Chapter 4
Four
FRIEDRICH
Father rides with me to the train station.
The Prime Minister’s victory tour normally falls to him, but the doctor has advised against travel, especially over multiple days.
This will be my first victory tour in years.
Five years ago, I was in Afghanistan, and my younger brother Claus went along for the tour.
And the one before that, I was too involved at uni; Father took the girls.
This is the third travel event Father has sent me on in his stead since my return from military service.
The other two were less formal, goodwill visits more than anything.
But sending me on the Prime Minister’s victory tour, this is a sore miss for the king.
Not to mention the work I had planned for Rankten Cottage this week.
If I was going to be forced to marry, I might as well start making preparations for a place we could call our own.
The parents’ place is no place for newlyweds, even if that house is an actual goddamn palace.
I hate leaving my personal assistant, Tristan, behind for my first major solo tour, but I need him to oversee the plumbers and electricians organized to begin work in the kitchen this week.
Father and I stand together at the gate to the train platform, the media keeping a respectful distance, but a loathsome presence nonetheless, with the continuous camera flashes.
Father always takes time to greet each person traveling with us, no matter how short the trip.
The man’s mind is a rolodex of every person he’s ever met, a quality that serves him well as king.
I still have to rely on Tristan or Betsy, our head of PR and all-around handler of the royal family, for that.
Staff members for the Prime Minister bow or curtsy as they pass.
Father shakes hands with several people, asking polite questions about family or hobbies.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to remember such details the way he does, but I’m determined to try harder as I watch their faces light up when their king recalls bits that are trivial to my mind but so important to them.
A few of the more senior staffers were invited to bring their families along.
Bertram ran on the family man schtick, and showing up on tour with spouses, children, and even grandchildren in tow is purely strategic.
I notice a few nannies tagging behind families with younger children.
I had begun to hope a certain auburn-haired football fan would join the tour when I see Dietrich Maier strolling up the walk and Rebecca—flawless as always, in high-waisted trousers and matching blazer—chatting with the very woman I’d been thinking about since our accidental meeting a few days ago.
Her hair is smoothed in a low knot, and her nanny outfit has me running through all kinds of fantasies in the short time it takes the family to approach my father and me.
How can such a modest dress be so sexy? The high neckline doesn’t even hint at collarbone, the hem drops to her mid-calf, and all I can imagine is flipping that navy skirt up over her hips and—
“Your Majesty. Your Royal Highness.” Lord Maier bows first to Father, then to me.
I shake Dietrich’s hand and say, “That was some display by your Shelford on Saturday.”
He grips my hand a little harder, obviously still a touch sore about his football team’s horrific match over the weekend. “If you weren’t the prince, I’d tell you to mind your own fucking side.”
We both let out a roar of laughter, garnering an eyeroll from his wife.
“Don’t encourage him, Your Highness,” Rebecca says to me in what might have been a scathing tone if I didn’t know her better, before touching her cheek to mine in a friendly kiss.
The Maiers move on, and my attention, never completely away from her, returns to the woman with one hand on a pram and the other holding the hand of the little girl responsible for our chance introduction.
She dips low before my father, neck bent gracefully and eyes cast down.
She must have practiced over the last few days.
Thick eyelashes obscure the verdant eyes that have haunted my dreams since Friday.
She keeps her gaze down as Father releases her hand and moves in front of me.
“Your Royal Highness,” she says to the ground at my feet.
Her hand in mine sends the same shock through me as it had the night we first met.
I am again surprised at how tall she is.
Even in the kitten heels the Merryton uniform requires, she’s the perfect height to bury her face in my neck if I could pull her in close.
I will my body not to respond as I place a soft kiss on her hand, but her breath hitches, stirring something in me.
Our eyes meet, and my heart picks up pace.
Perhaps our gaze lingers too long because Father clears his throat next to me, and the bubble around us bursts.
She blushes and drops her hand back to her side.
“Miss Aurelia, a pleasure to see you again so soon.” My throat has gone dry, and I hope she takes the rasp in my voice as a sexy, gravelly sound rather than a sickly hoarseness.
“Your Highness,” she says again as she gives another quick bow and scurries along with the young Darcy in tow.
I can see my father watching me from the corner of my eye.
“Who was that?” he whispers teasingly as more people continue to pay their respects. I ignore him and keep greeting my travel companions.
I don’t know why I hope to see Aurelia every time I hear the door to my carriage open; she would have no reason to be in the royal coach. Even if she were in the same compartment as Dietrich and not in the back with the children, she would still be several cars behind mine.
The first leg of the journey is brief, only an hour.
Maybe I’ll see her when we stop in the first town—or more like a village—minutes up the coast from our capital, Marvia City.
The main industry here is tourism and fishing, and the men who don’t work in either commute to the capital to work in the naval yards or do stints as itinerant workers.
Bertram is popular among the working class, and while this tiny town might have been overlooked by another politician, the Prime Minister knows where his bread is buttered.
This tour is the start of his next campaign.
I shake a few hands of local leaders, but this isn’t my tour in the strictest sense, and my security team is always cautious about my mingling too much. That all serves me fine, as it gives me more time to watch my favorite nanny at work.
She positively glows as she plays with the children in her charge.
The other kids are drawn to her sunshine energy too, and soon she has a whole trail of little ducklings following her as they walk along the beach in their coats, woolen hats, and mittens, heedless of the wind whipping off the ocean.
Even some of the older children tag along, eager to get away from all the political talk and adult conversation.
Aurelia includes them, and a few of the surly teenagers start to liven up a bit around her.
We line up to board the train again after lunch at the town hall, and some of the children present, many older than the Maier children, run around the platform like untrained Labradors. But Darcy stays dutifully by her nanny while Aurelia carries a sleeping little Liam.
I try to keep my mind in check; I can’t let this girl get to my head.
Well, any more than she already has. I have a duty to fulfill in this tour, and an even bigger one is coming when we return.
But at the next stop, I find myself searching her out again, her smile drawing me in like a heedless moth.
A lavish dinner was prepared for the party at our final stop for the day in the country’s third-largest city.
Cronomarra is harsh this time of year, situated on the north coast and battered by the wild weather coming off the North Sea.
We all bustle from the station across to the city hall with our coats and scarves held tight around us.
I notice Aurelia fussing over Liam, who is most unhappy with his coat being buttoned all the way to his neck.
She will be in a separate dining room with the other nannies and young children.
I guess there’s a time and place for family events, but I haven’t been able to speak to her all day.
Dinner would have been the best opportunity.
Hors d’oeuvres are passed, and toasts are made, and my mind wanders.
Christopher, an eager junior staffer in my father’s secretary pool, had drilled me on names of prominent community members on the train this afternoon.
I somehow manage to keep most of them straight as I shake more hands and accept their well wishes for Father.
Perhaps I’m better at this whole interacting with the populace thing than I thought.
As the night wears on and the drinks continue to flow after a seated dinner of fish and winter vegetables, the superficiality of my interactions with others starts to wear on me.
I should be used to it by now. Everyone plasters on these too-big smiles and speaks just a little too formally and never says a word that isn’t praise.
I begin to plan my escape. It should be easy with everyone falling into deeper states of intoxication.