Chapter 11
The next day, Natalie once again shut herself in her room. This time she sent the three maids away at the start of the day, needing uninterrupted peace for her task.
Once alone, however, she sat motionless for an extended period. How did you write an official document?
Her first two attempts were soon abandoned, thrown into the fire to hide any trace of her efforts.
But once the words began to flow, she wrote at speed, thinking of the documents she had sometimes found on her parents’ desk.
She even began to enjoy using pompous-sounding words to string together endless waffle.
The false documents she was creating didn’t actually say anything sensible. They just needed to be convincing at a quick glance. Given how twitchy the blackmailer had been at the gazebo, she was betting he wouldn’t look at the documents too closely before hurrying out of the palace grounds.
Once she’d followed him back to his base of operations, it wouldn’t matter when he discovered the ruse. She could send the royal guards after him and put an end to the whole business.
Thankfully she didn’t have to attempt creating a fake seal—a task that would have been much more difficult than writing false documents.
Natalie had one of her own she could use, a parting gift from her younger sister.
Rebecca had almost certainly intended it as a jest—she had considered Natalie’s quest both ridiculous and doomed to failure—but Natalie had thrown it in the bottom of her bag anyway.
She dug it out, leaving it in its leather pouch. Like the documents, it would only fool a cursory look. But she was trusting that was all the man would stop to give it.
Documents and seal went into a leather satchel, the whole package ready within a day of Natalie receiving the note.
She couldn’t possibly deposit it in the designated place so quickly, however.
It would only raise suspicions if she acted too quickly.
If she were truly planning to steal such confidential items, she would need time to manage the feat.
It was also in her own interests to wait to place the satchel until close to the blackmailer’s deadline. Once she’d put it in position, she would need to watch the spot day and night in order to ensure she was there to see it collected.
Sitting on her hands and doing nothing had never been Natalie’s strong suit, however.
Surely the blackmailer would check the cache periodically rather than waiting until the end of the window he had given her.
He would want to be less predictable than that.
So placing it early wouldn’t necessarily mean waiting for days.
He was probably checking at least once a day.
Rising early one morning, Natalie’s patience snapped. She couldn’t bear any more time spent alone and waiting. But she wasn’t even halfway to the designated place, deep in the palace gardens, when a cheerful voice hailed her by name. She ground her teeth together as she turned to face Luca.
He had to be watching her, given he managed to appear at all the most inopportune times.
“What do you want now?” she asked. “If you’re here to drag me off to another empty social event, I’m not going. Not today.”
“Perfect,” he said with a grin. “Since I’m not going today either.”
She finally absorbed his appearance and blinked. She had never seen him less than impeccably dressed, as most Lanoverians tended to be. But today only his air of confidence and his possession of the royal jawline distinguished him from a farm laborer.
“What are you wearing?” she asked, completely distracted.
“Something practical. But I brought a coverall for you.” He held out a long length of heavy material.
“For me?” She stared at him blankly. “What are you talking about?”
“Today we’re doing something a little less empty,” he said. “Unless you’d rather go and make small talk…”
He waited, eyebrow raised in challenge.
Curiosity burned in Natalie like fire. She glanced down at her satchel and then back at him. It wasn’t as if she could go and deliver it as planned if Luca was going to trail along behind her.
He called toward the palace, and a footman appeared, jogging to meet them.
“Put the princess’s bag in her room,” he instructed the man, gesturing for Natalie to hand over her satchel.
She hesitated. But refusing to hand it over would only draw Luca’s attention to it. Reluctantly she unslung it from her shoulder and passed it to the waiting footman, her eyes following him as he headed back toward the palace.
“Stop fretting.” Luca handed her the coverall he’d been holding. “He’ll see it safely to your room.”
She put on the length of material, pleased to see that it covered her dress without dragging awkwardly on the ground. He’d judged her size and height well.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he led her across the garden toward an area she hadn’t yet visited. “And are you really allowed to be seen like that?”
“Encouraged, even.” He gave a languid grin. “Lanover has always been less formal than the northern kingdoms. It’s the heat.”
