Royally Matched (Royally Kissed #2)

Chapter 2Marco

Chapter 2

Marco

Why do these things always involve me having to wear a dinner suit? Not that I go to balls all that often.

Okay, never .

But me and suits are barely on speaking terms these days, let alone a formal dinner suit. I’ve found they’re not exactly a requirement when you’re travelling the globe, picking apples in New Zealand, taking tourists on safari in Botswana, or trekking the Annapurna circuit in Nepal.

And ties are just plain weird, literally a noose we tie around our necks. Willingly. Or not so willingly, in my case.

I lift the jacket sleeve and take a sniff. It smells of mothballs, thanks to the fact it’s been stashed at the back of the wardrobe for way too long while I’ve been living my life.

It’s a little on the tight side, too. I last wore it for my high school leaver’s ball back when I was eighteen, so that comes as no surprise. I’ve filled out over the last seven or so years, and I’m a couple of inches taller, too. I glance down at my shoes, my white gym socks poking out from the trouser legs.

I look like I’m on a Michael Jackson video, circa 1981.

I glance at the time on my phone. Have I got enough time to let my trousers down?

Actually, the real question here is, have I got any clue how to let my trousers down?

The answer to both of those questions is a firm no .

So, despite the fact I look like I’m wearing a suit that’s not only too small but smells like it’s successfully repelled moths for over half a decade, it’s going to have to do.

And anyway, I’m fairly confident this princess won’t be looking at me. Not with my much more impressive and successful older brother in the mix, not to mention all the other eligible bachelors who will be in the room, vying for her attention.

Really, what kind of a masochist do I have to be to attend this ball at which there will be a hoard of men, all competing for the attention of one solitary woman, looking for her future husband, like some kind of reality TV dating show?

An employed one, that’s what.

That’s right, I get to go to Princess Sofia’s Husband Hunting Ball as my older brother’s employee. His gofer, aka his general dogsbody. Not that “general dogsbody” is my official title, of course, but that’s what I am, and tonight I get to watch Enzo try to make conversation—and maybe even flirt… ugh —in his awkward way with none other than Ledonia’s first-born princess.

Lucky me.

“Marco? Are you ready to go?” my aforementioned brother says as he strides into my room. He comes to a crashing halt as he throws his eyes over me. “What the dickens are you wearing?” he demands.

“My dinner suit, just as you told me.”

“That’s more like a Halloween costume than a dinner suit.”

“I’m styling it out as a Michael Jackson meets James Bond after a growth spurt. What do you think?” I flash him a grin as I hold my arms out to the side so he can take in my full splendor. Or ridiculousness. Take your pick.

He doesn’t crack a smile. “You look preposterous.”

So not splendor.

“Thanks. You’re not looking too bad yourself,” I reply with a wink.

“Can’t you change or something? Even your shirt is pulling across your chest. Do you own a black suit? A navy one would do in a pinch if the lights are low.”

I shake my head. “There’s not a lot of call for black or navy suits with what I do, brother.”

He glances at my hands. “Did you at least clean the dirt from under your fingernails when you got home from your gardening job?”

I make fists to disguise what’s inevitably lurking beneath. “Of course I did,” I reply breezily, just knowing there’s enough dirt under each nail to grow a host of root vegetables.

But dirt under your nails is part and parcel of working as a landscape gardener, my newly minted career now that I’m back in Ledonia. Well, it will be a newly minted career once I get a commission or two. But that’s a work in progress, shall we say, hence the gofer status for my big bro—and attending this reality TV-like ball.

Enzo pulls his lips into a line. “Hmm.”

“I can throw my jeans and T-shirt back on, if you prefer? They’re a little grubby from working at the community garden today, but at least they fit.”

“I hardly think jeans and a T-shirt are acceptable attire for a palace ball, even if they’re freshly laundered. Although it would be nice not to have to look at your socks. Is that SpongeBob?”

I lift a leg to show off my socks in all their glory. “The man himself. If you can in fact refer to a sponge as a man. More of an inanimate object that’s somehow… animate.”

