Chapter 10Amelia
Chapter 10
Amelia
I am positively vibrating with the most delicious morsel of gossip this royal correspondent has devoured since Prince Max was caught on camera skinny-dipping in the river with a team of no less than eight lady rowers at last year's Royal Summer Regatta—and don't pretend you've forgotten those photographs because I've had them framed.
Would you believe that our very own Princess Amelia, the same princess who is allegedly pursuing transcendental enlightenment in the mountains of India, has allegedly been spotted dashing through the streets of Tleurbonne looking less "namaste" and more "no way"?
Not only that but she was apparently dressed in jeans and sneakers , my dears. The horror! The scandal! The absolute fashion catastrophe!
Our princess was seen racing onto a train like she was being chased by her dance instructor after missing waltz practice.
One imagines King Frederic downing a whiskey or two as Queen Astrid reaches for her smelling salts at the very thought.
Perhaps it was merely her doppelganger with an uncanny resemblance to our beloved princess? Or, horror of horrors, could the palace have lost track of a royal?
Imagine the panic in the royal household! The King checking under sofas, the Queen ringing all her friends, young Prince Max being interrogated about his sister's whereabouts while trying to sneak out himself! It's positively Shakespearean.
I remain your ever-devoted royal correspondent, with eyes peeled and ears perked for any further sightings of our runaway royal,
Fabiana Fontaine xx
#PrincessOnTheLoose
#JeansAndTiaras
#RoyalHideAndSeek
What am I doing ?
I mean, there isn’t exactly a section in the royal rulebook on what to do when you find yourself in a picturesque lake house with a suspiciously handsome American stranger after a narrow escape from a dating disaster.
Maybe someone could insert it between Rule number 813: Correct cutlery placement when dining with minor dictators , and just before Rule number 814: Always maintain a dignified posture while riding camels in the Sahara .
I’m standing in a house that can only be described as a chateaux, on what looks like a thoroughly picturesque lake thanks to the brightness of the full moon tonight, following a dating disaster with a man I thought I knew, and then escaped here on a helicopter with another man who I’ve known for only a day, both of us dressed as goths.
Seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
I blow out a breath. The big question is, can I trust Maverick Mitchell?
Or should the question actually be, have I got any reason not to trust him?
As we separate to inspect the house and all its rooms. I count off the facts on my fingers.
We met by chance. Twice.
He seems genuine, evidenced by the fact he stuck around at the bar while I went on my disastrous date with Greg—or whatever his name really is.
He helped me escape from said disastrous date.
He was genuinely sweet to me during my low point tonight, even offering me his shirt to wipe away my smudged makeup. I mean, that’s kindness personified, isn’t it?
He’s hot. So there’s that.
Not that I should be basing any decisions on the fact that a man I’ve just met is hot. Even if he is decidedly hot, with his dark blue eyes, thick brown hair he frequently runs his fingers through in that sexy manner of his. And I haven’t even touched on his athlete’s physique, right down to his impossible height. Seriously, I have to crane my neck just to look into his eyes. But what eyes. Like deep blue pools that draw me in, hinting at the depths that lie behind them. The way the skin around those eyes creases when he smiles his kind smile, a smile that soothed me after the disaster of my “date.” Made me feel safe.
And really, can someone truly evil have such kind eyes?
But on the other hand, there’s the fact that he told me at the costume shop that he was planning to wear his goth costume to a party. What happened to that party?
“This place is enormous. I think we can actually have a wing each.” Maverick’s voice pulls me from my quandary, and I wander back to the living room where he’s holding a set of towels.
“You never told me about your party,” I say and I watch him closely for his reaction.
“Party?” he questions, pulling his brows together in what I’m now learning is his characteristic way.
“Yes. The party you were going to, dressed as a goth.”
“Oh, that party,” he replies, as though he has a long list of parties to attend and isn’t in fact getting away from himself, as he confessed to me earlier in the helicopter. But what do I know? Perhaps “getting away from oneself” means going to a whole string of parties. Although I strongly suspect not.
“My plans changed. I was meant to go to a party in Tleurbonne, but I decided to head to the lake house early.”
“I see.”
Do I believe him? It seems reasonable enough. People’s plans do change. Maybe he wasn’t in the party mood? And besides, I wasn’t exactly honest with him about the alleged children’s party I said I’d been to before hopping on the train.
