Chapter 3

It was Seraphina’s midday visit with the king, who was in conversation with Lord Greymont. She sat to the side with her sisters and their ladies, embroidering a cushion. When she was a young girl in the confines of the Jewish quarter, she had daydreamed of being a lady. Not because she wanted a life of leisure, but because she wanted freedom.

Now she would give anything for her old life. Walling off the Jews was supposed to protect gentiles from their influence, but it also provided safety and community among the Jews. Then she and Dalia could go out into the woods and pick berries in the summer and mushrooms in the fall, or swim in the river when they were supposed to be doing the wash. She could still hear Dalia’s giggle whenever she spoke of one of her many crushes.

“What are you thinking about, Princess Imogen?” Lord Greymont asked, coming to sit next to her. Jocelyn rose and absconded discreetly to a corner before Seraphina could catch her eye.

She flicked her gaze toward him for just a moment. “I’m thinking about how wonderful this particular pillow will look amongst the dozens of nearly identical pillows in my room, Lord Greymont.” Beside her, an old black cat she’d named Fig stretched languidly before slinking away.

Greymont leaned in, as if he wanted a closer look, but Seraphina thought his eyes were considerably farther north than the pillow. “Lovely,” he declared before leaning back.

“Indeed,” she drawled. “Shouldn’t you be entertaining my father?”

“He looks like he’s getting on just fine.”

Seraphina turned and found that the king was, in fact, content. He was now playing a game of chess with Giselle, while Nina looked on in undisguised boredom. She was still bitter that she wasn’t allowed to wear the siren costume she’d chosen for Seraphina’s birthday masquerade. But a siren didn’t complement the angel costume the king had decided on for Seraphina. She had been fitted for her white gown, feathered wings, and the golden circlet that would sit atop her freshly hennaed hair earlier this morning.

It was Giselle who decided that Nina, Rose, and their ladies-in-waiting should go as flowers, determined to take back some control after the king had chosen Seraphina’s costume without consulting her. Nina may be the oldest, but Giselle was the craftiest, and she’d convinced their father of her plan before Nina had a chance to voice her opinion. Nina was to be an iris, Giselle a hyacinth, while Rose would go as her namesake blossom. She was happy, at least; she still got to wear pink.

“Now, then,” continued Lord Greymont. “We know you’re not that fond of embroidery, and the king is well in hand. What are you really thinking about?”

She wanted to tell him the truth. Not because she cared to confide in Lord Greymont, of all people, but because speaking Dalia’s name out loud made her feel real. She had denied the existence of everyone she loved for nearly four years in what felt like the worst kind of betrayal. Seraphina hoped it was a relief to her parents that she’d been plucked from obscurity and sent to the castle—at least they would have died believing that their only child survived the plague—but she dishonored their memory by pretending they’d never lived.

The true princess had contracted the mori roja on a trip to a neighboring kingdom and died before she could return to Eldridge Hall. When Nina, Giselle, and Rose heard the news, they feared it would drive their already addled father straight into madness—as had the messenger who’d conveyed word of Imogen’s death to the princesses first. Terrified of being trapped in a castle with their unpredictable and sometimes violent father after he’d ordered the walls closed to prevent the plague from reaching Eldridge Hall, they had done the only thing they could think of: create one of their father’s beloved masquerades.

Seraphina remembered her last day outside the castle as if it were yesterday. She’d been scrounging around in the woods with Dalia, looking for anything edible, and her hands were covered in dark earth. They weren’t supposed to leave the Jewish quarter, but as the plague struck towns closer and closer to Esmoor, the guards fled. At home it was all doom and gloom and panic, as everyone awaited the inevitable arrival of the plague. But out in the woods, it was like nothing had changed.

Dalia, so vibrant and joyful in Seraphina’s memory, had thrown a mushroom at her playfully, and it had left a smudge on Seraphina’s cheek where it hit her. Her hair was in its usual loose braid over one shoulder, and she wore the shabbier of her two dresses. It was brown and plain, worlds removed from the gown she wore now, which was butter yellow and would have shown every stain, had she any reason to acquire one.

When a fine coach had traveled through the woods toward the city, they had followed it back. By the time they reached the Jewish quarter, people were already talking about how three noblewomen were passing around a portrait, asking if anyone knew the girl rendered in oils.

The women were offering a large reward for information. Seraphina’s father found her in the crowd and immediately ordered her to the house, but people were staring and pointing at her. She hadn’t understood why, having never seen the portrait herself. In good times her neighbors never would have turned on each other, but everyone was desperate now. Seraphina only had a moment to say goodbye to Dalia before she was ushered home.