Enzo is not impressed with my pondering. “What the heck are you going on about, Marco?”

“Look, I can lose the socks. No big deal. But the tux? I’m afraid it’s either this or I don’t go to the ball at all.”

I leave my words hanging in the air, hoping he’ll grab onto the suggestion and leave me in peace. I’m looking forward to this evening’s event about as much as I’m looking forward to my next root canal. In fact, if I get out of going to this thing, I could spend the evening working on my design for the city’s newest park and, as unlikely as it is that I win the commission, say a few hundred prayers and affirmations that I do.

“You have to come. You’re on the invitation list and it would be rude to simply not turn up. And besides, I may need you during the evening.”

“Enzo, I’m your assistant. What are you going to need me to do? Create a bullet point list of your conversation with the princess? Book you flights to Peru during the dancing?”

I’ve been working part time for my older brother for the past couple of months since I’ve been back in the capital city of Villadorata. The cash has been handy, and helping my brother with his businesses feels like the right thing to do, even if it means him bossing me around. Something he relishes. But then I suppose he would describe me as being on the too relaxed side of the equation. We’re like night and day, but despite our differences, somehow, we work.

“I don’t know, Marco. There might be something I need from you during the evening,” he replies, distracted, as he rifles through my scant wardrobe.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to find something to make you look the part.”

“It’s not like there’s a perfectly fitting dinner suit lurking inside. If there were, don’t you think I’d already be wearing it?”

“With you, I do not know. You might have several suits in here.”

“I haven’t had a lot of use for suits over the years.”

“That’s because you’ve been too focused on roaming the world like some kind of vagabond rather than getting a university degree and a proper job.”

Great. That topic of conversation again.

“Landscape gardening is a proper job.”

He shoots me a look. “If you say so.” He gives up on rifling through my wardrobe and huffs a defeated breath. “I suppose at least you’ll make me look good.”

“You’re such a charmer. The princess is going to fall for you at first sight,” I say on a laugh .

“We’ll see. Change your socks. Pull a brush through that mop of hair. Clean the dirt from under your nails. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Busted.

“We’re leaving in three minutes.”

I salute him and, still unimpressed, he turns on his heel and leaves me to it.

I run my fingers through my hair, the thick hair I inherited from our dad. Unlike Enzo, who got our mum’s thinner locks. Dark blonde and thick, it falls below my collar—much to Enzo’s distress—and if I don’t get it cut at least every six months or so, it can look a little Miley Cyrus in her punk rock phase.

I grin as an image springs to mind. That would really complete the look tonight: much less James Bond and more Michael Jackson meets Miley Cyrus.

Enzo’s frown will be a permanent fixture on his face.

Quickly, I change my socks into the only black pair I can find, which goes some small way in hiding the shorter trousers. I clean under my nails and run a comb through my hair, before Enzo frowns at my appearance once more, and we climb into the car to head through the Villadorata city streets to the palace.

“How’s it going to work tonight? Is the princess going to dance with everyone and ask us a bunch of questions? Or is she going to give us each a table and she’ll bounce around between us like she’s on some kind of extreme royal speed date?” I ask as we whizz past the imposing neoclassical Science Museum along the wide expanse of the Royal Mile, which ends with the palace gates.

“I imagine we’ll find out when we get there,” Enzo replies. “She’ll need to speak to all of us, of course. Who knows how many men will be there. It might be quite a long, tedious evening, but we must attend. We’re invited guests.”

I regard the procession of cars moving through the gates ahead of us. “Is she actually going to choose a husband by the end of the night?”

“That’s what the media is saying, and at twenty-seven, I imagine she would be looking to marry soon.”

I let out a whistle. “You know that’s insane, don’t you? How can you fall in love with someone when you’ve only known them for one evening? Is she expecting love at first sight?”

“I imagine she won’t be expecting love at all, at least not to start with. She’ll choose a mate based on compatibility and shared values, guided by her father, the King.”

“How romantic,” I deadpan.

“It’s a good foundation, something you should know all about with your landscaping.”