Perhaps it’s better that I leave sleeping dogs lie.
If I don’t question him too closely, hopefully he won’t do the same with me.
I file my questions away for another day and pronounce, “This place is just lovely, Mav. I’ve never been to this particular lake before. I’m looking forward to discovering it’s treasures.”
“Not a bad spot.” He holds out a set of towels. “I got you these. Thought you might want to de-goth.”
I take them in my hands, feeling their soft plushness. “Thanks.”
“It’s all part of the service, Your Royal Highness.”
I do a double take before I remember it was my joke from earlier in which I was sounding him out to see whether he really did recognize me. But there wasn’t even a flash of recognition in his eyes.
“A knight who provides linens. How very 21 st Century,” I say.
We stand in silence for a moment, neither of us knowing what to say next.
“Are you hungry?” he asks finally, breaking the mounting awkwardness.
“Starving!” I reply with gusto, because even though we ate dinner only a couple of hours ago, my tummy grumbles at the thought.
Being disappointed by Greg has given me an appetite.
“Let’s go see what we can find in the kitchen,” Maverick says.
I follow him past an elegant dining room with a large mahogany table and a chandelier rather similar to some of the chandeliers at the palace, then down a wide hallway lined with paintings, and into a kitchen. It’s an elegant space. The cabinets are pale blue with gold-hued marble counters. Rustic wood beams sit overhead, and a chandelier hangs over the island, making the room gleam with its warm glow.
Maverick turns in a circle, trying to locate something. “Refrigerator?”
“Over there,” I say, pointing at a walk-in fridge with glass doors not unlike the one in the palace back home in Villadorata. I sometimes sneak into it after the kitchen staff have left for the day and devour an extra pudding.
“Huh. Never seen one like that before,” Maverick says as he pulls the doors open. Inside the fridge is filled with a colorful display of fruits and vegetables, pots of yoghurt and dips and spreads, milk, and various meats.
“That’s a lot of food,” I say, stepping into the cool fridge, still clutching onto my towels. “Fancy a little picnic?”
He turns to me in surprise. “It’s dark out.”
“We could sit on large cushions on the living room floor and throw the French doors open to see the view of the lake. The moon is full tonight and very bright.”
“I was thinking more of a quick late-night sandwich at the kitchen counter before hitting the hay, but your idea is better. Let’s collect what we need.” He glances at the towels. “You might want to put those to the side for now.”
“I’d thought the very same thing,” I reply, placing my towels on the counter.
We go about collecting whatever looks good from the fridge. We’ve got everything from some salmon paté to carrots to an assortment of cheeses, and tubs of strawberries.
Maverick locates the pantry and pulls out a loaf of bread, waving it in the air. “Sandwich?”
“Yes, please.”
He locates a thick wooden chopping board and a knife and together with the loaf, he places them in front of me.
Now, I don’t want to come across all elite or anything, but really, when does a Ledonian princess ever use a wooden chopping board and a knife to cut up a loaf of bread? Answer: never. That would be breaking Rule number 42: A princess must never prepare her own food .
Oh, but how I love to break those rules, so preparing our own food it is, even if it is just slicing up a loaf of bread. I make a mental note to put a big, fat, thoroughly satisfying line through that one in my rule book later.
I examine the items in front of me. How hard can it be? It’s logical that the bread sits on top of the board. So far so good. Then, I suppose, I just start cutting it up. Should be easy enough.
I pick up the knife and hold it over the bread, about to start slicing when Maverick says, “Shouldn’t you take the bread out of its paper bag first?”
I let out a light laugh. “I knew that!” I insist, when I really didn’t.
I pull the bread from its paper bag and line it up in the center of the board once more. I lift the knife into the air and lower it onto the bread with a chopping motion, but the knife bounces right out of my hand with barely a dent to the bread, flying up in the air and landing with a clank onto the tiled floor.
Oops.
It turns out that slicing bread isn’t quite as straightforward as I might have imagined.
Maverick looks from the knife to me and then back at the knife. He frowns. “What happened?”
“Frankly, I couldn't quite tell you.”
He collects the knife from the floor and cleans it under flowing water from the tap, dries it, and places it on the board next to the bread. “Do you want me to give it a shot?
“I'm quite capable of slicing some bread,” I tell him with false bravado, because it's quite clear I have no idea how to do this.
