18. At Last
18
At Last
ALMA
It’s a false spring. The weather warms, and I run the woodland trails. There’s no danger of seeing Jacob. When he looks at me now, I feel the disappointment he’s too well-mannered to express.
Well-mannered. My old nanny used to say that manners were just a way to show people you cared about them, and instead of instilling this essential truth, I drilled him in the pale shadow of protocol.
I do press events with Pietor. We attend concerts and plays when I have no official duties, and Ella pins his photo to a dart board in the games room.
One morning, as my family comes and goes from breakfast, I leaf through the papers. In one, my sister’s new husband frowns at the paparazzi jostling Freja as they approach their flat, his arm protectively outflung. Media training would have helped him. We’re supposed to walk steadily forward, expression impassive, no hunching over or blocking the flash photography. Bore them to death. That’s the way to survive the spotlight.
Oskar wouldn’t know that, and even if he did, the picture is innocuous. It’s the headline we have to fear. Royal Pressure: Pavi Lashes Out Amid Succession Row.
The palace response will be temperate. There will be no pointing out that Oskar didn’t “lash out” and that talks of Freja’s place in the line of succession are premature. The best Mama can do is congratulate the couple and ask for privacy.
I pick up The Daily Missive . Old acquaintances have emerged to tell the ‘real story’ of Oskar’s life, like rats scurrying off a ship to spread disease. Stories about how he didn’t talk much in primary school. How he lives in a Pavian ‘enclave.’ How Pavians are tightly connected, helping each other into positions of influence. The text of the article posits that Père, a Pavian when all is said and done, had a hand in their match.
More than thirty years of walking faithfully two steps behind Mama, and the press still can’t grasp Père’s intense loyalty.
On an opposite page, Pietor and I provide the perfect counterpoint. My face has been airbrushed beyond all recognition, my smile brilliant and gleaming. The graphic designer cropped the distance between our bodies so that it looks like Pietor stands protectively in front of me, absorbing the attention and taking the snapping cameras all in stride. A masterclass in media management by HRH Pietor, Hereditary Grand Duke of Himmelstein.
Ella flops into a chair across the table, craning her neck to read the headlines.
“ Neer Velasquez and Freja are coming for tea,” she says, pouring out a cup of coffee.
“I didn’t see it on my agenda,” I say, pulling my phone out and checking the calendar.
“Just with Mama. She invited the traitor as soon as they got back from the honeymoon.”
Traitor? I sigh. “Ella, stop it. Freja has her own life to live.”
Ella balls one of the newspapers into a wad and shoots it into the wastebasket. “That philosophy is a little New Age for you, isn’t it? Right along with finger cymbals, deep meditation, and hemp pants.” She strikes a sloppy half lotus and rolls her eyes. “Living our own life. There’s only so much of that we get to do, is what I thought.”
Ella is having a proper tantrum, but I can’t blame her for being upset. If anyone paved the way for veering off the proscribed royal path and running into an oncoming elopement, it was her.
Pietor would never have tempted me to do such a thing.
Memories spark up my mind. Jacob waiting up for me. Jacob in the tiny kitchen, getting tea. Jacob glancing over. Can I be honest?
Warmth floods my chest, and I run from it. “Freja’s marriage wasn’t a personal slight to you,” I remind Ella. “None of us were invited.”
The look Ella sends me is enough to ignite a riverbed. “It was the most important day of her life, and she couldn’t be bothered to ring her twin.”
When I make my way to the Chevres drawing room, I think of what Freja did, of what I would have done in her place, of the lessons I should take. The one that would upset my life the least is that I can’t let anything matter to me as much as she let Oskar matter to her.
I’m leafing through the daily schedule when the door opens. Jacob delivers his correct greeting and I hardly glance up, it’s so expected.
“Today we’ll cover titles,” I say, reaching for a notebook.
“That’s it?” he asks.
I glance up, down, and up again. In the time it takes for an entire worldview to be overthrown, I scramble to my feet.
“The crown prince, at last,” Karl whispers, coming closer to inspect the tailor’s work.
The ensemble is simple and unfinished. Jacob has no watch or cufflinks, the pocket square is stuffed carelessly at his breast, and his tie is a basic half-Windsor. But the jacket skims his shoulders, framing them in luxury and quiet authority. Genius. I want to give Mr. Tumwater a royal commendation and name a Navy ship in his honor. I want to commission a bronze statue of him to stand in Liberation Square, scissors held aloft, measuring tape curling to his toes. What he’s done with Jacob—
Jacob suffers through our inspection, eyes closed, mouth in a grim line, annoyed that we’re making such a fuss, and I move around the back where the breadth of his shoulders is lovingly accentuated. Karl’s examination is more technical, and when he lifts the vent of Jacob’s jacket to check the drape, I bite my lip.