She gave him a suspicious look, but he appeared to be serious.
“Casual enough that royal princes take secondary jobs as hired hands?”
He laughed. “Not quite. But the people like to see the royal family pitching in and getting their hands dirty from time to time. And my job of choice has always been the orange harvest. I’m a quick hand at orange picking, if I say so myself.”
Natalie followed his gaze to where a small orchard occupied one corner of the vast palace grounds. It was tucked away behind a freestanding building that she guessed to be some sort of servants’ quarters.
Luca led her past the building into the first rows of trees. The scent of apple blossoms surrounded her, and she stopped to admire the beauty of the blooms. But Luca kept walking, going deeper into the orchard, past the apple trees, and she ran to catch up.
“It’s the last harvest for the oranges for this year,” he said, “so I couldn’t miss the opportunity.”
“And you thought I would want to join in?” She said the words with a faintly mocking lilt, but he just smiled at her.
“Wouldn’t you?”
She hesitated, not wanting to admit that he’d judged her correctly. But after a moment she laughed and nodded. Fair was fair.
The workers already spread along the rows of orange trees called greetings to Luca.
They addressed him as Your Highness but didn’t stop in their picking for any other formalities.
All of them wore large canvas bags, secured with wide straps to their waist or shoulders, and Luca retrieved two more bags from a pile beside the first tree.
He helped Natalie settle one across her shoulders and led her toward a tree laden with bright orange fruit. A simple wooden ladder leaned against the branches, and she eyed it dubiously.
“Don’t worry,” Luca said. “It’s your first time picking, so you can stay on the ground. We’ll work on the same tree—you can do the lower branches while I do the upper ones.”
“So I just…pick them?” Natalie asked.
Luca easily scaled the ladder, pulling an orange from its stem and dropping it into his bag. “Just like that! It’s easy! The hard part is getting anywhere near the speed of the professional pickers.”
He began to pick oranges so fast Natalie could barely follow his hands. Her eyes widened as she watched him, his head bare and his expression carefree as his hands flashed through the leaves. He was mesmerizing to watch.
But when he glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow, she hurriedly took hold of the closest fruit.
It twisted easily off its stem, and she dropped it into the bag.
Thankfully the canvas receptacle was large enough that its bottom rested on the ground, taking the weight of the oranges.
She picked another and another, starting to get a rhythm going, although she was far from Luca’s speed.
“Leo and I used to have competitions when we were young to see who could pick the most oranges in a set amount of time.” He continued working as he spoke, raising his voice just enough that she could catch his words. “I always won, of course.” He winked down at her, and she rolled her eyes.
“I’m sure.” She picked several more oranges.
“And I’m equally sure that if Leo was telling the story, his memory would be that he always won.
” She shook her head at the exploits of small boys.
Some things didn’t change between kingdoms. “I never had oranges growing up. I didn’t taste my first one until I was fourteen. ”
Luca looked down at her in surprise. “Why ever not?”
Natalie nearly explained that the mountain kingdom didn’t grow them, so she hadn’t even seen one until the mountain passes were first opened, reconnecting her people with the rest of the kingdoms. But the words died in her throat as she realized her mistake.
She was growing far too comfortable around Luca.
“I just…didn’t,” she said, knowing her words sounded strange and cold.
His brow furrowed, but he didn’t challenge her, returning to his work picking oranges instead.
“Well, you’re welcome to as many as you’d like while you’re here in Lanover,” he said. “As you can see, the royal family has plenty.”
“Are these all for the palace, then?” Natalie asked, amazed.
Luca shrugged. “Have you seen how many people live and work at the palace? You’d be surprised how quickly they go.”
They continued to chat as they worked, Natalie keeping a careful guard over her tongue to prevent further mistakes.
It was hard to remember her assumed role while they worked side by side.
For once, Luca seemed no more like a prince than she was a princess.
But she would be wise to remember that for one of them it was only an illusion, while for the other it was a reality she would soon return to.