Seraphina was horrified when the ladies and their attendants entered their house, and further mortified when one of them whispered to the other about the smudge on Seraphina’s cheek, which she had quickly wiped away with her sleeve. That only made them giggle more.

Giselle, clearly the ringleader even then, whispered to her sisters that with a little hair dye and a bath, she would be perfect. Couldn’t they look past the girl’s heritage for a moment? Rose seemed afraid to touch anything and hardly said a word.

Finally, they came to some decision. “She’ll do,” Giselle said, though Seraphina still had no idea what for. Giselle handed a large purse to Seraphina’s father, who shook his head and refused to take the money. The fear didn’t set in until her mother started to cry. The two large guards had to stoop to enter through their front door. One took a hold of her arm without a word. That was when her mother began to wail and her father fell to his knees, pleading with them not to take her.

“Just think of it as one less mouth to feed,” Giselle had said, gathering up her skirts and hurrying out the door. The guards dragged Seraphina with them.

“Careful,” Giselle called over her shoulder. “Don’t bruise her. Father wouldn’t like that.”

Seraphina had never forgotten those words. It made her relish hurting herself all the more. Now she pressed a thumb to a fresh bruise on her wrist and smiled at Lord Greymont.

“I’m thinking about the ocean. I’m wondering if you’ve really seen it, or if you were just trying to secure the first dance at my birthday.”

“I would never lie to you.”

She set her embroidery down and caught a maid’s eye, who hurried away to fetch tea. “All right, then. Let’s play a game. It’s called ‘fact or fiction.’ I will tell you something about myself, and you guess if it’s true or false.”

When his brow furrowed, he looked younger than his twenty-two years, more like the boys Seraphina had known. She had kissed two or three in her day, and though they had not been as handsome, they had seemed infinitely more real than Lord Greymont or any of the other nobles here.

“But I just told you I would never lie to you,” he protested.

“It’s part of the game. And now I get to see what you look like when you tell the truth, and when you don’t.”

He grinned, his brown-flecked-with-green eyes gleaming. His skin, which Seraphina remembered had been a burnished bronze when she was first brought here, was a lighter shade of brown now, reminding Seraphina of Dalia’s olive complexion. Imogen had been just as pale as she was now from the start, albeit with more freckles. “Very well.”

She smiled her most charming smile. “My favorite fruit is a clementine.”

He bit his lip for a moment, considering. “Fiction.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you always choose the strawberry tart for dessert. And you eat every other part of the tart first, the crust and the cream, before you savor the strawberries. You eat them like you might never have one again.”

Seraphina felt a blush creeping all the way up her neck and into her cheeks. It wasn’t her fault Princess Imogen had eaten her strawberry tarts like a lusty squirrel. “My, aren’t we observant.”

“It’s hard to look away from,” he said, his voice pitched low.

She could have kissed the maid who set the tea down in front of them at that very moment, sparing her from having to respond.

Lord Greymont cleared his throat and sat back. “My turn,” he said, glancing up at the maid as she handed him his tea. “Thank you, miss.”

The maid startled, sloshing the tea into the saucer, but he pretended not to notice. “I sailed on a ship when I was eleven,” he said to Seraphina. “From here to the Isle of Wye and back.”

“Wye? What on earth for?”

“My father imported wine before the... Before. Every year he’d go to Wye and check on his vineyard. He let me go with him, just the one time.” He sipped his tea, and when he set it down, he was grinning. “You believed every word of that, didn’t you?”

She blinked and realized she’d been staring. “I...well, yes. I suppose I did.”

“That’s because it was the truth.”

If the rumors were true, the plague had spread over the entire continent. The only places that would have been safe were islands, assuming no one brought it over on a ship. “Did your family go to Wye when the—”

“It’s your turn, Princess.”

Seraphina wanted to throttle him for cutting her off midsentence, until she noticed that the king was no longer playing chess. He had come to stand behind them and was watching from above, frowning beneath his beard. A stormy look had come into his usually placid blue eyes, and she realized what she’d been about to say.

She set her teacup down and rose, smoothing her gown to wipe the moisture from her palms. “Tell me, Father, who won the game?”

Nina, who was standing next to him, smiled. “Why, Father, of course. How can a princess be expected to compete with a master strategist?”