“Wooden retaining walls: romantic love.” I pretend to weigh the two concepts in each hand. “You’re right, Enzo, they’re absolutely the same. Princess Sofia is really onto something.”

“Why do you feel the need to make jokes all the time?”

“Why do you feel the need not to make jokes all the time?”

He thins his lips. “Hmm,” he grumbles, which seems to be his characteristic response to most things I say in the two months I’ve been back in the country.

The car comes to a stop outside the palace, where guards in ceremonial costumes flank the huge wrought iron gates. Security men in dark suits check our invitations and ID before we’re heralded inside the hallowed grounds of the palace.

I gaze out the window at the splendor of the building, a classic example of Baroque architecture, with its ornate symmetrical design on a grand scale, the colossal columns giving it an entirely appropriate regal presence. As the tires crunch over the limestone, we pass the perfectly manicured gardens, bathed in the soft evening sun, with traditional topiary and statues.

My mind begins to whirr with ideas. If I had my way, I would modernize the gardens while still acknowledging their heritage by updating the fountain and replacing some of the roses with some interesting, more architectural plants, such as Mediterranean Spurge, to add interest.

Not that I’ll ever get the chance to do any of that.

The car comes to a stop under a canopy, and a white-gloved guard in Ledonian red pulls open the door for us. I step out onto cobblestones, covered in a red carpet that runs up the steps and through a grand fa?ade into the palace itself.

“Ready to meet the princess?” I ask my brother as he adjusts his black bowtie.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. And Marco? Please behave. This is royalty, not a bunch of guys at a shabby beach bar.”

“I do love me a shabby beach bar.”

“Marco,” he warns in his best older brother tone.

I shoot him my most serious of looks. “I do solemnly promise not to have a good time tonight under any circumstances, even if the princess turns out to be the most fun human in the country.”

It’s an easy promise to make, even if I’m only teasing him. Princess Sofia, although beautiful, is known for being serious and rather dull, always immaculately presented in prim and proper skirt suits, pearls at her neck, her hair tied up neatly.

She’s about as far from the kind of women I fancy as someone afraid of heights is from becoming an astronaut.

Total opposites, that’s what we are .

I wonder what she’d look like without her princess armor? Her hair is always so tightly controlled. What if she let it loose, maybe even undid the top button of one of her jackets to reveal a couple of centimeters of flesh? Her collarbone, perhaps. Shock, horror! Although the only things I know of her are from the media, she’s always struck me as someone who could do with letting loose and having a good time.

Not that I’ve exactly spent a lot of time in my life thinking about Princess Sofia.

Far too many more interesting things to do.

We walk down the long, red carpeted corridor, following a group of men in dinner suits. It’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer size and opulence of the place. Of course, like all Ledonian children, I came here on a school trip when I was about ten, but I didn’t appreciate it the way I do now.

As we reach the end of a corridor that was probably an entire kilometer long, we enter the ballroom, simmering with gold and elegance. Oh, and men. Lots and lots of men.

Seriously, someone call the city’s mayor because all the male citizens of a certain age are trapped here in this very room, nervously looking around like a mass of herded sheep filling a paddock to its brim.

“This is a lot of men,” I remark, pointing out the obvious.

“Behave,” Enzo growls under his breath.

“I am behaving,” I retort.

We make our way across the polished parquet floor, and as I look around at all the eligible bachelors, I notice every single one of them is in a perfectly cut dinner suit. I tug at my dinner jacket as though it could miraculously grow in size to fit me. Clearly, it does not .

“Duck!” a voice calls, and I look over to see a guy I went to school with, Austin Hargreaves. He bounds over to us, the drink in his hand sloshing onto the skin of his hand, a grin on his face.

“Austin. Good to see you,” I say as I shake his hand. He was in my year at high school, and I remember he was always loud and opinionated. “This is Enzo, my brother.”

Austin greets Enzo, who conveniently spots some of his own friends and peels off to chat to them.

“Where have you been? Wait. Don’t tell me.” He balances his glass of whiskey against his chest as he pulls his phone from his jacket pocket. It’s a bold move for someone who looks like they might have had a few too many already—and with no princess yet, the ball hasn’t even begun.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking your Instagram for updates.”

