Chapter 20
Twenty
FRIEDRICH
An email comes through while I pace the library, a glass of whiskey in hand.
I have no idea what to do about Aurelia.
One minute, she was all hands and need and confidence, and the next, she was leaping from my bed like a beaten puppy presented with a rolled-up newspaper.
And she clearly doesn’t want me around while she deals with whatever the fuck is going on.
So I skim through the file Betsy sent over instead of drowning in worry. Too late.
My stomach sinks even further when I realize it’s the shortened, finalized list of the women who will be at the ball this weekend.
I’ve had little say over any of this so far.
After the cocktail night, the hopefuls were further whittled down by Mother and Father at a special tea with the queen and intensive interviews with the king.
Besides a very formal dinner at the palace just before Christmas, this ball is my first real interaction with many of these women, one of whom may one day be my wife.
There are several familiar names on the guest list, but one stands out like a flaming pile of worst idea ever.
Lady Juliette of Bedford in England, the last woman I tried to have a relationship with before this whole farce started.
Someone who I’ve done a great job of avoiding so far.
What makes anyone think that putting her in this position again will make any difference?
I thought going after the half-sister of Dietrich Maier—who’s married to one of my closest childhood friends—might be a safe bet.
But it took only three dates for me to know she’s not the woman for me.
I can’t place my finger on why, other than the fact that she’s too perfect.
Lady Juliette is the perfect British lady, high on manners but low on lived experience.
The long and short, she’s dull, and several months spent apart is not going to change that.
Plus, I could never shake the feeling she wasn’t really interested in me as a person, just as the future king.
It’s hard for me to look at any of these women with an open mind when Aurelia is locked away in the bathroom. I pour myself another glass of whiskey and keep walking a trench in the antique rug of the library while I read about each well-bred woman. All forty of them.
An hour passes, and Aurelia is still missing.
She’s far more important than these princess wannabes right now.
Throwing my phone aside, I tiptoe back down the hall and listen at the bedroom door.
I don’t knock or try to talk to her; I just want to hear anything from her, any noise that might indicate she’s alright in there.
Of course, she’s not alright. Though I have no goddamn clue what happened earlier.
I’m out of my fucking depth and I have no idea what to do, or how to handle this, but I can’t ignore the ache in my chest.
There are two women in my life who I trust to give me advice on female issues, and I’m sure as hell not calling my mother for this.
“Fritz, what is it? Is it Uncle?”
“No, Trix,” I say into my cell phone, now back to pacing the library. I finally told her and Miles about Father’s illness last week. They had both pretty much guessed already, and it was getting too hard to hide my concerns from my closest friends.
“Oh, shit,” my cousin lets out a deep breath. “Thank God. I got worried when you were calling.”
“This is more than a text conversation, Trixie.” I scrub my beard with my free hand. “I really fucked up, but I have no clue what I actually did.”
“Then how do you know you fucked up?”
I heave a sigh and tell my cousin the story, leaving out the dirty details. “Everything was going great, really fucking great. And then I…”
“Said I love you,” she supplies.
“What? No.”
“Did you make a weird orgasm face?”
I groan. “Beatrix, this is fucking serious.”
“Ooh, full naming me. Okay, serious. Please continue.”
“Thank you.” I flop on the couch in front of the fire, the book of Shakespeare still open on the rug next to the plate of forgotten gingerbread and cold coffee.
“I came and she jumped up like I’d slapped her, and then she shut herself in the bathroom and she won’t talk to me and she hasn’t come out and it’s been over an hour. ”
“Okay?” She drags the word out.
“So, what do I do?”
“Exactly what you’re doing right now, Fritz.”
“Pacing like a caged lion and mentally flagellating myself?” I promised her I would take care of her, make this arrangement a safe place for her to learn about the beauty of sexuality.
This is my fault, and I don’t know how to fix it.
And I hate feeling lost and powerless, and it seems I can’t escape the feeling, no matter which way I turn.
“I mean, if you think it will help, but it probably doesn’t, so no.”
“Wh—”
Trixie cuts me off. “Just give her space.”
“For how long? It’s not like she can completely avoid me. She’s got no other way home.”
“As long as she needs. If you try to push her to talk about it, you’ll only force her farther away from you.
Obviously, something really upset her. I mean, I’ve only spent a few hours with the girl, but she’s a pretty levelheaded, rational kind of human.
So, for her to react this way, it must be something major.
But she also doesn’t seem the type to stay shut down. ”
The rain is thrashing harder outside. I checked the forecast before taking off, of course, and this storm wasn’t supposed to roll through until tomorrow.
Surprise! At this rate, we’ll be stuck here overnight; it’s too dangerous to fly in this.
I’ll let her have my room for the night if she needs it, but I really fucking hope she comes to me before then.
“Fritz?” Trixie shakes me from my racing thoughts.
“Sorry,” I mumble, absently twisting the ring on my left pinky finger.
It’s tradition for the men in my family to receive a signet ring from our father on our eighteenth birthday.
Mine is simple, just an engraved R with a sweeping tail that looks like a wave on the ocean and a braided rope around the face. “No, you’re right. I just—”
I’m interrupted by the sound of the door opening, and I sit up to look. Aurelia peeks around the door and drops her eyes to the floor when she sees me.
“What is it?”
