Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
CALDWELL
It’s a little insane to think Mable has been here barely a month. It feels like both yesterday and forever that I’ve had her with me. It’s hard to think of a life without her. The thought alone makes my chest grow hollow.
I watch her across the table, her nose in a book about Solarian history that Mrs. Halloway found for her, and I have to remind myself that this is real. Her glasses are perched on the end of her nose. I reach over and push them up, making her smile, but her eyes never leave the page.
The staff adores her too. It’s not the performative adoration that most show my mother, all curtsies and careful distance.
It’s real affection. The way their faces light up when they see Mable coming.
How does she know all their names and their kids?
Yesterday she talked to the housekeeper Mary for an hour about her daughter.
The chef not only sneaks her extra pastries, but he also asks what she thinks about them. She was so excited since he showed her how to make a sourdough starter.
The groundskeeper taught her how to feed the swans without losing fingers. And last week—last week—she single-handedly transformed a struggling dress shop in town. She was walking by, exploring, when she passed the store and loved the items in the window.
“A local woman owns it,” she’d said, beaming at me while showing me the simple linen dress she’d gotten, nothing flashy.
“They sew everything on-site. That way you can put it on and have it tailored right then. And they’re so fast. I met them all.
The grandmother, mother, and daughter. They’ve been doing it for generations.
They were all so lovely. The daughter has these chubby little cheeks.
” Mable went on to tell me their life story for the next hour.
I’d noted how she focused on the baby for longer than the others.
What took the little shop to another level was her being photographed leaving it in one of the dresses.
The tabloids ran the picture with some inane headline about “Royal Simplicity,” and within forty-eight hours the shop had years’ worth of backorders.
The women sent her a handwritten note. She framed it.
I’ve watched from the sidelines as Solaria has fallen in love with her. The same way I knew they would. She’s a natural at this and was meant to be by my side.
She doesn’t see how beloved she already is.
Mable thinks she’s still proving herself.
There is nothing to prove or work toward.
They’re drawn to her easy nature and her authenticity.
Her genuine concern for others is apparent in everything she does.
Mable has a way of listening to people like no one else exists.
I know she wasn’t a fan of her mother dragging her all over the world, but I very much think that how she’s able to manage meeting so many people is partly due to that.
It also helps that she can speak a handful of languages, putting all of us to shame.
One would think that with all Mable has already done, my mother wouldn’t still be so standoffish. Yet that’s not the case.
“We should leave soon,” I say, setting down a proposal I was reading over or pretending to. I was more observing Mable. “The library event starts at three.” It’s a scholarship event for the kids, except it’s mainly adults there rubbing shoulders. It will be boring but necessary.
Mable looks up from her book, eyes bright. “Will I finally meet the famous archivist you mentioned?”
“Mrs. Pembroke. And yes.” I stand and offer my hand. “My parents will be there. Cordelia too—she’s been helping with the land dispute research, and there will be a few of those players there.”
“Right.” Mable takes my hand and lets me pull her up. “The treaty land thing. You two have been working late.”
There’s no edge in her voice. She’s genuinely trying, still open to Cordelia being a colleague rather than a threat. It makes me want to protect her from everything, including her own generosity.
“She knows the players,” I say carefully. “The history. It’s useful.”
“That’s good, then.” Mable smiles, trusting. “Let me change. The blue dress?”
“Whatever you pick will be perfect.” I kiss her forehead. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“You know, I was on the admissions committee at Supérieure,” she tells me as we head toward the library, “and I’m good with the dean there. I was thinking I could get two seats for a couple of young girls here in Solaria.”
I reach over and pick up her hand and kiss the back of it. “That’s a very generous offer. What do they have, maybe a thousand students?”
It’s not an easy college to get into. That’s the hard part; it’s not the tuition. Oh, it’s still a lot, but if you graduate from Supérieure, you’ll be plucked up by a company. They scout the students before they often even graduate. I’ve heard some are also recruited by government agencies.
“Around eight hundred, but the dean said she trusts my picks.”
“So it’s already a done deal?” I lift a brow, teasing because I’m not shocked by this. Mable is a planner. She’s not going to bring up a topic or idea without having already spent a ton of time on it.
“If that’s okay.”
