Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Still no sleep.
Well, sometimes.
“Mamma,” I burst out immediately when she appears on my video call, “you won’t believe what Freja’s done.”
She tucks long silvering blonde hair behind her ear, blue eyes like mine mirrored back. Her lips tighten, her gaze sympathetic. “Darling. She told me.”
My eyes widen. “Why didn’t you stop her?” I demand in a rush. “She’s wanted to be Queen all her life. Why would she throw it all away for nothing? What about what I want? I don’t understand.”
My face is hot, and there’s an uncomfortable sting in my eyes. Then, I realize I’m crying—crying!—and mortification washes over me to be caught crying, least of all by my mother.
“Theo,” she says gently, “I asked her to call you first.”
“What? What do you mean?” I scrub my face viciously with the terry-cloth cuff of the dressing gown. Then, as I stare at my hands, they shake.
She sighs, leaning back in her chair by the window. The day is bright behind her, seated in her study, the shelves behind her lined with books, with the perfect corner to curl up and read in a plush armchair overlooking the gardens.
“Freja told me last week when she returned from America about what she’d done and her future plans.” At least Mamma doesn’t look happy, which is some small comfort. “She told me she fell in love with her soulmate. He has an animal rescue.”
“She’s running away with a ferret fancier,” I say darkly.
She laughs, then quickly claps a hand over her mouth and tries to look stern. “You don’t know that ferret breeding weighs into the equation.”
I cough, sitting down at the kitchen table and propping the phone against a crystal vase that overflows with tulips. I hug myself at the table.
Mamma shakes her head, turning slightly from where she sits at her broad desk, where she loves to write.
From the armchair as a boy, I sat there in time-outs, with her and books for company.
Which is where I learned to love reading as much as she does.
Then, I’d choose to sit in her armchair for hours, disappearing into story worlds as a reward instead of a punishment.
“Have you been getting enough rest?” Her maternal instinct kicks in. Probably, I look a wreck, which doesn’t help my case.
“Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know.”
“Theo. You can’t burn the candle at both ends without it catching up with you eventually.”
“I like to play with fire. And wax.”
She tuts, but a smile escapes before she can suppress it. “Promise me you’ll eat your vegetables and get some sleep.”
“I like to play with my vegetables too. I’ll send you pictures about the arrangements I made last week for a shoot. I’m amazing with chard.”
Mamma laughs.
Then, I lapse into a long moment of quiet, trying to gather my thoughts about what she had said. “What did you mean about getting Freja to call me?”
“Before she makes any public lovesick declaration about abdicating and moving to America. I told her to keep her marriage a secret for now and to let you know privately to give you time to… to…” Then Mamma falters. “Or give her time to…”
“Come back to her fucking senses, you mean?”
Mamma coughs delicately. “I wouldn’t quite put it that way. She might choose to annul the marriage. I’m attempting to determine if it’s valid. I imagine it is. However, if she’s serious about abdication, and there’re are no signs she isn’t, she needs to give you time to get used to the idea—”
“I’m never getting used to the idea!” Words spill hotly. I gesture around. “She has to be Queen—”
“Theodor.” Her voice is gentle, but firm. “You need to prepare yourself for the idea that she might be entirely serious. And that you may become King.”
Then, I burst into tears for real and cover my mouth with my hands as I suck back an unsteady breath. Squeezing my eyes shut, I will Freja to stop with this facade and let me wake up in a world where everything is right again. Where she is Queen, or our father is still alive and King.
And where boyfriends act like they should.
“How’s Aidan?” she tries in an ill-fated attempt to cheer me like she reads my mind. Because until yesterday night, his name would inevitably bring something light. Hopeful. At least if she’s asking that question, the tabloid news hasn’t reached the Danish royals yet.
I scowl. “He dumped me.”
She’s taken aback. “I’m so sorry, darling. I know you cared for him.”
“I guess there’s no point in caring for people. I’ll pick a meaningful relationship with… with some plants. A monstera. Feels fitting.”
Mamma gazes at me, obviously seeing through my crap, and waits for me to stop with my bluster from a lifetime of experience. “Love is always worthwhile.”
“Who said anything about love?” I roll my eyes. “Forget love. Love’s causing a whole lot of problems at the minute.”
Then she’s quiet too.
After all, I never quite told Aidan I loved him, and that’s probably where I fucked up. I was going to tell him last night, because it was true, and I’d been guarding my heart because feelings are a lot to navigate. And I wanted to be sure, really sure, about how I felt.
“I think I’m going back to bed now.” I rub an eye. “I’ll eat something later.”
“Don’t live off Uber Eats.”
“Yeah.”
She gives me a wry smile. “We’ll talk soon, alright?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you, darling.”
“I love you too, Mamma.”
After we hang up, I crawl to bed, pull the covers over myself, and at last read the whole exclusive article with Aidan’s tell-all.
Which doesn’t make me feel the slightest bit better, and a whole lot worse about everything else.
I burrow under the pillows. I’ll need to find more candles to light into a bonfire, an effigy of the little reputation I once had.