Sins of a Wicked Princess Read Online Free Page A

sank into the chair in the corner of Juliana’s room. “I hope never to hear you utter that word again.”
    Juliana snorted, glad none of her aunts was there to hear her. “I see the bills for the jeweler. Now either tell me what is wrong or leave me in peace so I can sleep.”
    “It is Sommet.”
    Ice filled Juliana’s stomach. “What has he done?”
    Gregory buried his face in his hands. “You were right about him. He has—he has found a way to have the crown taken from you.” He dug his fingers into his scalp. “And given to me.”
    “ What? ” She might not particularly want to be a monarch, but she’d die before she allowed anyone to wrest it from her.
    “It has to do with you being a woman.”
    “Women are allowed to rule Lenoria.” It was always the eldest child rather than the first male.
    He swallowed. “Yes. But if the princess is still unmarried by twenty-two, any male heirs have the right to challenge her for the throne.”
    In 1345, King Hubart had wanted his son to inherit rather than his daughter. He couldn’t change the old law, so he amended it.
    “You’re twenty-four,” Gregory reminded her.
    “I know how old I am.” Juliana took a calming breath. “I fail to see what the problem is. Don’t challenge me. Sommet cannot force you. Just deny him.”
    Gregory actually moaned.
    “He can force you?” she guessed, dread expanding in her chest.
    “He had information on the people who toppled Lenoria.”
    The Trio. The man who’d been here earlier had mentioned them. His rough voice and gentle hands. “What did you do?”
    Gregory scowled for a moment. “It’s not like it’s any different than what you would have done. If you’d captured them in Lenoria, you would have had them executed.”
    Perhaps. Perhaps not. She was eternally grateful that she didn’t have that authority here in England. “That’s Sommet talking, not you. You tried to have people murdered?”
    “ I didn’t try to kill them. I simply told other people they had wronged where to find them.”
    “How did you know who their enemies were?”
    “Sommet.” His bravado dissolved. “He kept proof linking me to it. He says he’ll reveal it to the government, if I don’t obey.”
    The English would be up in arms at a foreign royal plotting the murder of its citizens.
    “They might hang me for attempted murder.”
    Even if they didn’t, the scandal would be enormous. The regent would withdraw his support. They’d lose the house and their small stream of income.
    “And if you do what Sommet wants?”
    Gregory groaned. “I’d become king. Sommet claims he has the support to free Lenoria.”
    “Then why won’t he do it with me in control?”
    Gregory’s words were muffled by his cravat as he ducked his chin into his chest. “I may have signed away certain rights to him if he could get Lenoria back.”
    Juliana gripped her bedpost to keep from strangling him. “What, precisely?”
    “The mineral rights in the southern mountains.”
    A princess does not raise her voice. A princess does not raise her voice.
    “Those rights belong to the crown. You have no right—”
    Ah. It suddenly all made sense. “If you were king, then the documents you signed would be binding.” There was gold in those mountains, and more importantly iron, vast amounts of it if the reports were to be believed.
    “Perhaps it would be for the best if I did listen to Sommet, then at least we’d have a country, which is more than we have— Ouch! ” he cried as she gripped his ear.
    “You did not just threaten to take my country from me.” The mob ten years ago hadn’t managed it; she wouldn’t allow her brother to.
    Her brother fought to get her to release him. “Ouch. Not really, I swear. That’s why I came to speak to you in the first place. I don’t know what to do.”
    The fight went out of Juliana, and suddenly she was a young girl leading her sobbing brother out of a castle burning with their parents’ bodies still