Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
FRIEDRICH
The post-holiday season is always busy with a heavy parliament schedule, meetings with foreign ministers, and the start of the year planning meetings for the various charities my family and I support.
Father’s respite over the holiday has had the desired effect, and while he’s not back to full duty, he’s been resuming some of his normal meetings and events.
I still haven’t finished selecting my top twenty courtship prospects by the time we leave for London, a week after the New Year.
Father sits across from me on the plane, shuffling through a stack of papers.
The front end is empty except for us and Marvin, who is typing away furiously at a table behind me.
The rhythmic tick tick tick grates on the nerves that always emerge on the way to any foreign affairs event.
I have tagged along to many such affairs throughout my life, and even more so over the past year, but my anxiety still runs high every time.
Setting aside my leatherbound folder with a page dedicated to each of the remaining women, I glance up at my father.
My whole life, he has been grooming me for my eventual rise to the throne, giving me the opportunities denied him.
He was never supposed to be the one to take the kingship, but the abdication of his older brother so soon after the death of their father thrust him into the role with no warning.
He would often recount his struggle to adjust to such a position when he would spend time with both Claus and me, not wanting to make the same mistakes his father did.
In more recent years, though, Claus was included less and less as his own interest waned, and my intentions were solidified.
Now, as I note the sagging skin around his eyes and cheekbones, the untouched lunch beside him, and the distinct rattle of pills with each shudder of the plane, I can’t help but feel woefully unprepared for my future.
“Surely you have better things to do with your time than stare at me,” Father quips without looking up from the document he’s scanning.
I cough. “Sorry, Father.” Returning my attention to the folder of ladies, the words aren’t quite registering, and I find myself reading the same line three times before I notice. I sigh and shift around in my chair, running my hand through my hair.
Now my father does glance up from his reading. “Son, go make yourself a drink or something. We have only been on this flight for fifteen minutes and already your nerves are getting on mine.”
Again, I set my folio aside and walk to the well-stocked bar cart at the back of the cabin. Not wanting to overdo it before our looming meeting with our neighbors to the west, I settle on a beer and sit at the window, enjoying the crisp carbonation as the North Sea sparkles below us.
The deeper I plunge into this courtship scheme, the harder my heart tries to pull me in the direction I know I can’t go. It’s my own fucking fault, and yet I can’t bring myself to regret this thing with Aurelia.
I haven’t had so much easy fun with a woman in years, not since Stella.
The memory is like a bucket of ice water thrown over my head.
Stella was my last truly serious relationship.
We dated for a few years while at university, and I’d even started thinking about proposing.
And then she went and blew it up in the most spectacular fashion by selling me out to the press.
My phone pings, rousing me from the shit trip down memory lane.
And one look at the selfie from Aurelia reminds me how very different she is from anyone else I’ve ever dated.
The kitchen is a mess behind her, and Darcy and Liam are grinning up at the camera, all of them covered in a fine layer of flour.
Aurelia:
Well I wasn’t planning on washing my hair today. But here we are
Haha! Should have saved the baking tutorial for hair washing day. Rookie mistake Nanny Sumner
You’re right of course. What was I thinking? Guess we won’t be making cookies for you when you get home then
Now wait just a minute
I can’t keep the smile from my face, so I stay turned to the window, knowing Father will have questions that I’d rather not answer.
He wouldn’t approve of this thing I have going with Aurelia and would surely see through me if I tried to lie to him and say it means nothing.
But I love getting little snippets of Aurelia’s daily life.
It’s obvious the Maier children love her, and it’s not a far stretch for me to begin imagining her as a mother.
I don’t have those same images of these other women.
I’m stirred from my thoughts by the crack of a bottle opening. I hastily slide my phone back in my pocket before Father comes to sit by my side, placing a thinning hand on my shoulder. Once I have my face back under control, I turn to him, raising an eyebrow at the glass bottle in his hand.
“Nonalcoholic, not that it is any of your concern.” He flashes the label toward me.
“I didn’t say anything.” My gaze returns to the view outside the window.
