Chapter 39 The Hairpin
All eyes turned to Lila. She felt the weight of their suspicion like physical pressure.
"I didn't drug her tea. I wasn't there in the morning." Her voice came out desperate. "I visited the night before to warn her. That's all."
"The sedatives would have been added to tea prepared earlier." Iris interjected. "Possibly the night before. They would have remained potent if mixed with dried leaves, then brewed in the morning."
"So someone tampered with the Queen's tea supply the previous night." Thorne's gaze never left Lila. "Someone who had access to her chambers. Someone who visited that evening."
"I didn't touch her tea. I didn't drug anything." Panic rose in Lila's throat. "I just talked to her. That's all."
"Guards, search the Queen's chambers thoroughly." Thorne ordered. "Look for anything unusual. Any evidence of tampering."
The wait was agonizing. Lila sat in the council chamber under the hostile gazes of men and women who'd already decided her guilt. Through the bond, she finally felt Adrian stir. Felt his attention shift from grief to the investigation. Felt his confusion and dread as he realized where the evidence was pointing.
The guards returned carrying several items in careful hands. Tea leaves in a carved wooden box. An empty cup that still smelled faintly of herbs. And something else. Something small and glinting that made Lila's heart stop.
Her hairpin. The distinctive copper one with the moonstone setting that her mother had given her. The one she wore almost daily because it was her most valued possession.
"We found this near the Queen's bedside." The guard held it up for all to see. "Tucked partially under the bed frame, like it had been dropped and kicked aside."
Lila's hand flew to her hair. She'd worn that pin yesterday during the hunt. She remembered securing it before following Maya to the carriages. But before that. Before the hunt. Had she been wearing it when she visited Celeste?
She couldn't remember. The night was a blur of argument and tears and desperate pleading. She'd been so focused on warning Celeste that she hadn't paid attention to her appearance.
"That's Lady Lila's hairpin." Margot's voice cut through the chamber like a blade. She stood at the back with other courtiers allowed to observe. Her expression was perfectly sorrowful. "I've seen her wear it dozens of times. It's quite distinctive with that moonstone. She treasures it."
"Is this yours, Lady Lila?" Thorne held up the pin.
"Yes." No point denying it. "But I don't know how it got in Celeste's chambers. I must have dropped it when I visited. That's all."
"Or you dropped it while tampering with her tea." A councilor suggested. "While adding sedatives that would ensure she died when your poison made her horse bolt."
"That's not what happened!" Lila stood, hands clenched. "Someone is framing me. Can't you see that? This is too convenient. The pin, the timing, all of it."
"What's convenient is your explanation." Margot spoke again, her voice carrying false sympathy. "I understand you're frightened, Lady Lila. Facing accusations of murder must be terrifying. But denying the obvious won't help you now."
"I'm not denying anything. I'm telling the truth."
"The truth is in the evidence." Thorne held up the hairpin. "This places you in the Queen's chambers. The servant testimony confirms you were there. The sedatives in Celeste's system prove someone drugged her tea. And we all know about your motive."
"I didn't have a motive."
"You had the King." Margot's words were quiet but devastating. "Or you wanted him. Everyone in this palace has known for three years about your inappropriate attachment to your sister's husband. You resented Celeste for having what you couldn't. For being Queen. For having Adrian's name if not his heart."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" Margot moved forward, her face a mask of sympathetic concern. "I've watched you, Lady Lila. Watched you pine for a man you could never have. Watched you fade away in your tower, dying slowly because the you demanded something forbidden. How long before that desperation turned to action? How long before wanting became plotting?"
"I never plotted anything." But Lila's voice wavered. Because hadn't she wanted Celeste gone? Hadn't there been moments, dark terrible moments, when she'd wished her sister would just disappear?
Wanting wasn't the same as doing. Thinking wasn't the same as acting.
But the council didn't care about distinctions between thought and deed. They cared about evidence. And every piece of evidence pointed directly at her guilt.
"Lady Lila." Thorne's voice carried finality. "The council requires you to remain under guard while this investigation continues. You will not be allowed to leave your chambers. You will speak to no one except your servant, and she will be monitored. Do you understand?"
"I didn't kill my sister." The words came out broken. "Please. You have to believe me. I didn't do this."
"Then pray we find evidence to support your innocence." Thorne gestured to guards. "Because right now, everything we have suggests otherwise."
They escorted her from the chamber. Through corridors where servants pressed against walls to avoid her. Through courtyards where nobles whispered and pointed. Back to her chambers that had become her prison more thoroughly than any cell.
As the door closed and locked behind her, Lila caught a glimpse of Margot in the corridor. The woman's face was carefully neutral, but her eyes gleamed with something that looked horribly like triumph.
And Lila understood with sudden terrible clarity.
She'd been framed. Perfectly. Completely. By someone who knew exactly how to use the truth to construct a lie.
The hairpin was hers. But Celeste had taken it. Lila remembered now. Remembered her sister admiring it during their argument, plucking it from Lila's hair with bitter nostalgia.
Mother gave you everything, even the pretty things.
Celeste had kept it. Had it in her chambers when someone drugged her tea. And now that someone had ensured it would be found, ensuring Lila took the blame for a murder she hadn't committed.
But who? And why frame her when Garrett was the obvious suspect?
Unless framing Lila served multiple purposes. Removed her from Adrian's life. Destroyed any possibility of the mate bond being fulfilled. Left Garrett and his co-conspirator free to claim whatever they'd truly wanted.
Through the bond, Lila felt Adrian's horror as he learned about the hairpin, the sedatives, the mounting evidence against his mate. Felt his certainty crumbling. Felt doubt creeping in like poison.
And she realized with devastating clarity that this was the real murder. Not Celeste's death, tragic as that was.
This. The systematic destruction of the bond between her and Adrian.
The insertion of doubt so profound it would shatter their connection beyond repair.
Someone wanted them destroyed. And they'd killed the Queen to do it.