He Dethroned His Queen, Now He Wants Her Home novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Decree
The court hears the decree that strips Linnet of her crown, and on her way out Verity's gift ends with her cat thrown against a tree and a vet whispering that somebody soaked Verity's cuffs.
The press secretary read the decree to the whole court the morning after we buried the Queen Mother.
Every guard, courtier and maid in the hall listened to every word.
My title as Luna Queen was revoked.
My place on the royal channel was revoked.
My standing as the king's mate was revoked.
Alaric did not look at me once while it was read.
Verity Lorne stood at his left shoulder in a green dress, with her hands folded in front of her.
His advisers had objected for a week.
Alaric signed over their heads, and the name on the next line was hers.
I walked to the table, laid my access card on it and said, "I accept the Crown's decision."
Then I signed my name under his.
I asked for one thing, which was to leave the castle and go home.
He gave me more than that.
There was the townhouse in Saltgate, and an income that would last my whole life.
I took every coin of it.
Eleven years of marriage had earned it.
On the last afternoon he came to see me off in the courtyard, and nobody had asked him to.
The lavender bed along the wall was in its last bloom.
Alaric had planted it himself the year after our wedding, and he still loved it.
The smell had turned my stomach every autumn since, and I had never told him.
I had two bags, and Biscuit in my arms.
He was thirteen years old and orange and heavier than he looked.
Alaric said, "Northpoint or Lakewood?"
We had lived in both places once, and both were close to the capital.
"Willowmere," I said.
He went very still.
"It's an island," he said. "Your parents are gone. Who is there?"
"They're buried there."
Edith Gannet crossed the courtyard with the car keys already in her fist.
She had handed in her own notice an hour after I signed mine.
"The car's at the west gate, Linnet," she said.
Alaric looked at the keys, then at me.
"Stay until after the harvest festival," he said.
I had not expected it, and I shook my head.
"There's no need."
The farther I was from the capital, the less Verity would see me as someone in her way.
That settled it.
Heels clicked at the end of the corridor, and Verity came out into the courtyard smiling.
She held out an elegant paper bag.
"Linnet, I heard you were leaving, so I asked a designer for a few outfits," she said. "Plain cuts, because I know you like simple things. I hope I got it right."
She was wearing so much lavender that I could taste it.
Both her cuffs were dark with it, where she must have spilled the bottle.
I looked at Alaric.
He did not move to stop her, and he did not look uncomfortable either.
I took the bag. "Thank you."
Verity stepped in toward Alaric to take his arm.
Biscuit twisted out of my hands and went for her.
He was a gentle cat and had never bitten anyone in his life.
He sank his teeth into her sleeve and raked at her wrist.
Verity screamed.
A wolf's strength is far more than a human's, and she flung her arm out hard.
Biscuit hit the trunk of the old plane tree and dropped to the ground.
He did not get up.
I ran to him and gathered him up.
His heart was going fast against my palm, and he would not open his eyes.
"There was no need for that much force," Alaric said, and his face darkened. "He could never have hurt you."
Verity's eyes filled.
"I didn't know it was him. Something flew at me." She held up the torn sleeve. "Alaric, look at my dress."
He was already past her, crouching beside me and the cat.
"Take him to the royal vet," he said.
His worry was not an act, and that was the worst of it.
Verity caught his arm.
"We should go too," she said. "I'm the one who threw him."
She said "we" and it came out easy.
I looked at her and could not find the girl I had known for eleven years.
At the royal veterinary center the vet laid Biscuit on a steel table under a lamp.
"Two cracked ribs and a bruised lung," she said. "He'll mend if he's kept still."
She opened his mouth with two gloved fingers.
"But this is burned. Lavender oil, and a lot of it. A cat cannot take that."
Alaric frowned. "Lavender oil. Where would he get that?"
"It's my perfume," Verity said. Her voice shook. "I put on too much for the funeral, and it's all down my sleeves."
"Of course it is," Alaric said. "You couldn't have known."
The vet looked at Verity's cuffs and did not say a word.
Biscuit had slept on Queen Mother Beatrix's feet every winter for eleven years.
I wrapped him in my coat.
"I'm taking him home," I said.
"Linnet, he's not fit to be moved," Alaric said.
"He's fit to leave this room."
So I carried my cat out through the back door of the veterinary center, and nobody came after me.
The vet caught me in the passage and spoke so quietly that I almost missed it.
"A perfume doesn't soak through both cuffs like that, madam. Somebody poured it there."
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