“You’re just getting old,” Alec said, grinning at Liam. Alec’s sartorial splendor was only slightly less than his brother’s. He tilted the glass in his hand, watching the liquid swirl around with an assessing expression, and then turned his focus on Cameron. “Sure you don’t want a soothing sip or two, little brother? Calm the nerves. Getting betrothed can be a nervous business.”
“I’m not nervous,” Cam repeated. He straightened the collar of his dress uniform. The bright red was familiar, but amid all the black in the room, he felt overly conspicuous. Or maybe that was just because he was about to be the center of attention. He could have worn civilian garb like his brothers but had chosen the uniform. He knew his brothers’ finery was both a display of the strength of Inglewood and a display of support for him—a reminder that Cameron was a Mackenzie, brother to an erl. But it couldn’t hurt to remind anyone who might object to his marriage that he was a soldier. An elite one. A trained battle mage.
He wasn’t sure exactly how he felt. Looking forward to seeing Sophie. Worried about her. Wondering what came next. He hadn’t had any time at all with the queen-to-be. No chance to speak to her alone. To try to apologize personally. Lady Beata had discussed the betrothal arrangements with them.
Well, maybe that was best. He couldn’t change what had happened, and Eloisa would have had to end it with him eventually. Even as brother to an erl, he was not fit to be consort to a queen.
“You can say you’re not nervous as often as you like, but that doesn’t make it true,” Liam said, putting the paper down as the quarter bell rang. He glanced toward the door, where, as if on cue, Jeanne appeared.
Cam tugged at his collar one last time. Time to go to court.
Eloisa’s temporary audience hall had been thoroughly transformed. It didn’t look like a ballroom. It did, however, lack a throne. King Stefan’s throne was presumably ash and splinters, like the rest of the furnishings in the Salt Hall. Someone had placed a large gilded chair with deep-blue velvet upholstery on the platform that had been erected at the southern end of the room. It was impressive but lacked the imposing bulk of the blackwood and nacre Salt Throne.
Cameron followed Liam down the aisle toward the front of the rows of chairs. The chairs—also gilt and velvet—looked more comfortable than the blackwood benches that the court had previously had to put up with, but they were, like the throne, harbingers of change.
Protocol demanded that Eloisa not sit on the Salt Throne before she was crowned anyway, but she should have been seated before it. The space where the throne would have been was a stark reminder of exactly what had happened. Eloisa was going to have to work harder to bring her court to heel without the weight of history the throne represented to lend her any gravitas.
Maybe she already had teams of furniture makers working on a new throne somewhere in the depths of the palace. But even an exact replica wouldn’t have the same significance.
Cameron took his seat next to Alec and tried not to let anything show on his face as they waited for the court to assemble. Curiosity apparently fueled the eagerness of the courtiers today. Whether the speed was driven by the desire to see how the queen-to-be would handle the situation or whether they wanted to see for themselves who had survived and who had fallen and what that meant for court alliances and feuds, the courtiers took their places far more rapidly than usual. Often it took a good half an hour past the appointed audience time for everyone to arrive and be seated. Today Cameron didn’t think there was one empty place—other than the gaps left by those injured or dead and the grander rows of chairs nearest the platform left for Eloisa’s retinue—by the time the hour bell started to toll.
A hush settled over the crowded hall as swiftly as the sun slipping below the horizon in midwinter. One minute chatter and laughter had made the air fairly vibrate; then, the next, there was silence, bar the echoing chimes of the great bronze bell in the Sea Rook.
When the last toll faded away, the master of court didn’t even need to bang his staff to bring the court to order. To a person, they rose and turned to await the entrance of the queen-to-be, row after row of silk and satin and velvet in all the colors of the rainbow.
Eloisa had sent an edict stating that those who wished to mourn personal losses would be permitted the choice but that the court was not to don mourning for King Stefan. So there was a fair sprinkling of black amongst the brighter shades. Pearls and jewels glittered as skirts swayed and jackets and shirts were smoothed. The room seemed to hold its collective breath as two young pages in Fairley blue and gold pulled back the doors and Eloisa stood framed in the light.
Her dress was blue and gold, too. Deep blue like a falling twilight, embroidered heavily with gold thread. Fantastical flowers and leaves and branches twined up her sleeves and down over her skirt. Around her neck a triple strand of thumb-sized cream pearls circled her throat and fell down her chest. Heavy gold beads and sapphires broke the creamy white here and there.
Her mother had worn that particular necklace, Cameron realized. One of the first days he’d attended court had been the day that Eloisa’s betrothal had been announced, and he remembered the queen by King Stefan’s side, pearls at her throat, standing very straight as her daughter had been bound to her husband-to-be.
The jewels were spectacular, matched by a tiara set in Eloisa’s bright hair. Since she hadn’t worn anything other than black pearls and dark colors since she’d returned to court following Iain’s death, the change in her appearance was startling.