“I think you’ll find it says I’m in Villadorata,” I say on a laugh, because isn’t it obvious, what with me standing in front of the guy? “I came back from India a couple of months ago. Been here ever since.”

“India? Never been. Far too hot, and I’m not a fan of curries. Too spicy.”

“It’s an amazing place, actually, the curries included. The Taj Mahal is so delicately beautiful, and I got to go on the most incredible camel safari through the Thar Desert, sleeping under the stars, nothing but the sound of nighttime bugs in the air. Very romantic.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Romantic? Were you with some hot bit of totty on this safari?” he asks.

I’ve never loved the way some men refer to attractive women as “totty.” But that’s Austin for you. Not exactly classy .

“I bet you were, you old dog.” He shoves me a little too hard.

“Not in the being in love sense. I’m still a bachelor. Clearly.” I gesture around me at the sea of men.

“Far too many fellows here for my liking,” he sniffs before taking another swig of his whiskey. “I hear camels are horribly smelly, gassy beasts. True?”

“Best to stay upwind of them.”

He barks out a laugh. “You do lead the most incredible life, Duck. Always darting off to here and there, never staying put for long. Not like the likes of me, toiling away at my career. Tell me, where haven’t you been?”

“Lots of places,” I reply vaguely. “But enough about me. What have you been up to, Austin?”

“Running the family business. You know how it is, Duck.”

“Actually, I don’t. That’s Enzo’s gig. Not mine.” I gesture at myself with my thumb. “Younger, utterly irresponsible brother, remember?”

His gaze slides over me. “Who evidently can’t find the right sized suit.”

I shrug because what else am I going to do? He’s right.

“You’re lucky. You’re free. You can do whatever you like with your life, including wearing whatever you want to the palace.”

“Being poor seems to be my choice these days. Traveler’s jobs don’t pay all that well. But I’ve started a landscaping business back here in the city, which I’m excited about.”

His lips sneer in distaste. “Plants, eh? You’ve always marched to the beat of your own drum. And now you’re here in Villadorata, looking for love with a princess?”

I chortle. “That’s more my brother’s style. I’m here in case he needs me. ”

“But surely you’re on the invitation list?”

“I’m a single man in Ledonia, aren’t I? But that doesn’t mean I’m looking to marry Princess Sofia. I can’t imagine anything worse than marrying into the royal family.”

He leans in toward me and says, “I’ve got a plan.”

“A plan?” I ask, trying not to breathe in his whiskey breath.

“I’m going to pop the question, just as soon as I can. It’s what she wants, isn’t it? She just needs a man to take control of the situation. Get on with things. She’s the Pitiful Princess, after all. How picky can she be?” He takes another swig of his whiskey, his eyes bright.

I can hardly believe what he’s planning. But he’s right, Princess Sofia is said to be looking for a husband, and Austin, it would seem, is a willing candidate. Who am I to stand in his way?

“How romantic of you,” I deadpan.

He barks out another laugh. “Romance is for the birds. We all know she makes beige look vibrant. Nothing a glass or two of vino couldn’t sort out, though, eh?” He nudges me with his elbow as he holds his glass aloft and grins. “I bet her idea of thrill seeking is alphabetizing the spice rack.”

“Would a princess know what a spice rack was?”

“Good point, Duck. Good point.” He chortles, lifting his glass for another sip.

I may be the younger brother who’s only just found what he wants to do with his life, but I know people are who they are. They don’t change. If Princess Sofia is a serious type of person, then it’s clear she and I will have nothing much in common. In my experience, serious people tend to be interested in the sorts of things Enzo likes: chess, opera, and discussing politics. I’d rather play a frenetic game of soccer, followed by a hike in the mountains, before relaxing with friends around a campfire in the evening, toasting marshmallows and telling stories.

I can’t imagine someone like Princess Sofia would want to do any of those things.

I shake my head, smiling. “I’m here tonight for the only member of my family who stands a chance with the princess, and that person is most certainly not me.”