“If that’s okay?” I laugh. “Beautiful, we could only be so lucky if you’d offer that to a couple of our girls here every time.”
“Thanks.” She leans over, pressing her mouth to mine, and I can feel her smile against my lips. You’d think I’d given her something and not the other way around.
“We’re here, sir,” my driver, Jenson, tells us, knowing I want to open the door myself for Mable.
“Ready?” I ask her.
“For a library? Yeah, I always am.” I open the door and step out before giving Mable my hand.
This isn’t a red carpet event, but cameramen have been showing up to about everything we attend lately. Mable is still a story they are running with. Normally I’d be pissed, but everything they’ve been writing about her is nice.
We make our way up the old stone stairs into the library. A few snap a couple of photos. Mable suddenly stops.
“Did I do it right?” I glance down at Mable, not sure what she means, but she’s not talking to me.
“Nailed it.” The young man holds his fist out, and Mable knocks hers against his on the side.
“Later,” she tells him, and we start walking again.
“What was that?” I’m trying not to be jealous, but it’s hard.
“Oh, that’s Jack. He’s new over at NVZ and trying to move up, so I’ve been making sure he gets a few good pictures.” She stands a little taller like she wants to tell me a secret, and I lean down some. “He showed me how to pose to take a good pic.”
“You’re getting close to the paparazzi?”
“No, just Jack. When he gets a promotion, he’s going to ask his boyfriend to marry him.”
“You think they’d want to use the palace for the wedding?”
“Can we do that?” Her eyes get wide.
“I was teasing,” I chuckle. “But if you asked me, I don’t think I could tell you no.”
“Stop being sweet.” She knocks into me a little playfully. “You know what that does to me.” I fight a groan. So not the time to get a hard-on.
I introduce Mable to a few people she hasn’t gotten to meet yet. One being Mrs. Pembroke, with whom she falls into conversation. I enjoy listening to her talk about ideas. That mind of hers is always going.
“Caldwell.” Cordelia’s voice cuts through my thoughts. She glances at Mable, who is turned toward Mrs. Pembroke. “Can you?” She points back behind her. “The ambassador is asking about the eastern boundary again. You should reassure him.”
“Which?” I turn back to the reception. The library’s main hall is crowded with donors, scholars, and the usual collection of people who want something from my family. My parents circulate near the champagne table, my father’s hand on my mother’s elbow, guiding her through conversations.
“From Noveria.” I nod. Jackson. Cordelia stares at me, perfect posture, waiting for my answer.
She’s been invaluable on the land dispute—knows the players, the history, and how to navigate the bureaucratic maze.
It’s been weeks of late nights, maps spread across my office, and people fighting over what they thought belonged to them.
That’s the hard part. People keep showing up with deeds hundreds of years old.
It’s been inland for the past hundred. It will be a nightmare for my people who live on the border. Not to mention a solar project that we started out there a couple years back. We can’t lose the land.
“Of course,” I say and let her lead the way over to the ambassador.
The conversation drags. Cordelia handles most of it, deflecting, soothing, promising updates we’re still hoping to find. I nod at appropriate moments and scan the room for Mable.
The last time I spotted her, she’d been by the window talking to the librarian Vicky. The two have gotten close. Mable spends a lot of time here. They bonded instantly when Vicky told Mable we have the original Beatrix Potter manuscripts in our archives.
I glance toward the other window. Empty.
The hell? I should have had security come in.
I check the refreshment table. The gardens are visible through the glass doors.
Gone.
My chest tightens. Not concern. Not yet. Just... absence. Wrongness. The room feels unbalanced without her in it.
“Don’t you think?” Cordelia is saying words, but I can’t concentrate.
“Excuse me.” I step away before she can finish or I can explain.
I move through the crowd, nodding at greetings I don’t process. Mable is not in the main hall inside the corridor.
Where is she?
Panic hits suddenly like a physical blow.
Only a handful of weeks together and she’s become essential; the thought that she might have left—that someone said something cruel, that she finally saw clearly and realizes I’m an obsessive man who stalks her whenever I’m away from her. Even if I’m only in my office.
Does it count as stalking if it’s your own home and cameras? I’ll keep the screen up while I work, and she is most often reading. It’s calming to know where she is.