Holding Court (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

Just to be Clear

Hank stays in the bathhouse to guard Geoffrey while I run upstairs to find the police. On the way back down I explain to Officer Kilbride about Sarah and Floyd and even Geoffrey’s former assistant on
Little Minks
.

“How did Mr. Bacon know where to find you?” he asks.

“He figured out one of my prophecies.”

“I see. So you do have a gift after all?”

“Yeah. I still don’t really understand it, but it’s hard to deny something that probably just saved my life.”

“You’re a very lucky lady, Miss Verity.” He stops and puts a hand on my arm. “Are you ever going to tell me what you were hiding?”

“It’s not important,” I say and pull away from him. “It had nothing to do with the murders. It was about a boy.”

“Grayson Chandler?”

I stop walking. “Yeah. How did you know? Don’t tell me you’re psychic, too?”

“Hardly. I just finished having a long talk with Bree Blair. She told me she knew about the passageway.”

“She did?”

“Yes. You might be interested in what else she has to say.” He gives me a disarming smile and keeps walking. “But right now I’d like to see this body before it disappears again.”

The police take Geoffrey into custody without incident, although he refuses to let go of King Henry’s doublet. I find some dry clothes to change into in the Great Wardrobe and spend at least half an hour in one of bathroom showers trying to scrub away the gruesome taint of the bathhouse pool. Hank and I meet Officer Kilbride in the study and he asks us endless questions about Sarah and Floyd and Geoffrey.

Despite Officer Lasky’s ridiculous theory—which was really just an attempt to scare me into confessing whatever sinister thing they thought I was hiding—there was no accomplice. Sarah was acting on her own, stealing fabric and jewels from the Great Wardrobe and incorporating them into items for sale in her online shop. I tell Officer Kilbride what Geoffrey told me about Floyd blackmailing Sarah for a share of the jewels, and he tells us that Mike the Knight confessed that Sarah asked him to help her replace the jewels in some of King Henry’s weapons. Mike knew what she was up to, but refused to help her. He claimed he was planning to turn her in but when she went missing he was afraid of being implicated.

Finally Officer Kilbride tells me I’m free to go. “But I’ll be in touch, Miss Verity. Oh, and one more thing. You were right about the ketchup.”

“I was?”

“Yes. Suffice it to say, there’s a woman who’s alive today and getting the help she needs, because of you.”

“Because of
ketchup
?”

“Because of
you
. You can read about it in the
Lunevale Gazette
tomorrow. In the meantime, I think you have someone else to talk to.”

I nod and open the door.

“Mistress Verity, I’d say you’ve earned at least a week off, with pay,” Hank says. “I do hope you’ll be back?”

“Thanks, Your Majesty. That’s really generous of you. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. But I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out,” I say, and close the door behind me.

Bree is sitting in the hallway outside the door and she jumps up when she sees me. “Jules, I need to talk to you.” She puts a hand on my arm.

I pull my arm away and keep walking. “I’m a little talked out right now. Did you hear about Geoffrey? He’s been arrested for killing Sarah. And Floyd.”

“I know. And I know Angelique told you she saw me come out of the secret entrance to the passageway on the night Sarah died. Jules, I had nothing to do with Sarah’s murder. I told the police everything.”

“Yeah, that’s what Officer Kilbride said. I’m sorry, Bree, but can we talk about this later? I really just want to go home right now. The last few hours have kind of been hell and—”

“Grayson and I broke up.”

This stops me in my tracks. “What?”

She reaches out and takes my hand. “Come on, let’s go find a quiet place to talk.”

“You’re not going to lead me to some secret room and try to kill me, are you?”

“Nope. I was going to suggest the garden. I figured you could use a little sunshine.”

We walk outside and find a bench just inside the hedge maze. Bree turns to face me.

“I want you to know the truth. You have been through hell, Jules, and I’m really sorry.” She looks down at her lap. “This is ridiculously hard for me. You’re the first friend I’ve told besides Grayson. But you need to know the truth.” She meets my eyes again. “I was in the passageway the night Sarah died, but I had nothing to do with her murder. I went in there to meet someone. We…we wanted a place where we’d have some privacy, somewhere we could be alone. And when we heard someone else enter the passageway from upstairs, we got scared and I came out the entrance behind the suit of armor. I never even saw Sarah.” She stops and takes my hand. “The person I was with? It wasn’t Grayson.”