He raises his hands in surrender. “You got it.”
As he turns away to do something with cheese, I make another unsuccessful attempt, managing only to further mangle the innocent loaf. My cheeks burn with embarrassment. At the palace, everything is discretely managed for me. Other than raiding the fridge at night, I’ve got no clue what goes on in the palace kitchens. But here in this kitchen, with no royal infrastructure to shield me, I'm simply a woman who can't slice bread.
I can’t help but feel utterly useless, unable to complete even the most basic of tasks.
I refuse to be defeated by this loaf. I take another shot, but this time I don't go in for any big movements. Instead, I placed the knife directly on top of the bread and with my other hand, I press it down. Surely this should work? In the battle between bread and knife, knife should win, what with it being made of metal and not … bread.
Sadly, I’m wrong. All I manage to do is squash the loaf to half its original size.
How on earth do you slice a loaf of bread? Particularly when the knife is a little bendy. Yes! That's it! That's my problem. Maverick gave me a bendy knife by accident. I simply need a stronger knife.
I pull open drawers until I locate a knife drawer, filled with knives neatly lined up. I grab the largest one—something that looks very serious indeed—and check its bendiness. It doesn't bend at all. We're making progress.
I've been going about this completely the wrong way. It's now obvious to me I need to use some brute force. I lift the large knife into the air, holding the loaf in place when I feel a hand grip my wrist and gently pull the knife away.
“I was going to use that!” I complain.
I look at him and expect to see pity in his eyes, or worse, a flash of superiority people get when they know something you don't, like Sofia used to give me growing up every day of her life.
But instead, his expression holds genuine understanding.
And humor. Definitely humor.
“Have you never sliced a loaf of bread before, Amy?” he asks.
I need to come clean. The squashed and completely un-sliced loaf is evidence of my lack of bread slicing experience. “I haven't,” I admit.
“Because you always get pre-sliced bread? Yeah, me too,” he replies, letting me off the hook. “You know, the first time I had to do my own laundry, I turned everything I owned gray, including my sheets and my towels. I told my family that since gray is a sign of maturity my laundry had officially outgrown me.”
I let out a laugh. “At least it wasn’t pink like Rachel’s went on Friends .”
His brows ping up. “You get that show in Ledonia?”
“Oh, we’re right up with the play, you know. We get all the ‘90s shows.”
It’s his turn to laugh. “Let me show you how to slice bread.” He demonstrates the sawing motion needed for bread-cutting and I watch his hands move as he methodically slices the bread. Slice after slice, his hands are steady and strong. “See? It’s easy when you know how.”
“Thank you, Mav,” I say softly.
“Why don’t you wash the strawberries?”
“Certainly. I know exactly how to do that.”
“Good to know.”
I watch Maverick move around the kitchen with the practiced ease of someone who doesn't need royal kitchen staff to prepare a simple picnic. It's mesmerizing, really, like watching a nature documentary about a species I've only read about in books: Homo sapiens normalus , in his natural habitat, performing the ancient ritual of food preparation without cutting off a limb.
“Where did you learn to cook? You seem quite handy.”
“Nothing fancy. When you live on your own, you either learn to feed yourself or become intimate friends with the delivery guy.”
“And you clearly learned to feed yourself.”
A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Let's just say I could recite the entire menu of Golden Dragon Chinese by heart before I learned it’s way cheaper to make your food than buy it from a restaurant.”
There's something refreshing about his straightforwardness—the way he doesn't seem to be performing. Everyone in my life is performing something: royal duties, diplomatic niceties, appropriate deference for my royalty. Maverick just... is .
I lean against the counter. “Were you always so self-sufficient?
“Not really. Growing up, my mom handled most of that stuff. But after college, reality hit pretty hard.”
“What kind of reality?”
“The kind where no one magically appears to wash your socks or make sure you've eaten something other than instant noodles that week.”
Instant noodles sound rather thrilling to me.
“What about you?” he asks as he pastes some of the salmon paté onto a slice of bread. “What's your family like? Beyond the strict rules and fancy luggage, that is.”
Now there’s one dangerous question.
But there's something about the way Maverick looks at me attentively, like he's actually interested in the answer, that makes me want to give him something real—without giving the game away.