“You did not have to. I can hear you thinking it.” We watch the world pass by for a while. At last, he says, “This is perhaps the most important summit to which I have taken you.”
My eyes fall to my feet. “I know, Father.”
It’s impossible to forget the often times fragile state of affairs between my country and the British.
It’s been centuries since we were under their rule, but perhaps it’s because my country slipped out from under their thumb while they were still busy in the Americas, or maybe the proximity we share that makes them despise us so.
There’s no real reason for any sort of animosity after all these years.
To the outside world, we appear as friends and allies.
Behind closed doors, though, relations are tenuous at best.
“Arriving with the duke’s granddaughter by your side would certainly have made our yearly visit much simpler.”
I stifle the grumble looming in the back of my throat. “Say what you really mean, Father. This whole meeting wouldn’t even be taking place had I just chosen Juliette.”
“Oh, not necessarily, Juliette. But Friedrich, you have indeed brought this upon yourself, and upon all of us.”
I take a long draw from my beer. “I know, Father. It’s just...” I rake a hand through my hair again before turning to face him. “You and Mother are as much to blame here.”
“Are we?”
“Sure. I want what you two have. I want a wife who will be a most excellent queen, of course, but I want the kind of love you and Mother share, too; I don’t want to settle for less.”
My father laughs and puts an arm around my shoulder.
“Friedrich, perhaps you do not have the experience to understand this, but your mother and I were not always in love. Sure, there was fondness and affection. But over the years, learning from each other, growing ourselves, ruling a country together, raising children, we found love.”
Found love? What does that even mean? I don’t get the chance to ask as Minister Bertram enters the forward compartment from the briefing room at the back of the plane, where the rest of our staff is preparing for our meeting with the British government.
“Your Majesty. Your Highness.” He bows to each of us in turn.
“Harold.”
“Bertram.”
We chorus in response, inclining our heads toward him.
“There are a few matters we should discuss before we arrive in London.” He opens the folder in his hands and begins rifling through a few pages.
“Have a drink first, Harold.” Father gestures to the bar cart, then returns to his chair and motions for me to do the same.
Bertram pours a measure of scotch and joins us across the table. His folder open in front of him, he folds his hands on top of the table and directs his introduction to me. “We should begin with the latest updates in the princess trials, as that is likely the foremost on everyone’s minds.”
This time, I don’t bother to hold back my groan. Bertram is unperturbed as he plows on.
“Do you have your list of twenty yet, sir?”
I return to the bar cart; beer is not going to be enough for this conversation.
“Not yet. Still weighing all my options.” I can’t make myself focus on the task of selecting twenty doe-eyed hopefuls just dying to dig their claws into my title.
Not when my mind constantly slips to thoughts of Aurelia anytime I start to make lists of the attributes I’m looking for in the remaining women.
“I know what you are thinking,” the king calls from the table. “And I know you are hesitant to make any sort of decision at the moment.”
I down a glass of very expensive bourbon that should have been sipped and enjoyed.
It doesn’t even give the satisfaction of a burning throat and warm stomach.
“I’m not hesitant, Father. But I don’t know how I can possibly make this decision after a few heavily scripted interactions and one ball.
Why don’t you just find me a matchmaker and put me out of my misery? ”
“Do try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum this weekend, Friedrich. And you would do well to tamp that disdain a little deeper down for the foreseeable future as you remember what is truly at stake here.”
I pour another measure of the same whiskey and return to the table to continue the discussion of my fate and the tangled web it winds around this summit in London.
All I really want to do is answer the delightfully filthy text Aurelia just sent me, but for Father, I’ll hear out the Prime Minister on this.
Miles has prepared for my return by reserving a table for us at a pool hall outside the city, because there is only one thing that makes a night of beer and pool better.
A fat cigar hangs from the corner of his mouth. “So how was England?” Miles slurs as he chalks his pool cue.
I blow out a cloud of smoke that rises to mingle with the haze hovering near the ceiling.
