Chapter 15
Fifteen
FRIEDRICH
Seeing Aurelia with those children does something to me.
Watching her with them during the tour a few weeks back was pure joy.
She loves her job, and she adores the Maier kids.
And the other little ones on tour gravitated to her as well.
She was the most gorgeous pied piper, running and playing and laughing with her little charges, who followed along with every game, song, and story.
I lean back in my chair as the meeting about signage continues to drag on.
But I feel a sense of contentment as I lace my fingers behind my head.
My brain is conjuring all kinds of images, and not the usual ones that involve Nanny Sumner.
My mind replaces the blonde kiddos with brown eyes in the selfie with a little auburn-haired girl and dark-haired boy, both sporting her stunning green eyes.
I can almost imagine them playing at the park, chased by their mother as they laugh and squeal in unadulterated happiness.
I’m on the outside of this little daydream, content to watch as their cheeks grow rosy in the cool day and my heart swells with imagined joy.
“Your Highness?” The phone on speaker snaps me from my fantasy.
“Oh, sorry, men, just had an important email come through,” I lie. “What was the question?”
“Are you satisfied with those changes?” The voice of the transportation secretary is a bit pinched.
Shit, when did they even come to any kind of agreement? “Absolutely, good work, everyone. Please get a copy of the minutes to me as soon as possible for final review.”
I click off my phone and push away from my desk, standing and stretching before shutting off my computer. Tristan is sitting at a smaller desk in the corner of my office, typing away on something and doesn’t notice me moving to the door until I’m almost level with him.
“Oh, Your Highness.” He jumps up from his desk, but I wave him down.
“No worries, Tristan. I’m just going downstairs to find a bite to eat.” I leave my suit jacket hanging on the coat rack by the door. I’m only slipping down to the family dining room. No need for ceremony, it’s basically my house, right?
I type out a quick note to Aurelia while I walk, still a little heady from my earlier non-sexual fantasy of her. It shouldn’t have this much of a hold on me.
Mother is sitting alone in the dining room when I walk in, flipping through a stack of papers while she picks at a salad. Her head snaps up when she hears the tap of my shoes on the wood floor.
“Mon soleil. What are you up to today?”
I peruse the sideboard set out by the kitchen staff.
Breakfast and lunch are typically a come-and-go affair at the palace and are served buffet style with a rotation of favorites for each member of my family.
And there’s always some sort of soup and lightly dressed salad.
I ladle a thick bisque into a bowl for myself and take a piece of fresh baked bread.
I do miss the food around here on the days I stay at Rankten Cottage.
“Just a few meetings that make me want to lobotomize myself, and working on some things for the charity football match coming up.”
Mother sighs as she turns over another page. “I am trying to keep busy, too.” She gestures to the stack of papers beside her.
A picture of the princess from Spain smiles up from the page.
The type underneath is too small to make out from across the table, but I’m guessing it’s information on the princess.
The stack looks much larger than the seventy women remaining.
Each one must have quite a dossier in there, surely enough to keep Mother busy as she prepares for her tea this Sunday.
We’ve both been trying to keep busy this week.
Father had returned from Rome on Wednesday, two days early.
The king never cuts these things short. The doctor had chastised him for attempting such a long journey and a strenuous schedule of meetings, conferences, and photo calls.
It seems to have gotten through to him this time, and Father has kept to his chambers since returning.
Meals are brought to him upstairs, and most of his mundane daily duties have passed to me, hence the mind-numbing meeting with the sign committee.
He sent Mother away after the first few hours of her constant attention and worry.
So now she and I are doing what we both do in any time of crisis, burying ourselves in work.
Someone is going to have to find us more to do next week when Father goes in for his biopsy before he begins the gene therapy.
He’s made it clear he wants neither of us at the hospital since the doctors assure us it’s all very routine.
“Read anything interesting over there?” I ask after too much silence that leaves too much room for thinking.
