a pleasant smile.

"Have you come to apologize for last night?"

"I've come to collect a debt," I said.

There was a long silence.

A man at the back dropped his hat.

"Debt?" the Prince said.

I held up the loan.

"Ninety thousand crowns, borrowed from my father three years ago for the northern war."

"Due on demand."

"I'm demanding."

Sorrel gasped and put a hand to her chest.

"Lady Rosamund, you can't mean it, the crown is so poor, the soldiers have only just come home."

"The soldiers were paid with my father's money, Miss Pennick," I said.

"I'd like some of it back."

"This is vulgar," the Prince said.

"This is a receipt," I said.

"If Your Highness would prefer to pay in installments, I'll take a first payment today."

"I also take notes."

The courtiers were not even pretending not to listen.

A tall, thin woman by the door, whom I recognized as the Queen's treasurer, had stopped writing in her book.

She was smiling into her collar.

The Prince saw it too.

He sat forward and his voice went smooth.

"Lady Rosamund, we are betrothed."

"You'll forgive me if I find it strange that you come to my court to shout about gold."

"I'm not shouting," I said.

"I'm using an indoor voice."

Someone snorted, and I knew I had him.

He had two choices in front of two hundred people: pay, or look like a thief.

He picked the third thing, which is the one princes pick.

"I will settle it," he said.

"All of it, in full, in time."

"On what day?" I asked.

"At Midsummer."

"Why Midsummer?"

"Because that is when the crown receives its tax from the north," he said.

"And because I want you at the ball, Rosamund, where I can thank you properly."

Behind him, Sorrel looked down at her hands and smiled.

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