My eyes must be bugging out, because Bree says, “I know. Jules, the person I was with was Kaitlyn.”

“Your
lady-in-waiting
?”

“Yes. And just so you know, she didn’t see Sarah, either. She left through the entrance in the dungeon so we wouldn’t be seen leaving the passageway together.”

“Oh.”

“I was definitely hiding something, but it had nothing to do with Sarah’s murder, I swear.”

I’m pretty sure I understand what she’s saying, but I want to be sure. “So you’re…?”

“I’m in love with Kaitlyn. Not Grayson.”

“I so did not see that coming.”

“I know. Everyone thinks I have this perfect life and the perfect boyfriend, but it’s a lie. Grayson is my best friend, but he hasn’t been my boyfriend for a long time. Not since I realized I had a crush on one of my girlfriends in seventh grade. I was madly in love with her for years but I knew she didn’t feel the same way, so there didn’t seem to be any point in telling anyone how I felt. Grayson knew, of course, but no one else. I didn’t want to risk losing my friends if they found out the truth. Everyone assumed that Grayson and I were more than friends, and neither of us did anything to correct their assumptions.

“But then I met Kaitlyn and I wanted to be with her and I didn’t know what to do, and then Floyd told me about the passageways and we started meeting there, just to talk and be alone without worrying about what everyone else thought. I knew I was going to have to tell Grayson eventually, but it was all happening so fast and I didn’t want him to be embarrassed. To have everyone think he’d been dumped by his girlfriend because she’d realized she was a lesbian. It wasn’t like that, but no one else knew that. And then today when he told me that you knew I’d been in the passageway, I was horrified that anyone would think I had anything to do with Sarah’s death, and I knew that the only possible way to fix everything was to tell the truth.

“And then when Grayson and I were talking, I realized he had feelings for someone else, too, and it all suddenly made sense.
He
was afraid to tell
me
. Isn’t that ridiculous?” She busts into a gigantic grin at this, but I feel strangely numb. All I can think is,
Who is Grayson in love with? And what if it’s not me? What if he’s finally free and he’s already found someone else?

Bree tilts her head and tries to get a better look at my face. “Are you okay, Jules?” And suddenly she looks like she’s going to cry.

I realize she must think I’m upset about her revelation instead of petrified at the thought that Grayson might already have another Bree.

“If you don’t want to be my friend I totally—”

I throw my arms around her. “Bree, of course I want to be your friend. You’re the only person besides Cami who never seems to care what a freak I am.”

“You’re not a freak, Jules. You’re amazing. And anyway, normal is overrated.”

I let go of her and we lean back to look at each other.

“God, I’m so glad that’s over with,” Bree says, giving me her Miss America smile. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’re not a murderer.” I manage to give her a genuine grin. “And I think Kaitlyn is enormously lucky, because you’re one of the best people I know. And I’ll do whatever I can to make things easier for you at school or work or whatever. I’m really sorry that I thought you were in any way involved in Sarah’s death.” I feel my face start to crumple again. “But I’m kind of a mess right now, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to go home and try not to think about Tudor Times for at least a week.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry. You’ve been through hell and here I am going on and on about my problems. Go find Grayson, he’ll give you a ride home.”

“I’ve got my mom’s van. And I don’t really think Grayson wants to talk to me right now.” Not after the things I said to him in the Oratory.

“Jules. Go find Grayson.” She gives me another hug and then whispers in my ear, “It was you, by the way.”

“Wait, what? What was me?” I ask, but she’s already running down the path away from me.

I’m still sitting there trying to figure it out when Grayson appears in all his romance-cover glory.

“Hey, Buttercup,” he says, giving me an awkward wave.

“Hey,” I say, and wish the numb feeling would come back.

“Bree said you were over here.”

“Yup.” Just sitting here about to ugly-cry over this guy I’m in love with who probably already has another girlfriend.

