The Indentured Queen Read online

  “I’m not sure what else to do, sir.”

  Finally, he looked up, his face impassive, and she did as expected, and curtsied.

  “Have a seat.”

  Perched on the edge of the chair, she waited for him to finish reading whatever paperwork was in front of him.

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest. “If it’s anything like the proposition you made the other night, my answer remains the same.” He couldn’t have her beheaded or anything, but he could make her life completely miserable.

  “No. There will be none of that sort of thing.” He turned the papers around so she could read them if she’d been closer. “This proposition ends your indenture in about a year.”

  Somewhere deep inside, hope began to blossom. “Okay.”

  “You don’t know what the terms are.”

  “Are they so horrible that I’d say no?”

  “Unlikely.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “In approximately a year, you will disappear. As far as anyone knows, you’ll be deceased.”

  The bloom of hope wilted. “Why would I do that?”

  “The debt you owe will be forgiven, and your brother will be taken care of for the rest of his life.”

  The man knew how to put someone over a barrel. He had to know how much her family meant to her and how much she worried about her brother when her mother passed someday. “And in return?”

  His eyes reminded her of the ocean in the dim light before he kissed her a few nights earlier. Now, they were insipid cesspools. “In return, you will marry me.”

  2

  Benjamin watched Katrín, his fiancée, walk out of the room and return to work.

  Chamberlain returned to his usual seat across the desk from Benjamin. “She agreed.”

  “Yes. She did.” Benjamin stared at the contract she’d signed. “Do we know where the announcement came from?”

  “No. Best guess is Prince Isaiah before he left Monday morning, but no one knows how he managed it.”

  Benjamin reached for the printed copy of the press release announcing his engagement to Katrín Jónsson. No one in the palace knew about it until the phone started ringing off the hook a few hours earlier. “His access to the palace network, along with unrestricted access to the family network, was cut off after I returned from the Mevendians’ house the other night.”

  “Best guess is that he managed to do it before then or has help from someone still working for the palace.”

  “Find out.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “I want a report every morning until it’s figured out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The door opened without an announcement of anyone’s arrival. Benjamin’s aunt, Princess Louise who had served as his regent until he was of age, entered. “What is all this in the news?”

  “I’m getting married,” Benjamin told her, the grim lines of her face mirroring his tone. “We’re not sure why or how, but the announcement was made this morning, and it was all over the news and Internet before we could stop it.”

  “And who is this girl?”

  “She works in one of the industrial kitchens,” Chamberlain told Louise.

  “That is completely unacceptable.” Aunt Louise sat in the other chair, her back ramrod straight and ankles to the side. Benjamin couldn’t help but compare her to how Katrín sat. Katrín sat primly, but clearly didn’t have the ease Aunt Louise did. “The King of Eyjania will not marry a commoner who works in the lowest portion of the palace.” He could hear Louise’s unspoken comparison to his father’s choice of a commoner. His father never stood for anyone belittling his wife, Benjamin’s mother, and Louise knew it had always been off-limits. But at least his mother had several years to learn how things worked before she became queen.

  “It’s going to happen, Aunt Louise. To back out after the publicity already this morning would destroy the public’s perception of the family.” Or so he’d been told. The PR office insisted their already shaky popularity would take a further nosedive.

  “Then you shall never have children. One of your sisters will have to provide your heir, the next monarch.”

  Benjamin closed his eyes. He knew his aunt’s perspective was somewhat skewed, and Benjamin didn’t necessarily agree with her assessment that Katrín, or someone like her, would be unacceptable as his queen and mother of his heir, but this wasn’t the time or place to delve into it. If he’d found a young woman from that social strata and still somehow fallen in love with her, he would take up the fight, but that wasn’t the case here.

  “We’ll deal with that later,” he told her.

  Chamberlain frowned, but Benjamin ignored him. No one could know the situation with Katrín was temporary. He needed to remember to tell her that. Not even Chamberlain knew about the plan for Katrín to disappear. Benjamin’s right hand man only reluctantly approved of the plan to marry Katrín, but Chamberlain took the marriage vows seriously. Once they were made, they were meant to be for life. Not for “until her death was faked.”

  “Don’t give her one of the heirloom rings.” Aunt Louise’s warning tone caught Benjamin’s attention.

  What could be behind that attitude? “You think she’d try to sell it?” She’d be crazy to even consider it.

  “Do you know why she’s indentured?” Aunt Louise sat even straighter, if that were possible.

  “No.” The practice wasn’t common anymore, but Benjamin knew there were a few people who were working off a debt to the crown.

  “It was one of the first real decisions you made on your own as king.”

  Benjamin leaned back in his chair and tried to remember. He’d been so young and distraught after the death of his father. “I need more than that.”

  “Her mother was caught stealing a priceless hand mirror, in the family for generations.”

  It started to come back to him. He remembered a stoic woman, likely in her thirties, standing before this very desk. “Her son was in a wheelchair.” Spina bifida. He knew that now, though he hadn’t then. “He needed an operation. She never said a word in her own defense, just let us presume her guilt. However, her husband had left them, and she was the sole wage earner. It was agreed that she could work off a fine rather than prison time, but it wouldn’t take more than ten percent of her income until her children were grown.” Isaiah had been livid.