“They're complicated,” I say, which is perhaps the most honest thing I've ever said about my family to someone outside the royal bubble. “Like me, my older sister, Sofia, has had her entire life mapped out since birth and she's completely fine with it. My older brother, Alex, spent years rebelling against family expectations before finally finding his place. And Max, my younger brother, pretends nothing bothers him, but I think he feels the weight of it all much more than he lets on."
I stop, horrified that I've revealed too much. If he knows any of my family’s names, he could piece it all together. But he just nods, like he understands family dynamics.
“And where do you fit in all that?”
The question catches me off guard. Where do I fit? The spare to the spare to the heir? The princess with no clear purpose except to wave and smile and make an appropriate marriage and then quietly disappear?
“I'm still working that out, hence the great escape.”
He smiles at me, and something in his eyes tells me he understands. “Are you gonna wash those strawberries any time soon?”
“Strawberries. Of course.” I collect the tub of the fattest, juiciest strawberries and take it to the sink. I find some liquid soap and squirt it over the fruit, giving them a jolly good clean. It buffs off some of the skin, so they end up looking a little like lumps of something red more than strawberries.
As I finish, I turn in triumph to Maverick, but he's got an odd look on his face.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You used soap to wash the strawberries?”
I beam at him. “Of course I did. You said to wash them.”
“Right.” He nods his head a few times, that frown of his returning once more.
Why is he frowning at me? I'm certain I did a good job. Besides, I'm not about to tell him I've never washed strawberries before.
And he really should stop frowning quite so much. He'll get permanent lines. He'll have a resting frown face, and no one will like him.
Except, if I'm completely honest, he looks rather sexy when he frowns.
Which is all the more reason why he should avoid frowning around me. I don't want to develop a crush on this man. Not after what's just happened. I need to lick my wounds for a while. Think about other things. Things like how to be a normal person, doing normal things.
“Do you want me to wash anything else?” I ask.
“No!” he says rather forcefully, and it's my turn to frown. “What I mean is I think we've got everything we need, so let's take our sandwiches and go have our picnic.”
“What about the strawberries?”
“Let’s … not.”
A few minutes later, we've pulled the French doors open that overlook the lawn leading down to the lake and placed some of the sofa cushions on the floor. We both sit, biting into our sandwiches, which taste utterly incredible.
“I grabbed a couple of bottles of beer. Do you want one?” He holds a bottle out to me.
“Oh, yes please. I hardly ever get to drink beer.”
He snaps off the cap and the beer hisses. Holding his bottle up to mine, we clink before we both take a sip.
“Ah, that's good,” he says, leaning back against the cushions.
I follow suit, gazing out at the lake, glistening in the moonlight as I take another bite of my sandwich. “It’s beautiful here,” I say between bites, the moonlight casting silver ripples across the water's surface.
“It really is.”
“I could imagine staying here forever. Have you decided how long you’re staying?”
He shrugs. “I'm not sure yet. Maybe? Depends.”
“Well, that’s as clear as mud,” I say on a laugh. “What does it depend on?”
He thinks for a moment before he replies, “On whether I can get a job.”
A job .
Perhaps I could get a job, too? I could do something normal people do every day of their lives, something I would never get to experience as a princess—which, let's face it, is pretty much any job anywhere.
“What sort of job?” I ask, my pulse jumping.
“I dunno. Something in the service industry, probably. I’ve done that before. I'm thinking of looking in the town tomorrow.”
“Could I come with you?” I ask, enthusiastic for this new turn my adventure has taken.
“You want to get a job, too?”
“I would absolutely love a job!”
“I thought you were only staying for a couple days?”
That. Right.
“I might stay longer, if you’re open to it? I mean, I don’t want to outstay my welcome or anything, but it is rather splendid here, and I promise not to be a bother.” Then I add, “I could really do with the money.”
There. That makes me sound totally normal. I need a job to make money. That's what people do who aren't royal. I did bring some money with me, of course, but I used some of it for my train ticket here, and I’m worried it won’t last all that long if I’m not careful.
He studies me for a beat. “How long do you think you want to stay?”
“As long as you’re happy for me to?” I chance and hold my breath.
He pulls his lips into a line. “Let's go check out the town and see what jobs we might be able to find.”
“Perfect! Thank you so much, Mav. We’re going to have lots of fun, you and I. I can tell.”
