Chapter 20 Dancing Bear
Dancing Bear
ELLA
Marc rushes me to the elevator and dials up my security detail. “Thor, I have Ella. We’re coming back to the palace. Side gate. Look for the black Ferrari.” A pause, and he checks his watch. “Ten minutes.”
Heat radiates from our clasped hands, but my mind is as messy as an unlicensed circus.
The dancing bear has snapped his leash and charges the stands, the dazzling lady tightrope walker is hanging by her fingertips, and a death-defying motorcyclist is trapped in the metal cage of that kiss, racing in circles at a dizzying speed.
What kind of lesson did Marc want to impart to me this time? And, Dominanstid, how did he get so good?
I twist out of his grasp. “You don’t have to drive,” I say, striding into the tiny elevator, four people deep, one and a half people wide. I hate these things, and the walls seem to close in on me as I try to untangle my emotions. “I’m not your responsibility.”
Marc locks the ornate metal door and presses the button for the underground garage, crowding me into the back.
The deathtrap shudders and the lights dim but, before I can climb out of my skin, he reaches for my hand again, lacing our fingers together.
My breathing slows, matching his. Stultes es.
I’m going to have to begin again to get over him. But not yet. I close my eyes.
“You’re wrong,” he says, brushing the pad of his thumb across my skin. “Didn’t you listen to your mother’s Christmas message? It was all about brotherly love. The whole human family bound together in goodwill and peace. We belong to each other. All of us.”
Marc doesn’t tease my sisters. Not really. His affection for them is as straightforward as a blue sky. He saves this side of himself for me. The elevator emits a death rattle when it reaches its destination, and Marc crashes the door open. I take a deep, clean breath as we exit.
“She didn’t mean a word of it,” I counter. “Freja had just eloped with a Pavian immigrant, and that was my mother’s attempt to head off a national meltdown.”
“Cynic,” he answers, stuffing me into his car, ducking back in to press a leisurely kiss on my lips.
We’re still doing this? I thought the next order of business on his agenda was to give me a talking to about borders and boundaries and neat little boxes. It’s an unusual day, though. Maybe the kiss is meant to calm me.
He closes the door with an expensive thunk, and the caged motorcycle in my mind is deafening, my brain filled with melting rubber and blinding smoke. I move to buckle my seatbelt, halting when I see an ornament swinging from the rearview mirror. I cup the gold chain with the row of tiny raccoons.
“It was a deal. Two for one,” he says, sliding into his seat and clearing his throat. His eyes never shift from the windshield, but a wash of red stains his neck.
Caroline meets us in the Great Hall with a quick curtsey.
“You’re the last to arrive, Your Royal Highness,” she says, leading the way to the administration wing.
The worst possible news has hit my family, yet I hardly register it as strange that our first impulse isn’t hugs and tea in a cozy tangle—it’s a meeting in a war room.
“It’s going to be okay,” Marc murmurs. Okay or not, I hold onto him with a death grip. When we enter the room, I curtsey. Marc gives my mother a respectful bow.
“Caroline,” Mama says, expecting to be instantly understood. Without fuss, the secretary arranges a chair slightly behind my customary seat. Marc is to stay.
I take my place and fidget with a pen and a notepad, drawing patterns on the page. Across the table, Freja and Oskar carry on a low-voiced conversation, the two of them in a small, self-contained little world.
Mama calls the meeting to order, appearing as the reassuring monarch rather than the anxious mother. “Allow me to misquote Job,” she says, slipping into her seat. She perches her reading glasses on her nose. “‘The thing which we greatly feared has come upon us.’ Caroline.”
Caroline clicks on the projector and strides to the light switch.
Noah beats her to it and she bumps into him just as the lights blink off.
Peeling out of Noah’s steadying hold, she walks through the shifting, camouflaging light.
“We are here, ma’am,” she says, touching the flow chart projected on the wall.
She begins to describe the meandering path of destruction. Freja’s legal matter will begin with a formal investigative committee and debate between parliamentary members on the floor of the Grousehof.
My stomach slides. Open Access broadcasts these exchanges on municipal planning disputes and marginal tax rates, and they usually put people to sleep. The idea of my sister’s private life being served up for public consumption makes me physically ill.
