Rachel’s personal maid, Lisa, bowed her head. “The letter I brought you from the young mistress yesterday was the first, Master.”
“Officially, yes.”
It bothered him that his daughter was enjoying this too much. It also bothered him that, despite the businesslike tone they were written in, the reports were full of things that seemed crazy.
Setting down her glass, the queen passed the report she’d been looking at to the king. “Rachel really is the only one fit to be the next queen. Just look at this report. It’s so detailed and concise. Compare that to the pathetic, fragmentary reports the people in the palace send us just once a week.”
The duke figured that they were so detailed because she also wrote about what she was doing backstage to trip the prince up. The courtiers who were forced to watch this play from the guest seats couldn’t possibly write about any of that.
“But, after seeing this, we can’t very well have Rachel marry the prince. They wouldn’t last a year together,” said the duchess, looking more than a little intoxicated. The report she was holding covered the incident that had gotten Sykes shipped off to the frontier.
With the cold face of a ruler, the queen poured chilled wine into the duchess’s empty glass. “We’ll give up on Elliott and make Raymond the crown prince instead. The members of Elliott’s faction will need convincing, but after this debacle, they’ve likely given up already.”
The king was quick to jump in and add, “I mean, Rachel probably planned for that when she caused this incident.” He drained another mug, waving to Lisa for a refill. “When she gets back at Elliott, she’s deliberately doing it in a way that causes collateral damage and that will keep him busy. People in the palace are all now seeing his utter ineptitude. Yes, the best way for her to avoid his taking revenge is to bring him down.”
The king and queen looked at each other.
“I knew I wasn’t wrong when I said I wanted Rachel to be queen,” the queen bragged. “Look at how she’s cleverly manipulating those more powerful than her. She analyzes everything calmly and has the ability to prepare things in advance while still keeping them secret.”
The king nodded. “Yeah. I was surprised that time she pushed Elliott into the pond and threw rocks at him, but I was very impressed by the way she calmly explained her rationale without a hint of guilt. To me, his father! She was capable and bold, and she fully understood the situation. I could see she was meant to rule, not to serve.”
“And the way she’s masterminded an operation of this scale from prison... I’d have expected no less from her.”
“She gets major points for getting her followers to stick with her when she’d essentially lost all of her power.”
The more Rachel messed with Elliott, the more the royal couple trusted her. Now they were even talking about replacing the prince instead of the fiancée. Because Rachel had gone too far, it was actually going to be even harder for her to get out of it now. Lisa was amused by the irony.
When Lisa brought them fresh drinks, the king and queen had a good time smashing their mugs together.
“Prison, yay!”
The duke picked up the scattered reports from the table and handed them to Lisa. “Still, taking all of that into account, we do need to end this. We can’t leave our country’s center of power empty forever.”
“Yeah, you have a point,” the king agreed. “I suppose this relaxing hot springs trip, which has lasted for two whole months, has reached its conclusion.”
The king let out a great sigh and leaned against the back of the sofa. The queen and the duchess looked at each other.
“The endless loop of eating, bathing, and sleeping...”
“The delightful commoner food that we can’t get in the palace, and the parties we can enjoy without decorum...”
“Where we don’t have to keep up appearances for polite society...”
“And there are no subordinates to get in our way, or spiteful political rivals to waste our time...”
The four of them lay down on their respective sofas.
“Ahh, I don’t want to go home...”
A maid in a black coat appeared from the darkness of the dungeon.
“Young mistress.”
Rachel, who’d been playing with Haley, looked up. “Hmm? This isn’t a report day, is it? What happened?”
The maid bowed her head and said, “We received an urgent message from Lisa at the Fracker Hot Springs. His Majesty and the master will be returning soon.”
“Hmm.” Rachel sat up and stroked her chin. “That’s the public report, right? What’s the secret one?”
“Lisa will explain more when she returns, but...their Majesties have decided to cut Prince Elliott loose and make Prince Raymond the crown prince instead.”
“Oh, my!” Rachel exclaimed, cocking her head to the side. “What could His Highness have done wrong?”
That didn’t seem to require an answer, so the maid silently ignored her mistress’s poorly feigned ignorance.
After some quiet consideration, Rachel suddenly asked, “By the way, what was Prince Raymond like again?”
“You have complete control of this situation, yet you’re missing key details because of your lack of interest, I see,” the maid answered.
“I remember he’s three years younger than Prince Elliott.”
“I’ll bring you a profile on him tomorrow.”
“What, does he have some kind of fetish you’d prefer not to speak of, then?”
“Interpret it as you like...”
Rachel lay down on her back and rolled over in bed. “Ah... My vacation’s over after just three months, huh?”
“Young mistress. For most people, if they leave their job for three months, they have to worry if it will be there for them when they come back.”
“Do they now?” Rachel rolled around, grinning.
The maid saw where this was going and decided to head it off at the pass. “In light of your future usefulness, young mistress, I do not think you will be fired from being the duke’s daughter.”
Rachel hung her head in dejection. “Please, leave me some room to enjoy the fantasy, at least?”
“We would be in a difficult spot if you were to ask us to make that happen. So, no.”