Heart of Stone (11 page)

15.

Queen Cozette

Palace Royale, Éclat, Gemmes

The hall bustled with life. Just two days after the king’s request for the Royal Ball and already the Palace filled with decorators, caterers, and dressmakers.

Cozette smiled, hands clasped under her chin, as she paused at the painter in the foyer.

“I suppose it would make sense to have an updated portrait.”

The painter before her heartily agreed, already mentioning colors for the piece.

Cozette beamed. Having a new portrait in the hall felt solid, as though her role as queen would live on infinitely. Something about having her face hanging in the Royal hall made her feel assured in her title. A decade had passed since the king and queen had commissioned a piece, and the one hanging appeared so obviously forced.

Looking down the hall at all the portraits of Royalty before her, families with both sons and daughters, she saw how they used their children to keep their grip on the crown. Cozette winced, knowing she didn’t have that luxury.

She dismissed the heavy thought, wanting to enjoy this time of merriment. Besides, the son of Marcus’s sister, across the Sea in Gradia would reign in Gemmes one day. Stephen would inherit the title Cozette and Marcus was unable to preserve. All was not lost.

“Cozette,” Marcus called to her. He hurried down the long hall, but stopped when she turned to answer him.

Cozette would be lying to say her heart didn’t beat a bit faster when seeing him, broken nose and all. Still the handsome man she’d fallen so hard for. If only he would soften to her a bit. She longed to be pulled into his arms and have him tell her he missed her, tenderly.

Even though so many years had passed, Marcus remained strong and capable … Cozette saw this when she looked. He grew more handsome with time and his smart, fierce fire for Gemmes attracted her, the only man she had ever loved. She would never get over him, she knew that. She didn’t want to.

Pushing those thoughts away, Cozette knew she needed to be in the here and now. With Marcus.

“Yes, My Lord?” she answered.

“Would you like to walk with me to the pavilion? Drake suggested it might be used for the grand
fete
. I haven’t been in ages, and suppose I ought to see it before I make a decision.” Marcus looked like a younger version of himself. Actually happy. Genuinely in want of her company.

“Of course.” Cozette bowed her head to him, not wanting to reveal the large smile spread across her face. She knew he preferred a snotty furl of the lip. She promised herself to try harder for him, as unnatural as it felt.

He held out his arm, and she took it. As they walked through the Palace toward the pavilion, Cozette noticed the whispers of the servants as they passed. The king hadn’t requested Cozette’s company so much in the past decade.

“I must admit that I hadn’t expected you to be so willing to participate in my scheme,” he said, in a discreet voice. “We last plotted together a lifetime ago.”

Cozette’s research informed her of the real motivation behind Marcus attention, a fact she would need to keep foremost in her mind so as to not fall under any illusions. She lightly gripped the inside of his arm and vowed to help him win over the Royalty from neighboring countries, to thereby increase their trade routes. The barricade would be lifted. Marcus’s insane taxes would be gone.

She used her free hand to center the emerald necklace on her slender neck. “Marcus, I’ve always been willing to help you. It was you who stopped including me.” She may be sweet, but never juvenile. Her intentions were clear. “I want to be a part of this. I want to be with you.”

Marcus cleared his throat. Cozette found herself watching him as they walked toward the pavilion, now in the open summer air. If she tried, she could smell the salty sea air. She breathed in deeply and held her shoulders straight, allowing herself to wear the cloak of royalty. Cozette and Marcus looked every bit the part of king and queen.

Somewhere along the way their history became entangled in half-truths. Marcus never told her the entire truth about the affairs of Gemmes, the thing that once knit them together. Now she had to learn any information she had on Gemmes from the people closest to him.

In turn, Cozette silently continued her philanthropy to the best of her ability, feigning that she spent her personal gemstones on gowns and jewels, when in reality she siphoned it to the people of Gemmes. Marcus had created this divide and Cozette didn’t understand why. Cozette did little to bridge the space between them.

“It is good to hear. You’ve become a bit … soft. I haven’t seen the girl who calculated and schemed with me for nearly eighteen years.”

“Why do you say this now? You’ve refused to utter these simple words before this day.” Cozette stunned herself at the boldness of her words, but she was desperate to understand.

Cozette stopped and faced her husband. Alone, they stood squarely in the center of the pavilion. An enormous golden welded structure, ensconced with thousands of oversized crystals. It sparkled dazzlingly in the sun filled sky, tilting across their faces.

“I’ve never been so….” he paused and looked at her, hesitating on a word. A word Cozette realized as soon as she asked.

“Desperate,” she finished for him.

The truth hung suspended for a moment, but then it floated away, to the clouds. It didn’t seem to matter as much as it might have before. The grief of the lost child Cozette loved and mourned for so many years faded away. Marcus taking this step, acknowledging, plainly, the divide, made it seem so much smaller. So much easier to cross.

It is this way with grief. It can divide as long as it is allowed. The passageway between two grieving souls can be bridged, if vulnerability is revealed. Cozette had always been willing. Marcus only now opened up in the fear of losing his hold on Gemmes.

Cozette cared not.

He looked at her, this woman he hardly knew, and Cozette allowed him to look deeper still. As far in as he wanted because she craved this touch, this intimacy. She still loved him, but it had grown into a visceral, unhinged love.

She kissed him.

And he kissed her back.

Under this pavilion Cozette gave into his lips, with the promise of a ball where they would dance and make merry. Where they would make believe.

Maybe there would be less pretending than either of them originally thought.

She let her mouth linger on his, bringing him nearer to her still. She believed herself capable of nurturing him into a gentle man, a man with place in his heart for her.

Caring not for his reason … desperation or greed … she only wanted something to love.