Mother makes a very French pfft sound. “These foreign governments try to make their women sound like they’re the second coming of the Blessed Mother. I want the dirt, the real women beneath the skin.” She taps her chin. “Perhaps I can put Sibylle and Claudette on the task.”
I chuckle. If anyone can dig up long hidden skeletons, it’s Mother’s ladies in waiting. Those women are like goddamn hounds when on the hunt for gossip.
My phone chimes, and I can’t help but smile at the second selfie Aurelia has sent today. She’s carrying a sleeping Liam as they walk through the city.
Aurelia:
On the way to the park he wouldn’t even hold my hand
Ah to be two again. I wish someone would carry me around when I get tired
You don’t have servants that do that for you? Like a litter or something?
Haha. Very funny Nanny Sumner
“Who are you talking to, mon soleil?”
I nearly drop my phone; I had almost forgotten I was in the dining room.
“It’s just Miles.” I hate lying to Mother, but I’m certain she would disapprove of this whole thing with Aurelia.
She watches me over her wine glass, one eyebrow ticked up. Years of life in court have made her an excellent reader of people. She takes a long, slow sip before saying, “I have not seen you smile like that in many years, mon chou.”
My heart lightens at her use of her childhood nickname for me.
Being with Mother always makes me feel like a kid.
Not in the way that would feel emasculating or belittled, but full of memories of a time when she would play hide and seek with me in the ground-floor parlors or read to me late into the night or sing soft lullabies in French.
It feels like safety and love and home. Like a young nanny playing in the park with the children who have become like her own family.
Christmas time sweeps through the palace like a whirlwind.
The decorations have been up since the day after the Princess Trials cocktail party.
A gargantuan tree fills most of the entrance hall, decorated with baubles in gold and silver and navy blue, of course.
Ribbons and lights crisscross among the branches, and empty boxes wrapped in colorful paper are tucked neatly underneath.
Garlands twist around each railing and banister, and Christmas flowers brighten every nook and cranny.
The tradition of candles in the windows persists from centuries past, though now we use electric candles.
How the whole damn palace never burned down before the switch is beyond me.
Even though Aurelia is on holiday break from Merryton, she is staying busy with the Maiers, and I’m making the best of the short visits I get with her.
On top of a few clandestine—all too brief—make-out sessions at RC when she was on her way home from work, we’ve managed to catch dinner together once this week with Miles and Trixie in tow.
Having chaperones is good for me since I’m struggling to keep my growing desire for her under control so I don’t push her too fast. My mind and my body hate me for it, too, and my masturbatory habits would put teenage me to shame.
Not to mention this whole find a princess thing is really grating on me with the constant parade of women through the palace for various events and interviews as the number of prospects was whittled further.
The worst is a formal dinner a week before Christmas with the princess hopefuls.
Besides the ladies still in the running in this bachelor game farce, the only other attendees are my parents and me.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to shut me in a dining room with fifty ring-obsessed noble ladies and no other men to serve as buffers needs to be put on trial for cruel and unusual punishment.
I get a reprieve from all that garbage as the holidays grow closer.
My family normally goes to Switzerland for Christmas, staying a couple of weeks and returning in time to host a huge party at the palace for New Year’s Eve.
This year, the doctor advised against Father traveling; we decided to make it a quiet holiday at the palace, and our typical New Year’s Eve bash is now to be a ball for all the princess potentials, which requires minimal effort from Father.
Christmas Mass is held at a small chapel on the Kipton grounds.
Built a few years after the palace was completed, the small stone church has served as my family’s private sanctuary for centuries.
Dozens of royal babies have been christened in its baptismal font, hundreds of private services held, and even a few weddings for lower-ranked family members have taken place here.
Mass is a small affair, just my parents and siblings, Trixie, and a handful of closer members of the court.
We typically go to Mass at Saint Basti’s—the largest cathedral in the country—sitting in the choir loft out of sight of the public and surrounded by our security team.
But Christmas is a time for us to be a family, and Kipton Chapel feels intimate and safe, like home.