Chapter 31 Cheap Wine #2
“Every time I do date some guy I find myself really irritated because I have to explain my ramen order and carry around Vestfyn because he doesn’t keep a dedicated fridge in his office for me, even though he hates it.
” I faceplant into a downy pillow, my words muffled.
“How long am I going to be mad that no one else kisses me like he does?”
“He’s a good kisser?” Caroline asks.
I lift my head. “When I tell you how good,” I say, touching the tips of my fingers in the same Pavian gesture Noah uses.
Caroline glances away and my gesture dissolves. “The future Mister Duchess of Sorstorm, if such a man exists, will just be some guy on a list—some low-rent, spreadsheet version of what I really want—and I hate him.” I take a too-large swallow from my glass. I don’t have any more tears.
Caroline watches me for a long time, and finally she takes a breath. “People always call it a spreadsheet,” she murmurs, “when it’s more of a series of alphabetized summaries, arranged by rank. I could get them for you. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
The side-eye I give her could shift the earth off its axis, but she laughs.
I was expecting homespun advice and a call to rectitude.
Instead, we talk. I leaf through her paperback collection, heavy on romance, and recommend a few Seongan dramas.
I fish for information and discover that her whole family lives upstairs.
I reveal just how long this thing with Marc has gone on, and she admits that her social life is limited to a Vorburgian diplomat who looks her up now and then.
“When he’s in town?” My brow cocks. “What is this? Are you a side piece?”
Her hand tips in a seesaw motion. “I think he’s trying to sort out whether or not a Sondish royal secretary is a benefit to his career or not.”
“He sounds like a drip.”
For a moment the ladylike, professional facade drops away and a laugh lights up her face. In the next heartbeat she remembers herself and twitches the neat net curtains of her soul back into place.
At midnight, she drives me back to the palace, completely sober in contrast to my slight tipsiness. There’s too much time stretching ahead of me and I’m thinking very seriously of crying myself to sleep or perishing from a broken heart like a character stuck inside a 19th century book.
Well, the ones turned into graphic novels, anyway.
“You can come again,” Caroline says, standing in the doorway of my suite, watching as I fumble my way out of shoes and hoodie. “Anytime you need to hit the sauce.”
I grin. “You saved me from public humiliation, Caro.” A night in a bar wouldn’t have stopped at two glasses of wine and a sip of hjemmebraendt. “It’s good to know one of us has some sense when it comes to love. Thanks.”
She leaves me to a night of dead ends and spiralling reflections, the beginning of a mourning period for my love of Marc van Heyden.
I wake to the pounding of the door. Vede, the hjemmebraendt has a kick.
I flail blindly, finding a button under my bedside table, and press it before I think.
I sink into the pillow and wait for death.
“Good morning, elskede.” Marc bends over me, sun shafting across his hair, kissing his dewy skin.
I scowl against his easy endearment—and then yelp. Our deal is over, and Marc is in my bedroom. I bolt upright, gathering a down coverlet up to my chin.
“How did you get here?”
He leans forward, and I scoot back, winding the wild hair away from my face. The sleeves of my oversized Mermaid in Moonlight t-shirt fall back, and I feel his gaze warm my skin.
“I took the roundabout out of Frederickplatz, shot up the E12…”
I pinch him and he grunts.
Why is he here, looking like Saint Leofdag’s gift to Sondish maidens? Was last night a fever dream? Didn’t I end it?
I press the back of my fingers against my forehead and work my tongue into the wells of my mouth. No fever.
We’re over. It happened. He can never find out I got drunk.
“What’s this?” I ask, watching as he unpacks a bento box.
“Side dishes.”
“I don’t know what it is you want, but I’m not Freja,” I say. “You can’t tempt me with food.”
He removes several lids, unveiling warmed up hangover soup, kimchi, and seasoned tofu from Lindenholm. His mother installed a Seongan chef first thing and bribed her to stay for decades.
“The assortment of fruit was ordered in from Minty’s and the rolled omelet is me. I’m an early riser,” he adds, answering the unspoken question.
I tip my chin, inspecting all the dishes, the warmth in my chest like a nuclear reactor. “You should have texted. I wouldn’t look like such a mess.”
He looks at me for a long time and silence stretches into a thin, transparent tissue.
Finally, I wind my hair away and clip it back. “If you ever wonder if I’m fishing for compliments, the answer is always yes.”
“I didn’t trust myself to comment on your appearance. You look—” he starts.