He bites back a smile, and I wonder what I’ve said to amuse him. But I’m positively brimming with excitement at this idea. A job! An actual job! I’ve never had one before, and the thought of going to a place of work, of having things to do with my day, tasks to complete, working with other people who don’t call me Your Royal Highness and bow and curtsy and watch what they say around me, fills me with glee.
“Can I ask you something that might sound somewhat strange?” I set my sandwich down.
“Stranger than whether you tried to use soap to clean strawberries?’
I laugh despite myself. “How was I supposed to know you don’t use soap on strawberries?”
“I dunno, by doing life?”
I press my lips together before I ask, “Do you ever feel like your whole life has been one long performance? Like everyone's watching you, expecting you to be a certain way, and if you step out of line even a little, they’re all shocked?”
He pauses for a beat, his eyes reflecting in the moonlight.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me there's something in that pause. Perhaps a story he isn't telling me? I only recognize it because I have similar pauses of my own.
But I might be reading too much into it.
“Yeah,” he says finally. "Like everyone has expectations of how you’re meant to be, and they don't actually care about the real you underneath.”
I widen my eyes at him. He gets it. Really gets it. “Exactly that! And then you find yourself doing ridiculous things just to feel—” I struggle to find the right words because I can’t finish my sentence the way I intend by saying “like you’re not just a princess.”
“Real?” he offers, and I blink at him.
He really does get it.
“Real,” I confirm.
We share a look which feels like a moment of complete understanding. We’re two people who recognize the loneliness of being seen but not known .
He takes a sip of his beer, staring out at the view. “Can I ask you a question now?”
“Ask away.”
“How come you don't know your way around a kitchen?”
“Oh. Well, I have this condition.”
It's called being a princess.
He tilts his head to look at me. “A condition?”
“It's a condition that means that you can't make your own food. It's very rare. It mostly affects people with … err … very attentive mothers. Yes, that’s it. Very attentive mothers.”
“What’s this condition called?”
I come up with a term as though it’s a real condition. “Chronic Culinary Incompetence Syndrome.” I suppress a smile at how clever I am.
“Chronic Culinary Incompetence Syndrome.”
“You probably haven't heard of it because it's very rare.”
“And it means your mom has to do the cooking for you?”
Or the palace chefs. “That's right.”
“Amy, that's not a condition. That's called being a kid. But you're what? Twenty-something?”
“Twenty-four and three quarters.”
His lips quirk. “I'm sure the three quarters makes all the difference. Does your mom still cook for you?”
“Yes.”
“So, you still live at home.”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
“What does ‘huh’ mean?”
“It means that it makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” I ask, genuinely confused.
“That you think you need to use soap to wash strawberries.” He presses his lips together to stifle a smile.
“You don't use soap?”
He shakes his head. “No soap.”
“Should I have used dishwashing liquid? That was my second choice.”
“Definitely not,” he replies with a chuckle.
“I've got a lot to learn.”
He shrugs, his features lifted in a smile. “Haven't we all?”
We fall into a comfortable silence as we eat, the kind that doesn't need to be filled with chatter, and I find myself feeling more comfortable with Maverick than I have with anyone in a long, long time.
“I've spent my whole life following rules, and now that I'm breaking them, I keep waiting to feel guilty. But I don't. I just feel free,” I say.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
I turn to look at him. “Is that terrible?”
He shakes his head. "It's human. We all need space to figure out who we are beyond everyone else's expectations.”
“Is that what you're doing here? Figuring out who you are?”
A shadow crosses his face. “I guess I'm trying to remember who I was before ... everything.”
I want to ask what "everything" entails, but there's something in his tone that suggests boundaries. And I, of all people, understand the necessity of boundaries.
Instead, I simply nod. "Well, for what it's worth, I like who you are."
He smiles. “Right back atcha, Amy."
And though we're still virtual strangers in many ways, and I’ve not even given him my real name, there's a thread of understanding between us that feels strangely comforting. It’s not a romantic feeling, despite the fact anyone can see he’s jolly handsome. I'm certainly not ready for anything along those lines after the Greg fiasco.
I suppose it’s the beginning of a real, authentic connection with someone. Perhaps this could be my adventure? A princess getting to make genuine connections with the people she meets. It might not have the excitement of a grand love affair, but as I look at Maverick gazing out at the lake, I wonder whether it might just feel like an adventure after all.