Chapter Nine #2
In retrospect, he couldn’t fathom what he’d been thinking.
How had he imagined that his father would have welcomed this news?
But he knew the answer to that. It was Esme.
It was the way Esme had talked about her parents, their warmth and kindness, their interest in their daughter that never seemed to hinge on her performance as their heir.
He had been seduced by more than simply Esme herself. He had fallen just as hard for all she represented. No doubt he’d imagined that he would come back here and change things, simply because he’d gone and lost his head—but over the princess that had been picked out for him.
Surely that would matter.
His father’s strictures about emotion couldn’t apply when it was love. There was no possible way, Tadeo had thought.
But, It is not wonderful, it is a disaster, King Hugo had said, his voice frigid. Where do you imagine this will go? Have I not told you, over and over again, that the basis of a proper and useful royal marriage is compatibility, not passion? Never passion, Tadeo.
Yet Tadeo had known better. Surely there is room for both.
And he had not dared use the word that actually fit the situation.
Because even as he said it, he could see his father’s face grow thunderous.
Passion becomes scandal. It is inevitable.
I will have to speak to King Alain myself.
There is no possible way that I can countenance this relationship.
I cannot put my country in the hands of a man who allows himself to be swept away by pretty girl at a moment’s notice.
I thought I raised you better than this.
Tadeo had felt as if his father had swung out and struck him. I thought you’d be pleased. How often is it that an arranged marriage suits everyone from the start? Much less so well.
This is not the kind of connection you should be pursuing, his father had said darkly.
What happens when the passion fades? You already know what route your mother took.
Is that what you want for this country? Another sex scandal?
More reasons to believe that the royal family is an embarrassment to the nation instead of its spine?
He had gone on like that for days. He had been relentless.
And by the time Tadeo had returned to Boston, he had been resolved to end it, because it was the least he owed the man who had given him everything. The man who had suffered so nobly for all those years in the face of so much betrayal.
How could he do anything else?
The fact that the moment he had set eyes upon Esme had been like a gut punch, that it had made him waver, only underscored what his father had said.
I don’t understand, she had said then. You said that you loved me. You know that I love you. How could there possibly be a better basis for marriage than that?
The last thing either one of our kingdoms needs is the volatility of a love story, he had told her, parroting his father. My people and your people deserve better.
And he had believed that. He still believed that.
When he had summoned her to Bellaza a couple of years after their breakup, after she had graduated from college and comported herself flawlessly in London, he’d been able to see that she thought that there was a possibility that he regretted the things he’d said to her when they’d broken up.
He had made certain to make it clear that he regretted nothing.
The fact of the matter is that we’re competing against a greater narrative than ourselves, he had said. It was the same thing that he’d told his father, while also making it clear that his childish infatuation with Esme had withered on the vine.
His father had believed him. He’d worked with Tadeo for years by then, and Tadeo had made sure that he never slipped like that again.
Esme had only looked at him for a long moment. I don’t know what that means, she had said. Archly, he’d thought.
She had looked even more beautiful than he remembered, which he had considered more proof she was as dangerous to him as his father had insisted she was.
He didn’t want a beautiful wife. A pretty one, certainly—as he was only a man.
And the people would expect no less. Even a handsome sort of woman would do, as she would be lauded for her practicality from all corners.
Tadeo had been sure that he could do better—for the kingdom, for himself—than a woman who made him feel as if his skin was being peeled off his body every time he looked at her. Who made him feel as if the world would end if he couldn’t touch her. It was an outrage.
But that did not change the myth of the two of them and their betrothal, which too many people in both of their kingdoms had started to call fate.
How Esme had avoided hearing about this, Tadeo could not have said.
What it means is that our kingdoms have spun themselves a fairy tale, and we star in it, he had told her in as unemotional a voice as possible.
Let me guess, Esme had said. You don’t believe in fairy tales in the same way that you don’t believe in love. Or happy marriages. Or anything that might make the monarchy human.
What I believe, he had said, refusing to give in to her provocations, is that all royal marriages are treated like fairy tales, but ours has already been written.
You were betrothed to me upon your birth.
Our subjects have been concocting tales about us ever since. All we have to do is ride that wave.
Have you taken up surfing? she had asked. How fascinating. I have never seen the appeal. Standing on objects that move very quickly on the surface of the water? No, thank you.
He had ignored that. Especially because he had never enjoyed surfing himself, something he had not shared with her.
I would like to formally begin our courtship, he had said instead. It will be, by necessity, extremely public. I will furnish you with a schedule. We will be seen together for a year, engaged within nine months of that year, and married at the end of that year.
For a moment, she had only looked at him with those fathomless dark eyes of hers and he’d braced himself.
He’d been certain that she would do something he hadn’t thought to ward himself against. Like when he’d seen her after the breakup, very briefly, to exchange the things they’d left at each other’s places and she hadn’t wept.