Expensive wool suiting falls away from what I am convinced is the most commendable backside in northern Europe. In future, government ministers will take credit for Vorburg’s soaring GDP and boom in tourism, ascribing the successes to financial policies or forward-thinking legislation. No one will chalk it down to the cut of a pair of trousers and the new crown prince wearing them.
Karl lifts his brow, and I give him a look of exquisite distress, shaking my hand and wrist—the universal signal for, The tailor did a nice job. So hot. Literally burning the palace down .
Jacob, still determined not to look at us, clears his throat. “Well?”
Stuffing the screaming fangirl into a box, I move to his front, squaring up to him in a brisk and businesslike way, and brush his shoulders. I straighten the knot of his tie, gaze trained on how the blindingly white dress shirt looks against his strong neck. My hands halt and my heartbeat is deafening.
His eyes snap open.
“This is a good start.” I toss my hair and step beyond his reach with joints that feel tight and uncoordinated. “Ready to begin?”
I work like a demon, walking us through the titles held by early Germanic tribes and carried into the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, throwing so many conquering warlords and notable historical events at him that there’s no time for my mind—or my eyes—to wander. The honorifics—defunct, ceremonial, or existent—carry a dizzying array of meanings and significance, and I drill into each one.
“I’m just saying that ‘pretender to the French throne’ is an embarrassing title,” he argues. We’ve been working for hours, and my stamina is waning.
“It’s not exactly a title.”
“If it gets attached to someone’s name every time someone talks about them, it’s a title.”
“Score one for Vorburg,” I mutter.
He laughs and stretches his arms wide, his back a curve. His jacket moves with him, sitting snugly against his neck. Karl departed ages ago, leaving me alone with this new creature, His Royal Highness Jacob, Crown Prince of Vorburg, and I let my eyes linger on him while he moves, trying to make sense of the transformation.
“Time for lunch,” he says, running a hand over his flat stomach. “Hungry?”
He holds out a hand for me, an unconscious courtesy, and I walk silently beside him, trying not to stare.
As we near the Great Hall, we hear Ella’s roar. “Take the cat if that’s all you came for.”
She lifts a basket from Caroline and thrusts it in Freja’s hands, striding off in a thundercloud of furious muttering. Smit seems unphased, but the commotion draws my brother from his office. Striding past us wearing a severe, quelling expression, he scatters footmen to the secret recesses of the palace.
I move swiftly to smooth the awkwardness and kiss Freja’s cheek. “You look gorgeous,” I say, holding her at arm’s length. “Marriage suits you.”
My sister, faintly puzzled by the emotions of lesser mortals, gestures in the direction of Ella’s flounce. “Has she been like this the whole time?”
This is exactly what she’s been like the whole time, but I shake my head. “You know Ella. If she was really mad, she would have rehomed the cat,” I say. Freja doesn’t need to carry the burden of our sister’s anger.
Freja reaches a hand to the man standing behind her, bringing him to her side. “This is Oskar. You’ve met, once or twice, I think.”
She introduces him around. His bows are stiff but correct, and he holds my sister’s hand without self-consciousness. They can’t stay, she tells me. The cat has taken umbrage to the basket.
“Next time,” I echo, waving them away.
I turn to find Noah towering over Caroline. “Show me your arm.”
No one has ever dared ignore that commanding tone, and Caroline’s habitually calm face is strained. “It’s nothing,” she says, holding her sleeve where blood has spotted the cream silk. “Smit didn’t take kindly to his basket.”
“We have to see to it,” he insists. “Caro—”
“Your Royal Highness,” she cuts him off, “I refuse to bleed all over the Great Hall.”
Her resistance surprises me, but Karl solves the dispute by waving a plastic first aid kit. “No need to interrupt your work, sir, for such a trivial matter,” he says in a half bow. “I’ll see to Vrouw Tiele’s care.”
He whisks her off to an anteroom—the one dedicated to coats and ex-fiancés. Jacob wanders to my side and bumps my elbow. See? Karl likes her.
Frowning, Noah drops his hand, sliding it into his pocket. “How are you getting on with your training?” he asks Jacob, the question pitched nicely between official inquiry and friendly curiosity.
Jacob tips his chin. “Alma is trying to accomplish the impossible.”
Noah flashes a smile, the one which has broken hearts across the globe. “On my first international assignment, I threw up in a dignitary’s lap. I had spent the afternoon running around the beaches with my best friend and got heat exhaustion. My mother threatened to consign me to a dungeon until I could be trusted to hydrate and use sunscreen. You’ll do fine.”
“He doesn’t remind anyone of that story,” I say, when we’ve made our way to our suite.
Jacob dispenses with his jacket and pulls the shirtsleeves to his elbows. I rummage through the refrigerator and toss him a can of berrybeer. He pops the tab and hands it to me. I toss him the other one. “He must like what he sees.”