  Louise didn’t smile, but he could see the approval in her eyes. She’d believed he’d made the right decision. “Correct.”

  “What does that have to do with Katrín?” Another memory niggled the outskirts of his mind. “She came to us a few years later and requested she be allowed to work off her mother’s debt in her place.” Isaiah hadn’t liked that either, but Benjamin hadn’t cared much one way or the other. He’d never met Katrín, just had the proposal submitted for his approval since he was the one who’d imposed the sentence in the first place.

  “Also correct.”

  “And you believe she would try to sell an heirloom ring for money for her family.”

  “Since she’ll no longer be working, they won’t have income.”

  “And she shouldn’t ever have access to some of the family funds to help support her family?” Benjamin hadn’t thought that far ahead, but under normal circumstances, it would make sense. If he and Katrín had fallen in love and he’d proposed as any normal boyfriend would, it seemed likely that he would make sure her family was taken care of from the beginning. He’d already insinuated to her that he would. “Or I shouldn’t take care of them because they’re my in-laws? If we’re concerned about how the country sees our family, wouldn’t taking care of my invalid in-laws move us up a few notches?”

  Louise sniffed. “I suppose you have a point. However, my reservations remain.”

  Benjamin stifled a sigh. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. “I’ll take it under consideration.” And, at some point, figure out whether to
give Katrín a family ring.

  The next afternoon, it still hadn’t sunk in when Katrín dropped into a deep curtsy as the Queen Mother and Princess Genevieve walked into the Queen Akushla Sitting Room.

  “Good afternoon, dear.” The Queen Mother looked every bit as genteel and kind as she did in her pictures, but she also looked every bit the queen that, in many ways, she still was. “Please, call me Eliana.”

  Katrín nodded, but knew she’d never find the nerve.

  The Queen Mother turned slightly. “And this is my daughter, Genevieve.”

  Katrín curtsied slightly again, though it probably wasn’t strictly necessary. “A pleasure to meet you, Your Royal Highness.”

  The corners of the princess’s lips twitched. “Likewise, Katrín. Please call me Genevieve. Would you care to join us for tea and a snack?”

  Butterflies in Katrín’s stomach wouldn’t let her eat, but she wouldn’t tell them that.

  The Queen Mother motioned toward a small table. “Please, have a seat.”

  Katrín waited for the other two women to be seated, then took the third chair.

  Princess Genevieve took the silver dome off the tray as the Queen Mother poured tea. “Esther has developed a love of cookies since she’s lived in America. She shared it with us when we visited.”

  Who was Esther?

  “These are her favorites,” the princess continued. “Mother and I quite enjoy them as well. Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies?” The princess looked at Katrín expectantly.

  “They’re fine.” Katrín took a bite of the oatmeal raisin cookie. “I love oatmeal. I love raisins.” Therefore, she must love oatmeal raisin cookies.

  But what she really wanted was chocolate chip cookies. Her very favorite. Because something about oatmeal raisin cookies made her nauseous.

  The Queen Mother took four cookies off the tray and wrapped them in the cloth napkin. “Take them with you then. Cook will make more.”

  Princess Genevieve smirked at Katrín, though she wasn’t sure Princess Genevieve understood the undertones. How could she? No one, not even her mother, knew how Katrín felt about oatmeal raisin cookies. The queen’s assistant entered the room and whispered with her, but Katrín couldn’t hear what it was about.

  “How long have you lived at the palace?” Princess Genevieve asked her, while her mother was distracted.

  “About five years.” Katrín nibbled on the cookie in her hand.

  “And where do you live?”

  “Downstairs.” Vague was good. What would the Queen Mother and the current heir presumptive think if they knew she lived in the sub-subbasement? Surely, they could find out with a well-placed question or two, but Katrín saw no reason to point it out to them.

  Princess Genevieve munched on her cookie. “There’s a kitchen down there for you to use, isn’t there? I haven’t been down there in years, but I seem to remember there being a community kitchen.”

  “There is,” Katrín confirmed. She’d used it. Once. Not long after she moved in, she’d bought everything she needed, made her mother’s famous chocolate chip cookies to alleviate a bit of her longing for home, cleaned up very well, but missed a measuring spoon that had fallen on the floor. She’d been yelled at, berated, by at least five other members of the staff, so she avoided it at all costs. When she didn’t eat in the staff dining hall, she ate in her room. Nothing that needed cooking, but snacks of questionable nutritional value. She didn’t even do that often, because the cost of the food took away from paying off her indenture.

  It was one reason why she didn’t mind having so little time off. At least when she worked all day, she got fed three meals. Fortunately, the Queen Mother had asked Katrín to meet when she wasn’t supposed to be working.

  “You should make some of your favorites.” Genevieve sipped her tea.

  “Yes, ma’am.” No point in getting further into the discussion.

  “They don’t even have to be oatmeal raisin,” Genevieve went on. “Peanut butter, sugar cookies, shortbread, snickerdoodles. Any of those would be wonderful.” She shrugged. “Even boring chocolate chip.”

