THE EXILED PRINCE SON-IN-LAW STRIKES BACK

Chapter 1: The Stray Parks the Cars

"Hey, stray! Catch."

The keys hit me in the chest and fell onto the gravel. Rupert Ashworth laughed, loud and red-faced, with an unlit cigar between his fingers, and the guests around him laughed too.

"Park it near the fountain," he said. "And wash it while you're at it. It's dusty from the drive."

I picked up the keys. "Yes, Rupert."

My name is Leon Grey. I'm twenty-eight years old, and tonight, like every year, I was parking the cars at the Ashworth family's Spring Rose Gala.

Ashworth Hall glowed above me, white stone and tall windows, every light switched on. From the outside, it looked like the house of a great family. From the inside, if you knew where to look, you could see the buckets in the attic catching rain and the pale squares on the walls where paintings used to hang.

I knew where to look. I'd lived here for three years.

Three years ago, an old friend found me a job here as a driver. A few weeks later, Lord Edmund Ashworth called me into his study, looked at me for a long time over his silver-headed cane and told me I would marry his granddaughter. The family needed a quiet husband, he said, one who would cause no trouble. Nobody asked me what I wanted. Nobody asked Victoria either.

I parked Rupert's car by the fountain and came back for the next one. A woman in a silver dress handed me her keys without looking at my face. Her husband told me to be careful with the leather seats. A young man in a white jacket pointed at me and whispered to his date, and she giggled.

"That's him? The husband?"

"The refugee. No family, no money. Lord Ashworth found him somewhere."

I kept walking. Three years of this teaches you to stop hearing it.

By nine o'clock, the cars were parked, and Rupert sent me inside to carry drinks. The ballroom was full of two hundred people from the best families in Rosegate, drinking champagne under crystal chandeliers that the Ashworths couldn't afford anymore. A string quartet played in the corner. On a giant screen above the fireplace, a slideshow showed old photos of the Ashworth family: grandfathers in uniforms, grandmothers in pearls, two hundred years of a great name.

I stood at the back with a silver tray and watched my wife.

"Stray." Rupert appeared at my elbow, breathing champagne. "My lighter's in the car. Fetch it."

"You never light that cigar, Rupert."

"I might tonight." He grinned at the two girls beside him. "Go on. Run."

I went without a word. When I came back with the lighter, he dropped it into his pocket without looking at me.

Victoria stood beside her mother near the fireplace, tall and straight in a dark blue dress, her light brown hair pinned up, a small gold magnifying glass hanging on a chain at her neck. She was twenty-seven, and she was the most beautiful woman in the room, and she had never once looked at me the way a wife looks at a husband.

We married three years ago because her grandfather told her to. That was all. A business arrangement. She was twenty-four then, one year from losing her family's seat in the Circle of Crowns, and I was the stranger who happened to be standing in the right room.

"Turn on the news!" someone called from the crowd. A banker near the screen was holding up his phone. "Something's happening in the east. Can you put it on the big screen?"

Somebody did. The slideshow of the Ashworth grandfathers disappeared, and a news report filled the screen.

A man stood behind a wooden podium covered in microphones. He was tall and silver-haired, with a neatly trimmed beard and cold blue eyes, and his dark suit was covered in medals.

For a moment, I stopped breathing.

"Breaking news from Kestrovia," the reporter said. "Regent Casimir Varenne has just made a shocking announcement."

The man at the podium smiled. It was a warm smile, a gentle smile, the same smile he'd worn when he lifted a ten-year-old boy onto his first horse and told him not to be afraid.

"People of Kestrovia," Casimir said, "for twelve years I have served you as Regent. But a country needs one strong voice, not a crowd of arguing politicians. In thirty days, Parliament will vote on the Crown Law. It will dissolve Parliament forever and give our nation the strong king it deserves."

Around me, the guests went back to their drinks.

"Kestrovia? Where's that?"

"The little mountain place. Gas, I think."

"Who cares? Turn the music back on."

"Leon." A waiter tapped my arm. "Lady Beatrice wants more champagne at the front table."

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

Nobody looked at the man at the back of the room with the silver tray. Nobody saw my fingers turn white around its edges, or the way the glasses on it started to shake.

Thirty days.

My uncle was going to make himself king. Forever.

The screen switched back to the slideshow. The quartet started playing again. I made my hands stop shaking, one finger at a time.

Then Lady Beatrice Ashworth tapped her glass with a silver spoon.

"Friends! Friends, may I have your attention?"

My mother-in-law was fifty-two, elegant, with ash-blonde hair and a long string of pearls. She smiled at the room like a queen.

"Thank you all for coming to our Rose Gala. As many of you know, the Ashworth name has been part of Rosegate for two hundred years. But even great families have hard seasons." Her smile didn't move, but her eyes did. "Ashworth Fine Art and Auctions owes thirty million dollars to its creditors. The payment is due on the night of our Spring Auction, in seven days."

The whole room went quiet. A few people looked at each other. Behind her, Victoria's father, Charles, stared at his shoes. At the head table, old Lord Edmund Ashworth sat with both hands on his silver-headed cane and didn't move at all.

"But tonight," Beatrice went on, "I'm happy to say that a friend has offered to save us. Anton, darling?"

A man stepped out of the crowd. He was thirty-four, handsome and tanned, with slicked blond hair, a big white smile and a heavy gold watch that flashed under the chandeliers.

Anton Rask. The heir of Rask Energy, the company that controlled every gas pipeline in Kestrovia.

My uncle's pipelines.

"Thank you, Lady Beatrice." Anton bowed. "I've always admired the Ashworth family. So I'll pay the whole debt. Every dollar."

People began to clap. Beatrice held up her hand.

"There is one small condition," she said sweetly. "Anton has asked for my daughter's hand. Victoria will divorce her current husband and marry Anton by summer. The papers are already prepared."

The clapping started again, louder this time. Somebody whistled. Rupert laughed and slapped Anton on the back.

I looked at Victoria.

She stood beside her mother in her dark blue dress, very still, her face as calm as a painting. Her green eyes were fixed on a point somewhere across the room.

She said nothing. Not one word.

Anton turned slowly, scanning the crowd with his big white smile, until his eyes landed on me at the back of the room. He reached into his pocket.

Then he started walking toward me, swinging a heavy set of gold car keys around his finger.