Caroline continues. “From there, this matter lands before a body of judicial lords before being presented for Her Majesty’s royal assent.
” She clicks through to another slide. “Once the committee begins an investigation, members of the royal family and royal household will be called to give evidence.”
Mama tips her head. “I am surely exempt from the summons of a minister.”
“That is technically correct, ma’am.”
“But?” Mama prompts.
I feel a stirring of envy, listening to the deep respect—even affection—between the two women who work so closely together. To my mother, I am a headache and a pest. Her secretary is her right hand.
“You will pay for it, ma’am. There are risks of appearing as though you are above the law,” Caroline replies.
“I know,” Mama breathes deeply, and my cynicism returns. “The law flows from me but I cannot use it for my own ends.” This is the groundwork for “so sorry, but my hands are tied.”
“Helena.” Père’s voice is soft, though he has been the greatest casualty of this policy. He half-reaches for her, but receiving no encouragement, his hand settles on the table in a loose fist.
Caroline clicks to another slide. “Technically, these interviews are confidential, but Your Majesty should expect damaging leaks. Personal texts and emails swept up in the official inquiry will be made public. If a member of the royal family is less-than-enthusiastically cooperative, it will appear in the press via unnamed sources.” Caroline indicates a footnote on her slide deck.
“Information about who is testifying before the committee on any given day will be included in the prime minister’s diary of events. ”
“Who is privy to this information?” Mama is in command again.
“The entire country, ma’am. It’s posted on a website, usually a week in advance.”
It’s going to be a feeding frenzy. I grip the edge of my seat and Marc collects my hand, holding it between his cool palms while my pulse steadies. Across the table, Oskar opens a small bag of crackers and places them in front of my sister.
Clara sighs. “Anyone coming and going from the Grousehof will have to walk past a million photographers. The optics won’t be good.”
The House of Wolffe has produced some monumental optics this year.
Clara tipping over Max on Queen’s Day and conducting her romance in a variety of picturesque wilderness locations.
Freja’s breathtaking wedding photos (I’m still salty about it, but I’m not blind), and all those social media videos with Oskar where they look like they’re nursing a secret, burning passion for one another.
(Spoiler: They were.) Alma swept into the protective embrace of the crown prince of Vorburg under a hail of gunfire (sort of).
She still managed to carry on a State Visit with missing stockings and a smear of blood on her knee, but none of the optics have been as uncomplicated as good.
“What about giving an interview?” Noah suggests.
“The palace can get out in front of the negative publicity by having a morning news show produce something sentimental and sweet about the undeniable power of love.” His jaw works.
“We’ll sell Freja as a girl swept away by the greatest romance the world has ever known. ”
This is what passes as a reasonable suggestion within these walls, but Oskar stands, bristling with dignity, his voice a challenge. “My wife is not a product.”
I grip Marc’s hand and he leans close, warm and reassuring, as my gaze shifts to my sister, finishing her little snack.
I wonder which identity will make way for the other.
Is Freja foremost a princess, raised in the Summer Palace to do her duty, and willing to shrink her particularities for the needs of the monarchy?
Or is Freja the wife of a commoner, a girl whose allegiances orient around the unremarkable flat on the other side of town?
Noah holds Oskar’s gaze, a hostile static crackling in the air, until finally my proud brother gives a nod. “My apologies, Freja.”
“You are forgiven. Oskar.” Freja tugs her husband’s hand.
“Audicia,” he whispers to her, resuming his seat. Mafia. How can a man who frowns as much as he does also positively glow with how much he’s into my sister?
Freja brushes crumbs from her fingers and looks around the table. “I don’t mind being referred to as ‘swept away by the greatest romance the world has ever known’,” she dimples. “Where is the lie?”
Gag. My sister used to be a woman of few words and remarkably good sense. I glower at Oskar. “You did this to her.”
Oskar gives Freja the kind of passionate, Pavian look we would kill to broadcast across the nation. He spares me a brief, not-a-smile smile.
Caroline clears her throat. “Constitutional scholars have been consulted.” This brings another slide filled with damning legal implications which might finally settle the question: Who has ultimate authority, spiritually or legally, in Sondmark? The premier or the queen?
Marc leans forward, lips near my ear. “See? Your mother is already on top of it. You don’t need to worry.”