She hadn’t shouted at him. She’d only looked at him, a lot like she did then, and had asked, What do you do with the real you when you put on this mask?
He had not answered that question.
And that day in the palace, she hadn’t asked it again. Or anything like it.
She had laughed. Esme had come to the palace dressed like a Londoner. Which was to say, she had been wearing jeans tucked into boots, a chic little sweater, and minimal jewelry. She’d had her hair up in a glossy ponytail, and she had looked edible.
If he’d had any idea how long that simple meeting would end up haunting him, he was sure he would have sent a letter instead.
And why do you imagine that I would do any of those things with my ex-boyfriend? Esme had asked him. The funny part was that she had really sounded curious. As if he was a puzzle she could not figure out, which was absurd.
Even then, Tadeo had known himself to be entirely transparent in all ways. Just as his father had taught him. Just as his people deserved.
You either love your country or you don’t, he had said. Perhaps a bit darkly, because exposure to her was a challenge. He’d made a mental note to up his workouts. Which is it?
Of course, she had murmured. The only love you admit exists.
Tadeo found himself thinking about all of that ancient history entirely too much as he paced about in the office now, wondering why it was taking her so long to turn up.
Maybe she was still in the lake, paddling about like a happy little turtle.
Maybe she had no intention of ever coming out of the water.
Either way, he knew the fault would not lie with Arturo. The old man would do his job perfectly, as he had done since before Tadeo was born.
Just as he knew that Esme would go out of her way to make it difficult, because she made everything difficult. She had been an agent of chaos from the start. He was half convinced that she was a Clarebonne spy, planted here to take down Bellaza from within.
She was halfway there.
When the door opened some while later he turned, and was unsurprised to see Esme saunter inside with her hair perfectly dried and set, meaning that she had taken her sweet time.
And was challenging his own memories, for she seemed to be dressed a little too similarly to that memory he had of her in his head.
The only difference was her belly, looking bigger and rounder now and reminding him that there was far more at stake here than her talk of love, or his memories of the most embarrassing year of his life so far.
Not to mention what had followed that had led them here.
Though when no one but Esme was in the room with him, it was difficult to remember why he found anything about her or the two of them embarrassing in the least.
You are your worst problem, he seethed at himself.
“If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head about my father, I prefer you never mention him again,” he told her coldly. “The man was a saint.”
He didn’t like the fact that instead of looking taken back at that, Esme simply looked…sad.
For him. That part was clear, and he couldn’t make any sense of it.
“Is that what he told you?” she asked.
Tadeo felt his heart catapulting against his ribs again in a manner he could only call alarming. He felt the way he had down on the dock, as if the world was closing in on him. Or as if he was being sucked out and carried away to…somewhere else.
It took effort to pull himself back. Too much effort for his liking.
“This is an indisputable fact,” he shot at her. “Everyone knows what he suffered. What he went through. And through it all, he stayed calm and in control of himself. What’s not to admire?”
Esme moved farther into the room. He felt some kind of wave move all the way through him, rocking him. He thought that if she touched him, he might actually explode.
But she didn’t come in close. She stopped a few feet from him, making him wish he’d positioned himself behind that intimidating desk.
“Have you considered the possibility that your mother wasn’t the Whore of Babylon, Tadeo?
” she asked. He couldn’t help but notice that she seemed perfectly calm.
So calm and unruffled it made him want to get his hands on her to mess her up, just a little bit.
Just enough. She also wasn’t done, and he did not want to hear a single word of this.
“Maybe she was in love with a man who acted like an iceberg. Maybe she did what she needed to do to keep from freezing to death.”
Tadeo felt everything seem to slosh about, making him feel something like drunk. Or dizzy. Maybe both. He held his hand up as if she was advancing on him when he could see that she stopped. “Don’t you dare—” he thundered at her.
But Esme only nodded. “Welcome to your actual emotions, Tadeo,” she said, and she didn’t even sound satisfied or smug.
Only that same sad. “This is called feeling things. I know you’re not used to it.
But you can’t keep pretending they don’t exist. When all along, they’ve been right here, just waiting for you to acknowledge them. ”
She turned her back on him, and there was no way she couldn’t hear the way his heart was pounding so hard against his ribs. He thought they might crack into pieces. She kept going, walking across the room and sitting down in one of the chairs that helped form a little seating area by the windows.
“Why don’t you tell me when you’re ready to admit that you have just as many emotions as anybody else, after all,” she invited him. “I know you don’t want to. I know you object to being human. But Tadeo. Isn’t your heart pounding?”
He’d known it. He’d known she could hear it.
Esme nodded, and he realized that a traitorous hand had risen up and was pressing against his chest.
But then again, she already knew.
“That’s not a heart attack,” she told him gently. “Those are emotions. Tadeo, I can’t believe you don’t remember how they feel, because I know you knew this once. I was there.” She leaned forward in her chair, her gaze seeming to spear straight through him. “That’s how you know you’re alive.”