Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
ARCHER
“You’re the girl from the airport.”
All the heads in the Blue Room swivel to face me. I ignore everyone’s except for hers. She tilts her head, and her brown hair brushes the side of her glasses. She looks different and yet the same. I’ve always been good with faces, if not particularly as talented with names.
“Have you met each other before then?” Mother asks.
“Yes,” we both say. Mine’s a statement. Hers is more of a question.
“And I take it that the encounter was—amicable?”
I shoot my mother a glare. I may not be as amiable as some of my royal friends, but I am not a monster going around breaking hearts in my wake.
If ladies want to swoon over the title and the height and the chance genetics of blue eyes and blond hair, they most definitely do that without any encouragement from me.
I can’t say the same for some of my other fellow princes.
But I’m quite sure I’ve been accused of being too cold more often than being too warm.
“I am always a gentleman,” I say.
“Absolutely,” a sweet voice agrees.
I turn back at Ella—Miss Langford, I suppose.
It’s almost odd, seeing her again. That snippet of a memory of the girl at the airport has stayed with me over the years—a bright spot in the ocean of faces that I encounter every day as a working royal.
It was never a romantic thing. I don’t believe in love at first sight, or fated souls, or all the things that keep the romance industry running.
But I do trust my instincts when it comes to people, and I feel that only a genuinely honest person would be standing here with that ring in her hands without trying to claim any kind of credit.
I see Mother conferring with Anselm in my peripheral vision. Whatever they’re talking about involves me. And even as a twenty-eight-year-old man, I will probably have no power to stop whatever it is they decide upon.
It’s a tough gig, this whole heir to the throne thing.
Mother clears her throat, her usual signal that she’s ready to make some sort of proclamation. It’s as sad as it is funny, sometimes. I’m pretty sure 99% of the world’s population don’t get royal decrees at dinner.
“As we have already made the announcement at the press conference,” she says, “it is most likely in our best interest to continue treating Miss Langford as Archer’s fiancée.”
“What?” This time, both Ella and I sound exactly the same.
“Your Majesty,” Ella talks before I can, “I know you must have your reasons, but I can’t just—”
“Allow me to clarify once more. Are you or are you not married, or engaged, or romantically involved with another person?” Mother cuts her off.
Ella pauses. “I am not.”
I hope that’s true—as I have no interest in fighting off any angry husbands or boyfriends. Some of my friends are probably a lot more experienced on that front. In fact, Eds would likely give me tips.
“Are you in Northandria for any diplomatic reasons, or personal commitments?” Mother continues her interrogation.
“I came to trace my roots,” Ella answers softly, yet clearly. “I thought it might be a good time, given the jubilee and the Carvarell Games.”
“A knowledgeable American. Good.”
“Mother,” I warn.
“It’s fine.” Ella smiles. There’s a gentleness to her, a glow of goodness that might look weak on some people but just appears approachable on her. It’s probably what stayed with me all these years after a brief airport encounter. “I know some tourists give us a bad rap.”
“What is a bad rap?” Mother asks.
“We cannot possibly inconvenience Miss Langford this way,” I intervene. “Mother, she was trying to return a ring—a kindness, given that Princess Kya should have been the one to do so. We cannot ask more of Miss Langford merely because she tried to do a stranger a favor.”
“Princess Kya,” Ella echoes. She looks a little awed. “So it wasn’t just a costume.”
Mother groans, I almost smile, and Alya outright laughs.
“I take it you have encountered my runaway fiancée.” I straighten my sleeves.
“Your—oh, of course, that explains the ring! That’s why the reporters were waiting, and the announcement they were talking about, and—oh.” Her eyes snap up to mine, large and soulful behind her glasses. “Are you okay?”
The sympathy is unexpected, and it renders me momentarily speechless.
“They don’t love each other. It’s an arranged marriage,” my sister announces from her chair, clearly unbothered by the fiasco she’s caused. “And since no one knew anything about who Archer was, or was not, dating, they have no reason to think that he isn’t engaged to you.”
Ella looks surprised, but at least not alarmed. Some people think all girls in the world want to be princesses. I’m pretty sure there are a few exceptions.
“It is therefore in the best interest of Northandria if we continue to allow them to believe this engagement to be real,” Mother says.
Because, of course, everything is about Northandria.
Betrothing your only son to an American stranger can’t be that much worse than expecting him to marry a near-stranger-princess.
I’m pretty sure Mother doesn’t mean for this engagement to last. Everyone has secrets and imperfections.
And since I’m sure the security council is already running a search on everything about Ella Langford as we speak, any number of reasons why she cannot be considered a future Northandrian queen will pop up soon enough, if the tabloids don’t get to them first.
I frown a little. It feels unfair, to treat her like this. And I prefer to keep my memory of Ella from the airport unsullied by reality.
“Mother,” I say, “you cannot possibly think pretending to be engaged and fooling the whole world forever is a feasible plan.”
“Not forever,” she answers, “only for the duration of the Games.”
The Carvarell Games—the two weeks when all the eyes in Europe zoom in on our little nation and our five allied neighbors. It makes sense that Mother wants good press for this, especially on a jubilee year.
But the idea is still ridiculous.
“But we barely know each other,” I hedge.
“Not like you knew Kya,” my sister adds unhelpfully.
“No one will believe us.”
“They believed us readily enough at the press room just now,” said Mother.
“The scandal of a fake engagement—”
“Cannot be greater than the scandal of a runaway bride,” Mother insists loudly. Her regal tone keeps us all in place. “Once the Games and the jubilee celebrations conclude, the press attention will naturally ease off. No one will care if you two choose to break up then.”
It is ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous to be talking about breaking up when I’ve seen and met Ella Langford for a total of 90 minutes in my entire life.
To my sister’s point, I barely knew or cared about Kya too.
She was just a convenient piece of the puzzle—a niece of the King of Drenland, neither too close nor too far from the throne to make the perfect royal bride.
But Ella is a real person, and I can’t drag her into this without creating collateral damage.
“Has it ever occurred to you, Your Majesty, that perhaps we ought to ask the lady in question if she is willing?” I try to rein in my sarcasm, but most of it seeps through anyway.
Mother looks unhappy. She’s always unhappy to be shown she’s wrong.
But she does concede and address Ella Langford.
“Given the misunderstanding that has already occurred, would you agree to participate in this arrangement, at least for the duration of the Carvarell Games, for the benefit of Northandria, Miss Langford?”
Ella holds Mother’s gaze, a pretty impressive feat for someone who hasn’t grown up around kings and queens and dukes and lords and ladies.
Then she turns to look at me. “Will it help?”
She takes me aback. Just like she did at the tiny provincial airport in America years ago. “What will?”
“If I agree to this—charade,” she speaks slowly yet clearly, gently but not weakly, “will it really help Northandria?”
The last thing I expect is for her to care about the nation that I am somehow born to steward.
“It will,” I admit.
She inhales visibly and nods. “Alright. Then I’ll do it.”