Read Tomorrow's Kingdom for Free Online

daughter’s face as she considered all the many, many things that her little heart desired.
    â€œWould you give me a king’s ransom in jewels, a new gown for every day of the year and an estate of my very own?” she asked tentatively.
    â€œYes,” replied her father without hesitation.
    Aurelia made no sound, but her lip stopped trembling and her bright eyes got brighter. Hands fluttering as though unable to decide what to reach for next, she said, “Would you see banished, beaten or imprisoned all those who displease me? Would you find an excuse to execute the innocent, if I so desired it?”
    â€œYes,” replied Lord Bartok.
    This time, Aurelia could not contain a burble of amazed laughter. Looking as though she finally understood the power she held in her tiny hands—and the full extent of what she stood to gain by cooperating—she cocked her head to one side, bent at the waist like a bird about to pluck a juicy worm from the earth and said, “Would you make me your heir over Atticus?”
    Her brother gave a cry of outrage. “Don’t be absurd!” he spluttered. “You are the younger and nothing but a girl, besides! Father would never—”
    â€œYes,” said Lord Bartok, his eyes never leaving his daughter’s face.
    Aurelia shrieked loudly before quickly clapping her hands over her mouth. Almost immediately, she snatched her hands away so that she could stick her tongue out at her blustering, red-faced brother. Fairly hopping with excitement, she turned toward her father and said, “If you will give me all these things and also promise that I’ll not have to truly mother the half-lowborn bastard I bear, I will do my duty to you and this family. So long as Atticus sees the base creature bathed and scented before delivering him to my bed, I will endure what I must to get myself with child as soon as may be.”
    â€œExcellent,” murmured Lord Bartok. “You are a good girl, Aurelia.”
    Flushing with pleasure, Lady Aurelia dipped him a curtsey and chirped, “Thank you, Father.”

    After favouring his daughter with a wintery smile, Lord Bartok dismissed her that she might finish readying herself for her dead husband’s funeral.
    As soon as she’d flitted from the room, Atticus sprang to his feet, pounded his soft fist upon the table and bellowed, “Father, this is an outrage! You cannot possibly mean to make Aurelia your heir—”
    â€œOf course I don’t mean to make Aurelia my heir,” interrupted Lord Bartok calmly. “Don’t you be absurd, Atticus. We needed your sister’s cooperation, and now we have it. When are you going to learn the way of things? Sit down and stop behaving like a commoner.”
    Atticus didn’t seem to know whether to look relieved, nonplussed or insulted. “But … but what will happen when Aurelia discovers that you have lied to her?” he asked as he plopped back down into his seat.
    â€œNothing will happen,” said Lord Bartok, taking a small sip from the finely wrought silver goblet before him. “As Aurelia, herself, pointed out, if the court were to learn of her actions, she would be branded a traitor and a whore. And with the servant who studded her dead, there would be no one’s word but hers that you or I had any part of the scheme.”
    â€œShe will not be best pleased,” said Atticus doubtfully.
    â€œShe will keep her displeasure to herself or be ruined,” said Lord Bartok with an elegant wave of his hand. “I am not worried about what problems your sister may cause. It is the new queen who worries me.”
    â€œLet me get my hands on her, and she’ll never worry you again, Father,” growled Atticus, fingering the dent in his skull that had been inflicted by the queen’s brokendown horse on the night her true identity was revealed. “I owe the bitch a debt that I mean to repay in