Chapter 7 - The Walk Down the Hall
The walk from the master suite to the east drawing room felt to Serena like walking the green mile to an execution chamber.
Flanked by the two towering foreign guards, her high heels clicking frantically against the imported parquet flooring, Serena descended the grand staircase.
As they passed the upper gallery overlooking the main entrance hall, Serena glanced down into the ballroom.
Two hundred of the most elite guests in the world—ambassadors, foreign ministers, and old-money aristocrats—were standing in absolute, reverent silence. The string quartet had stopped playing entirely. Every single person in the room was facing the double doors of the east drawing room, their heads bowed slightly in a universal gesture of sovereign respect.
Among the crowd, Serena spotted Arthur Pendelton and Senator Vance. Their faces were pale, their mouths hanging open in stunned disbelief.
“Where... where are you taking me?!” Serena stammered, her voice cracking, the heavy silk of her designer gown feeling suddenly like a straitjacket. “Edward! Edward, where are you?!”
Neither guard uttered a single word. They marched her past the ballroom entrance, down the dim, quiet corridor of the east wing, and stopped directly in front of the heavy mahogany doors of the private drawing room.
One of the guards knocked twice.
“Enter,” a voice commanded from within.
It was a voice that sent an electric shock straight down Serena’s spine.
It wasn't a booming, angry voice. It was calm, cultivated, and possessed an innate, crushing authority that brooked zero argument.
The heavy doors swung open.
Serena stumbled forward into the room, her footing nearly giving out beneath her. The guards remained outside, closing the doors firmly behind her.
The east drawing room was lit by the soft amber glow of antique wall sconces. Standing by the marble fireplace, warming her hands, was a woman.
She was older—in her early sixties—with sharp, aristocratic features, silver hair pinned into an immaculate French twist, and gray-blue eyes that could cut glass. She wore a deep emerald velvet gown draped with the heavy, unmistakable collar of the Order of the Seraphim, and resting gracefully upon her head was a diamond-and-sapphire tiara that gleamed with blinding magnificence.
Serena stopped dead in her tracks. Her breath caught in her throat.
The woman slowly turned around.
The face was older, framed by royal jewels instead of a plain gray uniform. But the eyes—those steady, gray-blue, unnervingly analytical eyes—were identical to the woman Serena had forced to scrub coffee off a limestone floor just hours earlier.
Margaret Ellis.
No, Serena’s mind screamed, a wave of absolute vertigo washing over her. No, that’s impossible. That’s just a cleaning lady. That’s just the old maid!
Serena’s knees buckled slightly, her manicured hands trembling violently as she clutched the edges of her ivory gown.
“You...” Serena whispered, her voice a hollow, broken gasp. “You’re... you’re the cleaner.”
Queen Margaret took one slow, deliberate step forward. The rustle of her velvet gown sounded like a death knell in the quiet room.
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“I am Margaret Alexandra Valdemore,” the Queen said, her voice ringing out with crystal clarity. “Queen Mother of the Realm. Sovereign of the Valdemore Dynasty.”
The room spun violently around Serena. The ground seemed to vanish beneath her feet.