“I gotta go,” I tell my cousin.
“Just remember, don’t force the issue,” Trixie throws in her last bit of advice before hanging up.
I sit on the very edge of the couch, every nerve in my body dying to grab her, wrap her in my arms and soothe away every bad thought running through her mind right now. But my brain tells me that’s a bad idea, and for once I listen to it. I should let her come to me.
“Hi.”
Her voice is thick and raspy, and her skin is pink, like she’d been out in the sun too long.
There are teeth marks on the corner of her lower lip, and her eyes are red and puffy.
It’s taking all my willpower not to reach out and just—I don’t know—hold her hand or something; to stroke her still-wet hair and kiss her forehead, and tell her everything is okay.
“Aurelia, I—”
She holds up a pruney hand to stop me.
“Please. I know you’re about to apologize, but please don’t.”
My heart is going a hundred kilometers a minute, and I think my ribs quit expanding.
She shuffles to the opposite end of the couch where I’m sitting, tucking herself in the corner and hugging her knees to her chest. Her face is half covered by her legs, but she’s looking at me. That has to be a good sign.
The air around us is heavy, and I feel like I’m being pushed down by the shoulders into the couch. She’s chewing that spot on her lip again, and any other time it would be cute, but damn it, if I don’t feel like my heart is on the floor right now.
She clears her throat and finally says, “I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”
“Aurelia, no. I—”
But she stops me again. “Please, Your Highness.” She huffs a sigh. “Friedrich.”
She looks me in the eyes when she says my name, and my heart hammers with that small glimmer of hope. When she called me Your Highness through the bathroom door, I thought for sure that was it for us, whatever ‘us’ means.
“I need to get this out before I lose my nerve.”
I nod and sit back on the sofa, not getting fully comfortable, but showing her I’m ready to listen for the long haul.
Her eyes fall away from me, fixing on the floral pattern of the couch.
“What happened back there, in your bedroom, was nothing to do with you.” She clears her throat again and continues.
“I was ready to share that piece of me. I told you I’ve never been physically involved with anyone before, and most of that has to do with how I was raised.
I kind of already spilled some of the mess in my head left over my church days as a kid.
And I haven’t really played into religion since I left home—for a lot of reasons really—but those lessons they drilled into us so hard… they’re hard to let go of.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry I pushed you.”
Her eyes snap to mine again, big and searching.
“No. That’s not what I’m getting at. I’m ready.
I want to try those things with you. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before.
And that sounds stupid and cliché and whatever.
But it’s true. My body aches for you. Just being near you has my brain sending signals to places that long for your touch. I want you.”
I rub the back of my neck with my free hand and let out a short chuckle. “The feeling is very mutual, mi’ lady, if that makes you feel any better.”
I think there’s a ghost of a smile trying to play at the corners of her mouth.
“It does a little,” she agrees. “But something happened before I left home. I was already planning on moving here for college, but this, uh, thing that happened, it just made it that much easier to leave, and that much easier to leave the church behind too.” At last, she wraps her fingers around the top of my hand.
“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready. All I need to know now is how we move forward.” I see my own struggle mirrored back in her eyes. “I want to give you everything you desire. I’m honored if you’ll allow me to continue being the one to unlock the sexy side of Nanny Sumner.”
She smiles for real now, and my heart soars.
Maybe I didn’t completely fuck this up. The old leather creaks as she scooches closer to me on the sofa.
I hold out my arm for her, and she tucks into me, her head resting on my chest, and the smell of my shampoo in her hair does something to me.
I will my cock to knock it off, and somehow it obeys.
Our chests rise and fall together as our breathing becomes one.
My arms are a cocoon for her, and maybe if I hold tightly enough, I can squeeze out every last drop of doubt and fear from her.
“Just don’t come on me, okay?” she mumbles into my chest.
“What was that, princess?” I kiss the top of her head because I can’t help it when she’s against me like this.
She tilts her face to me, her lips so close to mine I could stretch out and steal a quick kiss there, too. “I have a thing about semen, apparently. That’s what happened earlier.”
That’s it? That’s easy! “No cum. Got it.”
“I mean, I want you to… You know.” Her face is going red again, and I can’t wait to see that blush creep down her chest again.
“Get off?” I supply.
“Yeah. Just not, like, on me.”
“I can definitely manage that.” My stare has been fixed on her lips, and I’m itching to taste them again. To show her she hasn’t scared me off, that I’m committed to keeping her safe. I can feel her watching me, too, waves of emotion rolling off her.
“Friedrich.” She licks her lips and rolls them between her teeth.
“Can I kiss you?” I might turn to dust if she says no.
“Yes,” she nearly begs.
I pause, if only to simply savor the sight of her in my arms, face turned to me, making the most beautiful curve in her slender neck.
I slide the back of my finger along that curve and around to the back of her head, not to pull her or force her to me.
Just to hold her, to feel the change in her breath as I weave my fingers in the hair at the base of her head.
My lips brush hers like the soft caress of a summer breeze. It’s all I need. That slightest touch of her mouth on mine, a period at the end of this issue.
“Thank you for trusting me,” I breathe, our faces still so close I can feel it puff back on me. It feels good to share her space, to smell my soap on her, but still catch a whisper of Aurelia underneath. I could wrap myself in that scent.
Fuck. I’m falling for this girl.