Father had been instrumental in pushing through the bit of legislation that banned smoking inside public buildings in the capital years ago, but that doesn’t extend outside the city.
This dive offers a level of privacy I rarely find in such public places, as if no one expects their crown prince to frequent such a place.
“Cold and dreary. Not to mention the shit weather.” I set my cigar on the edge of the ashtray and walk around the table to line up my next shot.
Each stroke of the cue releases more of the pent-up agitation since the plane to London.
Each crack of ball striking ball knocks away another layer of unease.
“Also, Bertram sneak attacked me with a parliament-approved list of ten women to help me get started on the selection process.”
“No shit?” Miles sinks a tricky shot and lines himself up perfectly for another. “Well, that brings you one step closer to your arranged marriage plan.”
“Yeah, but I still have to pick ten more and then take them on dates and all that bullshit.”
“Any good ones on their list?”
I shrug noncommittally. Miles has run out of clear angles and instead settles on blocking me.
“Ah, well, at least you managed to make it out without any major political snafus. Take some time this week and look at it with a clear head. I heard Margaret LaFleur is still on the roster.”
I glance up from the shot I’m lining up. “Yeah, she’s on the list Bertram shoved at me on the plane.”
“You are not allowed to marry Margaret LaFleur.”
“Miles, come on. I would never. But leaving her in the lineup takes just a fraction of the pressure off my back.” I bank a shot off the side but miss the pocket by a hair. “Damn! We’ve got to do this more, I’m getting rusty.”
Miles laughs and claps me on the shoulder.
“I’m not sure what standard you’re basing that on, but you’ve always been shit at pool.
And you’re also the limiting factor on us getting out more often.
” His fingers trail down to rest on my forearm for a moment.
Our eyes lock for a short breath before he drops his hand and picks up his pint glass.
“And sadly, it’s only going to get worse, it seems.” I run a hand down my face, scratching at my beard before taking a long, dousing drink of my beer. “As the Brits were so happy to remind me as often as fucking possible, the single jig is soon up for me.”
Miles nods as he pulls on his cigar. “I’m still amazed they hold to such an outdated treaty.”
I shrug. “It’s signed law. No one on our side has thought to fight it, and it benefits the British too well for them to give it up willingly.”
“Yeah, but the animosity they house for us is practically ancient history. What does it matter anymore if a more distant relation of yours were to ascend the throne?”
Another long drag on my cigar and subsequent release of breath has some of my worries floating away with the smoke.
“Well, the first cousin who would be in line after Claus is a German, and you know how the Brits still harbor a bit of Teutophobia. But really, I think it’s less about succession and more about annexation of territory. ”
My mother’s home country of Monaco has a similar thing going with their neighbors, the French, and succession is always a hot issue there as well.
Perhaps that’s why Mother wasn’t satisfied with just the expected heir and spare routine; though, Emarvia still hasn’t moved into the new century when it comes to allowing women in the line of succession.
I want to be disgusted as a feminist ally, but it’s allowed my sisters to grow up under significantly less pressure than Claus and I have faced.
Miles rolls his eyes, putting on a faux posh accent. “Redrawing borders is so nineteenth century, don’t you think?”
We laugh and toast to that, downing the rest of our beer and racking the balls for a rematch.
“And, uh, where does your Miss Sumner fit into this whole mess?” Miles asks after the break.
Christ, just hearing her name makes my heart pound in my chest. “We’re enjoying the time we have. We both knew what was coming when we started this.”
“Yes, but knowing that in your mind versus knowing that in your heart are two very different things.”
“What does that even mean?”
Miles watches me over the rim of his glass as he takes a long drink. “It means I’ve been watching you, Fritz. I see your face light up every time you get a text from her. I was there when you stood for her at the ball. And I could read the anger all over you when someone else danced with her.”
I take a long drag on my cigar, letting the smoke pour out with each syllable. “I was not angry.” I was in a full-on fucking rage.
“Need I remind you of the conversation we had when you first told me about this little not-sex sex plan of yours?”
I groan. “No, Miles. I remember it well. And it’s fucking fine. I swear.”