“My father would tell me to exploit that,” he admits. “He called me this morning—”
“You shouldn’t be telling me this,” I remind him.
I remind me. Sondmark and Vorburg are ancient enemies, no matter the rosy picture Mama wants to paint at the state visit. We shouldn’t expose our vulnerabilities.
He nods. “Did you ever mess up as badly as your brother?” he asks, swallowing down the beverage.
Jacob has worked hard. He deserves this. Fishing my phone out, I pull up my library of GIFs, clicking on the extended one with the charging Hispaniolan galliwasp on live television.
“This is a gaffe?” he points at the screen. “Your face barely moved when it scuttled up your leg.”
“It’s the first impression anyone gets when they google Sondmark. The Minister of Tourism produces a report every year, and there I am.”
“Do you have a problem with animals running at you, or is it a reptile thing?”
“Anything with scales.” I shudder. “Anything that slithers or has moist skin.”
He dries his hands on a cloth and grins. “His Majesty says I have to make myself marriageable.”
“You won’t have a problem with that.” I fill a plate with odds and ends, shifting around the tiny space as Jacob reaches for some chicken. A hard knot forms in my throat. “Your father already has lists of brides he would approve of, I’m sure. You could probably ask Karl.”
Jacob picks up a drumstick. “My father isn’t in any position to tell me who to marry,” he says.
“Whom.” I correct without thinking.
“You have to stop doing that,” he whispers, leaning against the counter.
Yes. We’re off the clock. He must get tired of the constant correction. I step back, tugging the neck of my jumper. “You were saying?”
“Whom do you think I should marry?”
My brain shorts. “Who.” I register my mistake as soon as the word leaves my mouth. It isn’t fair. I was looking into his eyes, English is my second language, and I want to kiss him so badly.
His eyes dart to my lips. Though I’ve worked a miracle these past weeks, turning him into a nearly-civilized picture of modern royalty, the fa?ade slips away. He’s the same man in the jeans and leather jacket I met last month. He’d still kiss me if I asked him to.
Jacob takes a bite of chicken and wipes his mouth. “He can suggest until he’s blue in the face, but I won’t pick someone my father chooses for me.”
This topic hurts in several ways at once and I dredge up a smile. “If you’re already thinking about the succession, your metamorphosis into a royal prince is nearing completion. Do you want help finding a bride?” I scoot quickly past him to the relative safety of the hall. Please, not that. I’ve made numberless sacrifices as a princess of Sondmark, but I can’t do that.
He follows me to the sitting room. “Will I need help? Has a title made me unmarriageable?”
If he only knew the number of women about to throw themselves at his feet, he wouldn’t say such stupid things. I picture them as a mob, running at him in a thundering stampede.
“Not unmarriageable. But you’ll need to be careful when you select her.”
“Careful? How can you be careful when you love someone?” His brow tents.
“If you want to protect her—” Her . She’ll be some basic tiara-chaser with a set of pearls and a megawatt smile. She’ll have picked the right schools and adopted the right attitudes, training for this like some women train for gold medals. I hate her already. “If you want to protect her from being torn apart in the press and from feeling that she can never possibly measure up to her position, you’ll have to be careful. This life isn’t for everyone. You have to make a thoughtful choice.”
He wolfs down a spinach quiche and talks around his bites. “That’s dumb. Love just happens. It doesn’t have anything to do with how suitable someone is.”
My ‘have you ever cracked open a history book’ expression flashes. “My father was one of very few royal men of his generation. It wasn’t an accident he was introduced at precisely the time my mother came of age or that their parents hammered out a mutually beneficial agreement with ironclad legal protections. When they married, there was a shared sense of commitment and duty. Love came later.”
I thank Jacob for his silence—for pretending that’s the end of the story when he must have picked up enough palace gossip to know all is not well between my parents.
He rakes a hand through his hair. “You’d gamble on a thing like that?”
The question is like water pooling at my foundations, slowly wearing down the limestone, eroding the soil.
“Marriage is always a gamble,” I explain, shoring myself up.
He stretches his legs out and tips his head back, closing his eyes for a catnap before I march him through a long afternoon of European titles in the wake of the Cold War. I’m tired too, but when he’s not looking at me, it’s as though my hands go slack and the dozens of balls I’m juggling drop silently to the carpet.
Light plays against Jacob’s face, and his eyes shift under the lids.
“Wouldn’t being in love increase the odds of a successful marriage?” he asks, voice drowsy. He swallows. “Wasn’t it a relief when you fell in love with Pietor?”
Stretching my arm out, I lean my head against the back of the sofa, and the voices in my head quiet. I am perfectly content to watch him drift on the edge of sleep. Words press against my lips.
I never loved Pietor.