Page 88 of The Twisted Throne

“Of course.” The banker blinked. “And what assets do you wish to use to secure this loan?”

She gave him a small smile. “I’m the future queen of Harendell, sir. So I will secure my loan with Harendell.”

He gaped at her. “Harendell?”

Silence stretched, and he seemed to recover his wits. “What amount does your ladyship require?”

Ahnna named an amount that would purchase fifty gowns, keeping her face blank as the color drained from his.

“A significant request,” he said. “It will take some time and, of course, a meeting with my colleagues to discuss the risk and rates of interest. We will send word to the Sky Palace when—”

“I’ll wait,” she said, striding into an office lined with extensive locked cabinets that were surely the records of their customers. “Tea would be lovely.”

“Yes, my lady.” The banker motioned to a young woman to fetch tea. “This may take some time.”

“I’ve an hour until I meet with the modiste,” Ahnna said, sitting in the chair and pulling out a novel from her pocket. “Hopefully that is sufficient time.”

“Of course, my lady,” the banker said, and Ahnna could see in his eyes that he was already hunting for the words he’d need to turn her down for lack of collateral.

Ahnna waited for the tea to be delivered, then said to her guards, “Wait outside. It’s difficult to enjoy my reading while you both are staring at me.”

Seeming to deem the windowless room devoid of threat, theyobliged, and Ahnna wedged a chair beneath the handle before going to the cabinets. It had been an age since she’d picked a lock, but with a pair of pins pulled from her hair, Ahnna opened the cabinet embossed with the Ashford crest. In typical Harendellian style, it was well organized, and she swiftly found the document with the transactions done by the crown.

She trailed a finger down, shaking her head at the shocking amount of money Edward borrowed, including the interest paid, funding an incredible range of items. But while she saw the repairs to theVictorialisted, no other ships had been commissioned by the crown in the past two years. None of the other recent records gave her any clues to competition for the bridge, and she carefully filed it all back with a muttered curse.

Then her eye fell on the cabinet embossed with the letterA.“Ashford,” she murmured, picking the lock. Sure enough, there were files for accounts for every member of the royal family. She skimmed over the last several years of Alexandra’s account records. The queen received income from multiple properties and an allowance from the crown, and she had also gotten substantial payments from several jewelers in recent years. She funneled a great deal of money to William, but the rest was all endowments and expenditures appropriate for a queen. Virginia spent all her allowance on dresses, jewels, and cosmetics, though she also donated generously to the conservatory. James, as it turned out, was wealthy. Not by virtue of being given more than anyone else, but by what seemed extreme frugalness, the only recent expense of note to a tailor, which was likely to replace his lost wardrobe.

Lastly, she turned to William. Who was, she swiftly determined, almost broke. He spent an incredible amount of money on just about anything one could possibly imagine, allentertainment, except every week for several months, he’d paid a modest amount to someone by the name of C.F. The payments stopped over a year ago. Frowning, she summed the amounts, which added to a significant value, the amount triggering recognition in her.

Flipping back through the pages, she summed the amount Alexandra had deposited in William’s accounts.

The amount was the same. And it matched the amount that she’d been paid by the jewelers. If Ahnna had to speculate, the queen had sold off jewelry in order to pay someone William owed money to.

“What did he buy?” She shut the cabinet, her eyes going to the one embossed withC.But before she could open it, the door rattled.

“My lady?” the banker called through. “Your Highness?”

Why was he back already? Fucking Harendellian efficiency!

“Oh dear!” she called, pretending to jiggle the handle. “The lock seems jammed.”

Scanning the room to ensure that everything was in order, she leaned against the door and kicked the chair back next to the desk. Jiggling the handle again, she then wrenched the door open with such force it rebounded off the wall and nearly struck the banker as he hurried inside. “It was stuck,” she declared. “Do you have everything in order?”

“I have good news,” he announced. “We are willing to advance the amount, for indeed, we have determined that Harendell is sufficient collateral.”

Ahnna struggled to keep a straight face, knowing that it had more to do with them not wanting to anger the future queen. “Wonderful.”

But as she left the lending house with the records for a line ofcredit she’d never need, her mind was whirling. She’d not found evidence that the crown was pursuing other alliances, but Ahnna now had reason to believe that Queen Alexandra Ashford was up to something she did not wish Edward to know about.

The next morning, Ahnna steppedout of the spiral to find James sitting on the same bale of hay as the day prior. “Have you reconsidered your choice of mount, my lady?”

She glared at him, noticing that he looked even more tired than he had yesterday despite having left dinner early again. “There’s nothing wrong with my horse.”

“He’s a fine mount.” James climbed to his feet, straightening his dark-blue coat. “For a skilled rider. Which you are not.”

“Asshole,” she muttered as she bypassed him and headed into the stable. James followed, watching as she repeated what she’d learned yesterday until Dippy was ready. He said nothing as she led her horse out into the stable yard, but when she moved to mount, James said, “Don’t kick him once you’re in the saddle. He’s happy to work, so you need not punish him as though he’s avoiding the labor.”

“I’m not punishing him.”

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