“That’s some dress. Where’s the nun habit?”

“I thought I’d try the princess look for a change.” When I was picking out dry clothes in the Great Wardrobe I happened to find a sumptuous Tudor gown that gave me fabulous cleavage. Well, as fabulous as mine gets, anyway.

“Oh, so it’s Princess Buttercup now? Do you mind if I sit down?”

“No, go ahead.” Oh God. I like him so much my heart feels like it’s going to explode right out of my minimal cleavage.

“You found Sarah.”

“Yeah. Turns out she really was dead.”

“I believed you, you know.”

I don’t know how to respond.

“Are you okay, Jules?”

“No, not really.”
I will not ugly-cry in front of Grayson. I will not ugly-cry in front of Grayson.

Grayson takes a deep breath. “Bree said she told you about Kaitlyn.”

“Yeah, she did.”

Our eyes lock, and I have to look away. My heart feels like a calving glacier, pieces of it breaking off and sliding away. Because there’s no way he’s in love with me, Jules Verity, the freak with the blurting disorder.

“Can I tell you a story?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I have this friend. When he was in sixth grade his family moved to a new town and he found himself assigned a desk next to the most beautiful girl he’d ever met and he was instantly smitten. He told her he wanted to marry her and she agreed to let him be in love with her. They became best friends and he constantly hoped that someday she would fall madly in love with him, but though she
loved
him, she wasn’t
in love
with him and the boy decided that, for the time being, that was enough.

“Then one day this girl told the boy that she now knew she could never be his one true love, that she was in love with someone else. The boy’s heart was broken. But then the girl confessed that she knew that this new love would never be able to be more than a friend to her. It was a vicious irony and they both were very sad. But they decided to stay best friends and everyone else assumed that they were also dating.

“And the girl continued to love her impossible love from afar and one day the boy found himself falling in love with this impossible love as well. And he too knew he could never be with this impossible love because it would break his best friend’s heart. And so he loved this new love from afar, too.

“And eventually, the girl grew tired of despairing over unrequited love and decided she would find a love that wasn’t so impossible. But the boy continued to love the impossible new love from afar. Until one day he discovered that the impossible might actually be possible.”

“Um, Grayson? That’s a nice story, but why are you telling me all this?”

“I just…I wanted to explain. I was hoping… Did she tell you it was you?”

“What?” My heart is suddenly booming.

“I lied. That story wasn’t about my friend. The girl Bree was in love with? She was constantly talking about her and how smart and beautiful and funny she was, and at first it was annoying because I wanted her to be in love with me, but somewhere along the way I realized she was right. And then I was completely torn, because how horrible would it be to break up with your faux girlfriend because you were in love with the girl she was in love with and could never be with? I couldn’t do that to Bree. And then when you thought she had something to do with the murders she freaked out and—”

“Stop! What did you just say?”

“That Bree didn’t have anything to do with the murders?”

“No, the part before that.
What
was me?” My heart is beating so fast I think I might be having a heart attack, and I can’t die without knowing the answer to this question.

“The girl Bree was in love with before Kaitlyn? It was you, Jules.”

Brain officially blown. How could someone as perfect as Bree Blair be in love with
me
? Wait. If Bree was in love with me that means… Suddenly I’m convinced I’m not having a heart attack, I’m having a brain aneurysm. Because if Grayson was in love with the girl Bree was in love with… Except there’s no way the two most perfect people in the world could be in love with me. Smart, beautiful, and funny?
Me?
“Uh, I’m really, really confused,” I finally say.

“I should warn you that communication apparently isn’t my strong suit.”

“Yeah. You’re talking to the girl with the involuntary blurting disorder. I think I win the awkward communication award. So, um, that was a great story, but, just so we’re clear, this new love you were talking about? What’s her name?”

Grayson smiles that dimpled smile that makes my heart feel like it’s going to Zumba right out of my chest. “Juliet.”

I gulp. It’s really hard to think clearly with an exploded brain. “Oh. And um, just to make it perfectly, absolutely, 100 percent clear, what’s her last name?”