Matilda looks at me in surprise, and then her face relaxes. “I’m so pleased that my letters made a small difference to her. I sat in on the meetings about her with the Deputy Secretary and it occurred to me how lonely and cut off she must be feeling.”
I envy Matilda with her purpose and her office that she gets to come to every day. It would be better to be doing something like this than thinking about family duties and being a good lady of the Court.
I must look downcast, because Matilda reaches out and covers my hand with hers.
“Don’t blame yourself. You saw problems with Paravel and you did your best to change them. I can only commend that.”
“Jakob wouldn’t put it like that,” I grumble.
Her smile gets bigger. “I know how formidable Jakob can be when he’s charging about trying to get things done. He’s been at his worst lately. He was so angry about Lungren’s son being anywhere near Lady Aubrey. He’ll be more reasonable when things have calmed down.”
She talks like she knows him well, and I remember her coming up during lunch with Galen and Jakob. “I’m curious. What was he like before the monarchy was restored?”
She thinks for a moment. “Focused and determined, but when he wasn’t focused on work, he had a wicked sense of fun. He always looked out for me. Him and Galen.” She trails off sadly and gazes into her lap. When she looks up she’s plastered a smile onto her face. “I hear you’re going to be married. Congratulations.”
“Uh, yes. Well. I’m…I’m sorry about your father. It must be hard to see people celebrating the Paravel he helped to bring about when he isn’t here.”
Matilda’s expression becomes fixed. “It was a long time ago.”
Not that long. Only a few years, actually. Maybe, like Jakob, she hates talking about the past, too.
“I had lunch with Galen Levanter recently,” I say, and Matilda flinches.
She finishes her coffee, her cheeks draining of color. “Thank you so much for telling me about Briar. I’ll keep writing to her as much as I can. Next month I’m going to Hungary for a human rights conference, but meanwhile, I have a favor to ask you.”
“Oh?”
Matilda goes back out into the office, opens a filing cabinet and comes back with a large archive box. “There are four boxes like this. They’re filled with palace memos from the final weeks of King Gregor’s reign. I need someone to read through them and find out why things fell apart, then give the story to the newspapers.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“I’m glad you think so, because I’d like you to do it.”
I stare at her in surprise. “Me? There are hundreds of people who work here. Can’t you ask one of them?”
Matilda tilts her head from side to side, musing on this. “I could, but I feel like the sort of information that’s in these boxes shouldn’t reach the press from a government office. It might seem petty or even a challenge to the monarchy. Better off coming from someone independent.”
“I’m not independent though. I’m from the First Families.”
She smiles at me. “You’re someone who wants the very best for the people of this country. The truth. That’s why I know I can trust you.”
I glance at the box, my fingers already itching to start going through them. Memos from the final gruesome weeks of King Gregor’s reign when everything was falling apart. When people lost confidence in the King as their ruler and Varga was able to step in, killing everyone he didn’t agree with, and seize control. “My family never talked about why the monarchy fell twenty-seven years ago. It’s a banned topic.”
“No one’s talking about it. A madman took over Paravel, and I think we should know how, and why, so it doesn’t happen again.”
I think we should, too. It will upset Mum and Dad if I say yes. It will probably upset Jakob, too, but this is important. This is something I can do to help, and I’ll find some tactful way to tell my parents and Jakob about it, somehow.
“All right. I’ll take a look.” Wraye can probably advise me of the right journalist to give my findings to, though she’ll have to help me behind her husband’s back. No one from the First Families is going to like what I’m doing, except maybe her and Aubrey.
“Wonderful. Thank you so much.”
I walk out of the government offices with my bodyguards carrying the boxes. Matilda Desjardins is a shrewd young woman. It’s no surprise, really, when she’s the daughter of a spy.
I’m only a block from Jakob’s office and I ask the guards to escort me there. He hasn’t been mad at me to my face for days. He hasn’t kissed me in days, either. It doesn’t seem right.