Looking in his eyes, she believed a speck of love flickered between them still as they stood underneath the crystals dancing off of one another, suspended in air.

16.

Tristan

North Montagne, Gemmes

After a tortuous night of sleep – due to the ridiculously tantalizing creature a mere two feet from where he lay – he woke with a start.

He would find the diamond today.

He would prove Uncle Rémy proud.

              He would make Sophie fall in love with him.

They’d been awfully close last night. Though, perplexingly enough, he pulled back from her at the last minute, not letting their escapade result in the conclusion he usually sought.

Sophie scared him, of her power over him. She seemed utterly unaware of her tempting prowess. To make matters worse, she seemed oblivious to his restraint. She clearly enjoyed it, Tristan observed, but when he breathlessly whispered sweet nothings in her ear, she didn’t murmur the similar sentiments back.

How rare to be more enchanted with another, than she with him.

It unnerved him.

It fueled him.

Uncle Rémy would be peeved, to say the least. Tristan had so quickly let a stranger in on their soon-to-be wealth. Foolish, yes, but he couldn’t resist. Besides, he rationalized, she would ultimately be his. In every possible way. It wasn’t as if he had to force himself on her last night. She greedily took the first kiss.

Tristan smiled as he pulled on his shoes and quickly rolled his blankets. He wanted to get moving this morning. The anticipation of the hunt swept through him as he methodically began to repack his bag. He folded the sweater he’d worn to bed tightly and pushed it to the bottom of his bag, before beginning on Sophie’s. He’d packed it yesterday at the
Aubérge
, helping her condense her items, yet she had managed to get her items strewn about the bunkhouse within hours.
Women always seemed capable of this
, Tristan thought shaking his head.

He looked at Sophie, and just one glance sidetracked him from the task at hand. Her lips pouted in her sleep, her dark hair a mess of tangles. He wanted to strum his fingers though the tendrils, push her hair away, and kiss her neck.

Shaking the thoughts away, he knew it was slightly creepy to watch her sleep anyhow, and instead continued to pack their bags.

His hand brushed against a box he didn’t remember bringing. He pulled out the black box, and opened it curiously.

He gasped, seeing the eight-sided diamond, the seventh
trésor
he searched for.

He took it out of the box silently, wanting to be certain. He inhaled, beholding the prized diamond, and also the lost ring of Gemmes.

The fabled ring, supposedly lost generations ago by the Queen of Gemmes, in the woods, was also
the crystal-clear diamond the size of a plum, clear as glass, the link to the future, the jewel of the past
. He had memorized the words from the Lore of the Cavern and it silently slipped off his tongue as he accepted what he held.

He had the sixth, solitary thing, he sought.

He looked at Sophie, considering her, and he became vulnerable, scared. What
was
this wild creature doing here, with him, with the diamond?

His gut churned as the truth dawned on him.

“Sophie,” he said, his voice forcibly even. “Wake up.” He shook her arm. She stirred.

“Ugh. Let me sleep,” she whined, shrugging him off.

“No, I need to talk to you. Now.”

“Be a doll and give me a few more minutes.” She pushed his arm away, burrowing herself under the blankets.

Tristan had no time for her games, and in exasperation raised his voice.

“I need to talk to you. Now. About this!” He shoved the box in her face, his anger flaring.

Sophie sat up annoyed, but her eyes grew wide in a flash, and she grabbed the diamond from him.

“Oh Hedge, what are you doing, shuffling through my things?” she asked accusingly.

“Me? You are questioning me? You are the spy. The informant. The cheat,” he said pointing his finger at her.

“I am none of those things.” She glared at him.

“Then explain why you have the sixth gemstone, but agreed to come with me to the Montagne to look for the very thing you possess!” he shouted, outraged at her dismissal.

“Don’t accuse me of being a liar! I didn’t know I had it until last night!”

“You expect me to believe that?” He stopped inches from her face.

“I don’t care what you believe. It was a present from Henri, when he proposed, the night I left the
Vallee
.” Sophie glowered at him, as she pushed him away at his shoulders.

“You are a poor girl, from a poor town, yet your beau had the most lucrative stone in Gemmes? Impossible to believe.”

“Give it a rest, would you? I’m not attempting to prove myself to you. Henri had it, before you did – so be mad at him. I work for no one. Wouldn’t even want to. If you don’t trust me, fine. I’ll go.”

Tristan looked at her heatedly. He wanted to be angry, livid, and irate, but the idea of her leaving caused his chest to ache, his face numb. He needed her like he had needed to breathe.

More than anything.

“It is a bit of a coincidence, you’ll give me that, right?” Tristan asked.

Sophie jerked her shoulders back and gave a sharp laugh.

“It is quite a fluke,” she agreed.

“You expect me to believe you had it, unknowingly?”

“Are you sure it’s the precise gem?” she asked. “It has a band attached.”

Tristan explained the queen’s lost ring that had vanished years ago in the woods. How powerful it made this particular stone.

“Are you going to steal the diamond and kick me out then?” Sophie questioned him.

“I can’t let you go.”

Tristan knew what little choice he had. He couldn’t let Sophie leave; it wasn’t a choice, especially now that she knew where the other gems were located. He had impulsively shown her where they were hidden. He’d practically already given away everything he and Uncle Remy sought. Such a reckless fool.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked demurely, her gown falling off her shoulder, seductively.

Tristan realized she acted coy on purpose. He didn’t care.

“Kiss me. Prove your innocence,” he requested.

“This may be the one time in my life I am innocent.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Tristan pulled her to him, and they kissed like they had the night before. The tension of the morning melting as Sophie wrapped her arms around his waist, falling into him.

In that moment, as much as he craved the diamond, he wanted her more.