Chapter Twenty-four
Sadie
“Princess Aislinn Síomóin of Verdalach washing a vehicle?” Cian shook his head, his perfectly tailored suit looking grossly out of place in the wooded landscape that surrounded us. “And not a nice vehicle either.” The disgust in his voice made a flash of anger zip through me.
“What are you doing here?” I stared at my parents and the bewildered expressions on their faces.
“What are we doing here?” Cian let out a condescending bark of laughter.
“What are you doing here, Your Highness?” He waved a hand at the car and the cabin and the woods.
“Why have you lowered yourself to such an unfortunate station, Princess Aislinn? You should be my wife by now and I should be aiding your father in an official capacity.”
Not we should be aiding my father. Not us as a team. Cian was only concerned with what my leaving Verdalach had cost him.
“Come home now,” my father said, his voice commanding. “Come home now, Aislinn, and we’ll forget this running away nonsense ever occurred and the time that has been wasted. The alliance with ó Néills will be confirmed and all will be as it should be.”
As it should be for my father. For Cian. Not for me.
I looked at my mother. Surely, she understood why I’d left Verdalach. Surely, she saw why I couldn’t marry a man like Cian or be a game piece in government affairs.
But she stood beside my father, silence her only response, and this well of rage inside me bubbled over.
“I’m not going back to Verdalach!” I shouted. “Not now. Not ever.” I narrowed my eyes and pointed at Cian. “And I’m not marrying you.”
He took three quick steps toward me and grabbed me by the arm.
“You don’t have a choice, Princess. Do you understand the resources we’ve wasted on searching for you?
The time? The energy? And having to keep it all quiet so as not to alert the kingdom.
Your little secret jaunt to the States has delayed the timelines of several important events that should have already happened. First and foremost, our wedding.”
I jerked my arm free and backed up, but the car was directly behind me so I didn’t have much room to move.
Especially when Cian took another two steps forward so I was sandwiched between him and the car.
“Aislinn, dear, don’t make this difficult.” My mother’s voice was barely above a whisper and her unwillingness to fight for me, her only remaining daughter, made me furious.
“Why would you agree to this?” I yelled at her. “Why would you allow them to use me?” I glared at my father and Cian.
My mother bristled and at least I knew my questions affected her if only minutely.
“Because this is how it is done, Aislinn,” she said. “This is how Verdalach operates. It is your duty to marry Cian and solidify the alliance so that our country can continue to prosper.”
“Prosper?” I released a mirthless laugh. “Prospering suggests growth and trying new things and abandoning old ways that should have been abandoned a long time ago. Verdalach isn’t prospering. It’s living in the Dark Ages.”
“Now that you’ve gotten a taste of America, you think you know everything, don’t you?” Cian shook his head then glanced back at my father. “It’s a good thing we found her when we did. Another day here and she’d be thinking she could rule Verdalach better than you could, Your Majesty.”
My father approached and came to stand beside Cian.
I didn’t love the way they were crowding me.
Since my arrival in Vermont, not one male I’d encountered had pulled this dominating bullshit on me.
Not one. Hank, Beckett and his brothers, Jimmy .
. . they’d all treated me with nothing but respect.
Beckett had encouraged my independence and supported my choices and he would never think of speaking to me like Cian and my father were.
“So here’s what’s going to happen, Princess,” Cian said.
“You’re going to come home with us. You’re going to forget your time here.
” Again that disgusted look took over his face as he scanned the setting around us.
“You’re going to marry me and you’re going to fulfill your duty to your family and your country.
” He leaned in closer so his mouth was right next to my ear. “To me.”
I lifted both of my hands, placed them on Cian’s chest, and shoved him back with every ounce of strength I had.
He stumbled back a few steps, a hateful gleam in his eyes.
“Aislinn!” my father gasped. “This is not behavior fitting for a person of your breeding.”
My breeding? Was I an animal to him?
Most likely.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I told you she’d be uncooperative, Your Majesty,” Cian said to my father. He narrowed his eyes at me. “And I’m certain Orla and Fionn will be greatly disappointed at your failure to return to Verdalach.” He arched a single eyebrow.
“Orla and Fionn have nothing to do with this,” I shot back.
“Don’t they?” Cian reached into his suit jacket and extracted a folded piece of paper. He held it out to me.
I snatched it up and unfolded it. It was a royal order for the arrest of my two best friends.
“You may think Verdalach is not as advanced as America,” Cian began, “but someone like me, someone who has a life outside royal court as well as inside it, has access to a great many things. I hired people to scour the internet for any mention of you, but they only turned up something when they added your picture.” He pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket, tapped the screen, then showed me a picture of me leading the launch event at Hartley’s Nest.
Dammit. I’d kept my picture off my website and had required cell phones to be turned in at the event to stop this exact thing from happening. Someone had obviously still had their phone though.
“This photo then led us to a Kalm Kingdom website,” my father said. “All the talk about meditation and mindfulness and such could only be you.” He rolled his eyes. “This silliness led us right to you, Aislinn.”
“And of course we questioned every member of the palace staff,” Cian continued. “Someone on the palace laundry staff witnessed Orla squirreling away to your chambers with a suitcase.”
“Containing your disguise, no doubt,” my father said.
“Orla and her brother were both questioned and the result of that interview was their arrest.” Cian tapped the order still clutched in my hand. “If you come back with us, however, they will be freed and cleared of any wrongdoing.”