  Katrín didn’t reply. She didn’t know how to. Something about the way Princess Genevieve said it made Katrín think she knew more than she was letting on.

  “Oh, leave the poor girl alone, darling.” The Queen Mother sipped on her tea. “She won’t want to do anything as mundane as baking, not when she has a wedding to plan, especially since Eyjania has the ridiculous custom of the monarch or heir marrying so quickly after the announcement is made. Mine was the same way, though Alfred proposed a couple of months before the announcement, so plans were already well under way. I do wish Benjamin had talked to me first, so I could let him know the best way to do things.” She sighed. “But such is life. And after the wedding, Katrín will have a household to learn how to run.”

  Unlikely.

  King Benjamin seemed to imply that nothing would change.

  Katrín, the new queen, would remain in her windowless sub-subbasement quarters, wash dishes, scrub pots, clean fryers, and occasionally, in her copious amounts of time off, get fitted for dresses for the fancy galas and balls that she would sometimes be required to attend as the wife of the king.

  She wouldn’t be able to consider herself the queen. She wasn’t going to be his wife. She was a means to an end. A way to keep the royal family from declining further in the eyes of the general public. A feel-good story for the press.

  But never truly queen. She likely wouldn’t have any more conversation with King Benjamin than she had the first five years she lived in the palace. He wouldn’t need her except to occasionally remind the people that he was “happily” married before he became the “grieving” widower in less than eighteen months.

  She certainly wouldn’t have access to the family’s kitchen in the private quarters portion of the palace.

  Or did they each have their own kitchens? Were there multiple kitchens so they didn’t have to share?

  What did she know?

  It was a portion of the palace she’d never had been, and never would be, welcome.

  3

  “Benjamin.”

  He looked up from the paperwork on his desk at the sound of his mother’s voice to see the disapproval he heard evident on her face. “Good evening, Mother.” He set his pen down. “Have a seat?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I just came from tea with your intended.”

  “Katrín?” A ball of lead formed in his stomach.

  “Yes. She’s a lovely girl.”

  “But?” Clearly she had something on her mind.

  Her hands shifted to her hips. “You haven’t officially proposed to her? When the news came out the other day, you told us the two of you had kept things quiet, but she told me there was no official proposal.”

  Benjamin swallowed his sigh. “No. I never got on one knee, if that’s what you’re asking.” Kings didn’t do that sort of thing. So Isaiah had tried to ingrain in him.

  But maybe Isaiah had been wrong about that, just as Benjamin was learning he’d been wrong about other things.

  “And you haven’t given her a ring, either.”

  His mother’s frown was almost too much. “I didn’t know what ring to give her,” he answered honestly. “I’m not sure a family heirloom is the right way to go. I feel like those should be saved for my sisters.” He had enough sisters, and few enough rings with that kind of significance for the royal family. At least, engagement rings.

  “Oh, fiddlesticks.” He’d done a double take the first time his mother said that, but Esther had picked it up while living in the States and his mother quite enjoyed the phrase. “There are plenty of heirloom rings, even if some of them have never been used as engagement rings before.”

  “If you say so. Crown jewels have never been a source of fascination for me.” That was Genevieve’s department.

  “Your sister thinks something odd is going on because there’s no ring and no
proposal story.” His mother’s gentle tone would convict him if he let it.

  “Nothing odd.” Benjamin leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk. “I just don’t know anything about rings and didn’t want to talk to anyone until Katrín said yes.”

  He closed his eyes and when he opened them a jeweler’s box sat in front of him.

  “Give her that one.”

  Benjamin glanced up at his mother to see tears shimmering in her eyes. He popped open the box, then shook his head when he saw the ring. “I can’t, Mother.” He snapped it closed and held it out. “This is your ring.”

  She nodded, the tears spilling over. “The one your father gave me when he took a knee in front of everyone at the Festival and asked me to be his bride.” After a deep breath, his mother smiled. “And I want your bride to have it, if you think she’ll like it.”

  “Who wouldn’t like it?”

  “Then propose properly and give it to her.”

  He didn’t see a way out of it without telling her more than he should. “I’ll ask her.”

  “Good.” She came around the desk. He stood and let her wrap her arms around his waist. Embracing her, he wondered what his father would say. Benjamin wouldn’t be in this situation if his father had lived. The royal family had been quite popular before his father’s death and his mother’s depression following the loss.

  His mother moved away. “She’s going to be good for you, Benjamin. She already has been.”

  He sat back down as she started for the door. “What do you mean?” It had been less than two days since the news broke.

  She hesitated then looked him in the eye from across the room. “Isaiah is your uncle, and your father’s brother, but he needed to be removed from a position of power a long time ago.”

  He picked up his pen and twirled it between his fingers. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I tried a few times, but you weren’t ready to listen. Now that you have Katrín, you stood up to him. He wouldn’t have approved of you marrying someone indentured to the family, but you made sure he wasn’t here to tell you not to marry the woman you love.” She smiled as she swiped at her cheeks. “I’m proud of you.”