There were some lies even Seraphina was happy to indulge. The king was rotten at chess. “Oh, well done, Father,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. The princesses had spent weeks teaching her how to mimic their dead sister, from the way she kissed their father to calm his notorious temper, to the way she ate strawberry tarts. In truth, she didn’t care for strawberries. Clementines really were her favorite, though she hadn’t eaten one in years.

Placated, the darkness receded from the king’s eyes as he held his arm out to his eldest daughter. “Nina can escort me today. Go back to your fun with Lord Greymont, my dear. I will see you at dinner.”

After he’d gone, Seraphina took her seat again, releasing her breath slowly. She would have thought pretending to be someone else would get easier as time went on, but she only grew wearier with the passing years. To simply be herself was a luxury she’d taken for granted.

It took her a moment to realize that almost everyone had left the room. Rose and Giselle remained, playing a game of cards in a far corner. Jocelyn was observing Seraphina surreptitiously from another corner. Seraphina could never be left alone with a man, but Jocelyn knew how to be invisible.

She wasn’t sure if Lord Greymont had been saving her from the king earlier or saving himself. It was forbidden to mention the plague inside the castle; anyone who attempted to escape was punished, though the attempts were short-lived after the first three servants were hanged. Everyone had to pretend that the plague had never come to Goslind at all. It was the only way to maintain the illusion, and to Seraphina’s eyes, it was a role they were all happy to play. But if she was acting, maybe others were, too. It was impossible to know.

Or perhaps not impossible, after all.

“We can continue this game another time,” he said, sensing the shift in her mood.

She had no idea if the king would ever willingly open the castle gates, but she couldn’t go on like this forever. She had considered attempting an escape years ago, but she kept coming back to the words her father had whispered to her as she embraced him for the last time, the same thing the rabbi had told them when the kosher food in the Jewish quarter ran out and some people refused to eat: You shall guard your life.

If Lord Greymont’s family had a vineyard on an island, then perhaps they had a ship. And if Seraphina had access to a ship, she could get far, far away from King Stuart and his court.

“Just one more round,” she said, squaring her shoulders with a smile. The king hated it when she frowned.

Greymont lowered his eyes in deference. “I am at your disposal.”

The tea had gone cold, so she picked up a biscuit and nibbled daintily at the edge. It was unsweetened, as she’d expected. The sugar supply was finally running out, and if the dry goods were dwindling, it didn’t bode well for their fresh food. “I am turning twenty years old in two weeks.”

“Fact, of course.”

Not even a second of hesitation. She met his gaze and held it, for far longer than was proper. “Are you sure that is your answer, Lord Greymont?”

He started to reply, then narrowed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa. “Why do I get the sense you’re playing a different game than I am, Your Highness?”

There was something about his gaze that made Seraphina’s pulse quicken. Convincing the king she was Imogen was almost shockingly simple—he had no reason to believe she wasn’t his daughter, and he was half-mad to begin with. But she sometimes wondered how no one else at court noticed that she was a stand-in. Yes, Imogen had been the shiest of the princesses, and as fourth in line to inherit, she hadn’t attracted the same attention as Nina and Giselle, or even Rose. But still, Seraphina was an entirely different person, for heaven’s sake.

“If you must call me anything, call me Princess Imogen. Please. Your Highnessalways sounds so fussy and formal.”

He placed his hand on the sofa between them, so close one of his fingers brushed the fabric of her skirt. “Well, then, Princess Imogen.” His lips curled in a small smile. “If your birthday isn’t in two weeks, perhaps I can give you your gift sooner.”

Her gaze drifted from his to the finger touching her velvet gown. Seraphina had never given any thought to finding a romantic attachment in Eldridge. Diverting though a dalliance may have been, allowing anyone to get too close to her was dangerous. She was bound to slip up and reveal her true identity eventually.

But this lord wasn’t quite as dim as the others, and she knew enough of men to know he desired her. An ally at Eldridge Hall could be just what she needed; someone who would help her when the tower of lies came crumbling down around them. The plague would end, if it hadn’t already, and there would be worse consequences when the stores ran out than bland biscuits.

She let her hand brush his, just for a moment, as she gathered her skirt and stood. “You win,” she said as Rose and Jocelyn came rustling over.

He stood and cocked his head to the side. “Did I?”

“You were correct both times. Strawberries are my favorite fruit, and I am turning twenty in two weeks.”

“At the masquerade!” Rose smiled prettily, but Jocelyn’s eyes darted between Lord Greymont and Seraphina.

“I believe the game is still in play, Princess Imogen,” he said with an exaggerated bow. And then, in a whisper that tickled her shoulder as he passed by, “I still owe you a lie.”

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