My gaze snapped from the order up to Cian’s face.
“That’s right,” he said. “Come back to Verdalach and your friends will be spared. Stay here and they’re going to be locked up. Forever.”
I couldn’t let Orla and Fionn suffer such consequences for helping me. They were my closest friends and had put themselves at risk for me. I’d thought our plan had been foolproof.
Which proved I was a fool.
My shoulders slumped. “Fine. I’ll come home.” I tore up the arrest order and let the pieces flutter to the ground between us.
“I can, of course, get another copy of that.” Cian pointed to the scraps. “When we touch down on Verdalachian soil and you marry me, I’ll officially rescind the arrest order and Orla and Fionn will be released.”
“Let me grab a few things from inside,” I said.
“Leave it all,” Cian demanded. “I’m sure whatever items you’ve accumulated during your hiding away here are not befitting royalty anyway.”
“I have things I’ve made,” I argued. “Necklaces.”
“Trinkets,” Cian countered. “They have no place at court.”
He grabbed my left arm while my father took my right one. They manhandled me over to a waiting luxury car with tires that wouldn’t survive the bumpy, hole-ridden dirt roads of Vermont for long.
“I don’t need to be escorted as if I’m a criminal.” I attempted to shake free of their hold, but they both tightened their grips.
“Ah, but you do,” my father said. “You’ve proven to not be loyal to the crown. Your crown and mine. A stunt like this will not occur again, Aislinn.”
“We’ve arranged for around-the-clock protection for you,” Cian said.
“You mean around-the-clock surveillance.”
“Call it what you wish,” Cian said. “They both mean you shall not make a move that we don’t know about.”
I hadn’t thought my life in Verdalach could have been worse.
I was wrong. Now I was subjected to the old traditions and would be watched relentlessly.
I actually had trouble swallowing as I was pushed into the vehicle ahead of Cian and my parents.
It felt as if a noose was tightening around my neck.
Or was it a leash? A noose suggested an end to the torment. A leash, however, only led me somewhere I didn’t want to go.
If only Hank hadn’t left for the hardware store.
If only Jimmy had been home next door.
If only Cian and my parents hadn’t found me.
If only Beckett were here.
No. It was a good thing Beckett wasn’t here. He would have gotten involved and Cian was a vengeful man. Only more trouble would have resulted in the two of them going head to head. Better if I left quietly. Orla and Fionn would be all right and Beckett would stay safe.
As I sat in the back of the luxury car with Cian wedged in next to me and my mother and father across from me, my gaze rested on the Hartley’s Nest name on my fleece. At least this one souvenir would make it across the ocean and to Verdalach.
“What’s Hartley’s Nest?” my mother asked.
I didn’t answer, choosing to stare out the window as the car pulled away from Hank’s cabin and the successful little life I’d been building bit by bit here in Greenridge.
“You will reply to your mother,” my father ordered. “Immediately.”
I turned disinterested eyes to my mother, imagining her having an elaborate plan to aid in my second escape. Alas, her hands were clasped in her lap and her head was tilted as she waited for me to speak.
“Hartley’s Nest is a wildlife rehabilitation center.
” I offered no elaboration though Cian and my parents waited in the silence of the vehicle.
I wasn’t about to let them know anything about the Hartleys.
If they’d asked about Hartley’s Nest, they likely didn’t have a clue about what that family meant to me and they never would.
I’d keep the Hartleys safe in my memories alone.
“Do you have a phone?” Cian asked.
“Yes,” I said, “but it was inside the cabin with all my other things.”
He narrowed his eyes at me as if he didn’t believe me.
I poked my hands into the pockets of the fleece and turned them inside out to reveal they were empty save for a rock I missed when dumping out the ones I’d picked up with Hank earlier. That rock instantly became the most precious thing I owned. A symbol of the life I’d almost been able to live.
“And I suppose there are no pockets on those skin-tight pants,” Cian said. “We’ll burn those as soon as we return to the palace.”
I’d always considered Cian insufferable, but after being in the company of so many honorable men in Greenridge, he was even more of a terrible match for me.
I supposed, at least, that by marrying him, I’d be saving another woman from having to spend her life as his wife. That maybe had some merit in it.
Very little, but some. I’d bet that was why my sister had been willing to marry Cian. That would have been just like Maeve to make a sacrifice for others.
I peered out the window of the car from my seat next to Cian.
Each tree we passed on the dirt road leading away from Hank’s cabin waved a solemn farewell to me.
When we hit the main part of town, my eyes stung as we sped by Sugar Rush Bakery, Ye Olde Wisdom Bookshop, and Patty’s Pit Stop.
Catching a glimpse of Faraday’s Hardware and Hank’s pickup parked in front of it nearly made me sob openly.
But I clenched my jaw tightly as I left behind my favorite spots in this lovely small town. I would not cry or carry on. I would not let Cian and my parents know how truly defeated I felt.
I would not let them know that I’d experienced true joy here.
The version of me they would get in Verdalach would be a hollow shell that dressed and looked like Princess Aislinn. Only I would know how truly dead that woman was and how alive Sadie Rodgers was in my soul.
Only I would know how my heart would always be in Greenridge. How it would always belong to Beckett Hartley whether he could have it or not.
How it would always be broken without him.