“I’m going with you.” Fagin says, heading toward her own quarters to change out of her black sweats and into court-appropriate attire. “I’ll start looking for Trevor in the kitchens; if she’s still in disguise, she might show up there, first. You...” She points at me. “Talk with any of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting that you can find, especially the ones who testified against her last night. And you...” She points back at Nico. “See what else you can find about these bogus charges and when they have scheduled the execution. She’s being set up and you can bet whoever’s behind this will want to see it done as fast as possible.”
When I arrive at the palace, I find the outer chamber of Anne’s apartments deserted. It also looks freshly ransacked. I wonder if the raiders found—or planted—any fake evidence to bolster the charges against her. They didn’t need much help in that regard. You did a fine fucking job of giving them a smoking gun letter to finish her off.
Having a conscience can be a bitch.
“Someone was in a hurry,” Nico says, deadpan. “Turn to your left and give me a view of the other side of the room.” When I oblige, and he gets a glimpse of the detritus scattered everywhere, he lets out a long, low whistle. “Whoever it was, they were moving hard and fast looking for whatever it is they were looking for.”
“They didn’t bother tidying up when they were done tearing it apart, either.”
A faint sob drifts out of Anne’s bedroom.
“I think we’ve got a live one,” I say, moving in the direction of the sound.
“Easy does it. Give me a good visual sweep of the room as you go in.”
“Roger that.”
The door is ajar and I nudge it farther open with one foot before peering around the edge. The moon has set, but the sun hasn’t yet broken the horizon so there’s no light in the room. I can’t see much further past my extended hand until my eyes adjust.
“Easy,” Nico repeats. “That’s it, nice and easy.”
The sob is soft, muffled. It’s coming from the left side of the room. There’s a hiccup and a sniffle before the sob builds. It’s definitely a woman’s cry.
“Hello?” I say, not too loud. I don’t want whoever is in the corner to scream. “Hello, who’s there?”
There’s another snuffling sound, then a tentative question. “Mademoiselle Clémence? Is that you?”
“Yes. Who is there?”
“Anne,” comes the reply. “Gainsford.”
My eyes have adjusted enough to see the woman’s silhouette as she crouches in the corner. I scan the rest of the room again to confirm there’s no one else hiding in the shadows before I move over to her.
“Anne, tell me what happened.” Kneeling next to her, I reach out my hand. When my fingers graze her knee, she lunges into my arms, nearly knocking me off-balance, and sobs into my shoulder. We collapse in a heap on the floor.
Though I make all the comforting sounds I can—a Herculean feat given that the agitation coursing through me still has me off-balance—it doesn’t soothe her; she alternates between anguished howls and full-on blubbering. All of which makes intelligible speech an impossibility.
“Anne, I can’t understand you. Slow down.” It takes some convincing, but I finally get her to lock eyes with me and breathe together in a slow, smooth rhythm. When her breathing settles into gentler pattern, I question her again. “What happened?”
“How could they treat her thus?” Anne’s eyes burn with intensity, a mixture of grief and anger and confusion. “The king seemed so in love. They both seemed so in love.”
I don’t have time for this. “Anne,” I say, controlling my words in a gentle, measured tone. “Tell me every detail that happened from the time I left your company in Lady Anne’s chamber last night and this morning when Anne’s uncle arrived.”
She chews her lower lip. “I served Lady Anne’s dinner—she had little appetite and vomited halfway through the meal. No doubt from the horror of the vile attack on her person—then I helped her with the stool, and...”
“Perhaps, not that much detail,” I say, cutting her off before she goes any further in-depth regarding Lady Anne’s toilet habits. “Tell me what happened this morning.”
“My lady is falsely accused,” she says. Her eyes turn cold and hard. Sweet Anne Gainsford, perpetually kind, sincere, and unassuming, turns from meek lady-in-waiting to hellhound in the time it takes to snap your fingers. “I wish I could cross paths with the villain who has maligned my sweet lady in such a way. Whoever has cast such vile and deceitful accusations against her would be fortunate to spend eternity in hell for their lies rather than face my wrath.”
From the look on her face and the venom in her voice, I’d be tempted to choose hell instead of facing her if that act of penitence were required to enter heaven.
“Calm yourself. Surely, the king will show her mercy and listen to her defense in these accusations. He loves her with his whole heart and soul, of that I am certain.”
Anne wrinkles her nose and looks at me as if I’m talking nonsense. “Listen to her?” A sob hiccups, again, in her throat. “The trial is done and she is condemned. There will be no mercy for her.”
“What about her father? Can’t he speak to the king on her behalf?”
“All of the Boleyns have been banished from court. At least, they will be exiled after the execution today.”
Oh, fuck.
Nico’s voice breaks in, “Today?”
“When is the execution?” I ask, swallowing the bile that rises to the back of my throat.
Anne Gainsford’s eyes well up again. Her shoulders heave and her whole