“Too late,” I reply, the words like the extension of a hand at a work college so they don’t go in for a hug. I can’t cross the same boundaries I promised to fortify. “Give me a minute to pull myself together.”
I toss on a pair of dark slacks and a blouse, brush my teeth extra well, and quickly wrangle my hair in case I’m pulled into a family discussion.
We eat on my narrow balcony overlooking an ornamental garden and he leans against the railing, catching me up on news from Seong and preparations for BLUSH.
With a face like his, I’m sure he’s never been on the losing end of a break-up.
I surprised him yesterday, and I suppose this is his way of wrapping things up on his own terms.
“Come out for a walk with me,” he says, pulling me to my feet.
I follow him through the hallways of the palace and watch his back as he steps into the sunshine.
I can’t have him, so I shake my head and train my sights on the grounds of the Summer Palace, cultivated over centuries.
We have a rookery, a couple of follies, and a copse of ancient oaks planted during a bloody reign.
There’s even an ornamental English garden, dotted with statuary, and a wilderness big enough to sustain several herds of white-tailed deer.
I shy away from the wilderness. Marc and I have a track record when it comes to wildernesses. Under the bright sun, my head throbs with the after effects of cheap wine, and I walk as carefully as possible.
“How are you feeling? About Freja’s thing,” he clarifies. Not ours.
I lift my shoulder. “I’m not the main character in this drama.”
He reaches over and hooks a finger through a belt loop, catching me, and his eyes travel over my face.
My heart kicks up a traitorous rhythm because I know he’s capable of seeing nearly every part of me—happiness for Freja, worry about the future, the persistent friction with royal life that has receded from a wild keening to a low hum. Progress.
He touches my face. Then he leans forward, kissing me softly on the brow, my temple, on my cheek. Still friendly locations. Just.
“Is this you fishing for compliments?” he asks, slipping his arm around my waist. He did this a thousand times when we were only friends. It’s fine. “Does your family know how miserable they’d be without you?”
The soft spring air brushes between us, and I place a hand against his chest.
His hand slides up my back, and I don’t know anymore if I’m leaning or he’s pulling.
I am poised on the sharp edge of wishing I could undo yesterday, right on the cusp of going up on my tiptoes and saying things that might reverse this delicate truce.
Then there comes a crunch on the gravel walk and a surprised, “Oh.”
We spring apart under the interested, amused regard of my father. My heartbeat clatters in my chest, but Père waves Marc’s bow away.
“I am fizzing with curiosity,” he says, “but I’m in no condition to be lied to.” He rubs a palm over his flat stomach, a line between his brows. “It upsets the digestion.”
I slip my arm through his. “We’ve had an upsetting few days. Marc was telling me how sorry he was.”
“With his lips?” Père asks. Marc holds his gaze when he should have the decency to look ashamed. Père smiles. “I dare say there’s not a square meter on the whole grounds where I didn’t get into mischief with my bride.”
“It’s not like that,” I insist.
Père glances past me, but Marc shoves his hands in his pockets, cheerfully hanging me out to dry.
“What’s the agenda for today?” I ask him with a newfound commitment to schedules and timetables.
“The prime minister is meeting with your mother now,” Père says, brushing his knuckle on the end of my nose with a look that is both happy and sad.
“Is he accepting her proposal for Freja’s position?”
“She will handle him with such delicacy that he’ll think it was his idea all along,” Père grunts.
“He’s dangerous,” I venture.
Père touches my hand, the dull gold of his Pavian signet ring glinting in the light. “Your mother is a world-class diplomat,” he assures me. “Shall we go see how she is getting on? I’m her greatest support, you know.”
I feel a tug of pain at his words, lifted from countless news articles and opinion pieces. This sentiment—once sacred and true—he’s turned into a joke.
We enter the palace through the administration wing and find it oddly deserted.
“Where is everyone?” he asks, peeking into Caroline’s office. “The prime minister’s security officers should be—”
We hear a sharp exchange from the sitting room where Mama customarily receives the prime minister, and Père gives me a look of surprise before he moves swiftly into the room, ready to pour a little Pavian charm on the situation.
The door is slightly ajar, and Caroline isn’t here to keep me from doing it, so I creep closer.
Marc is on my heels, and I lean closer to the wood paneling because the voices are frustratingly low.
I leap out of my skin when Mama shouts, “How dare you, you bureaucratic reptile. You dirt-sucking snake.”
Through the narrow crack in the door, I see Mama rush the prime minister.
I gape, but Père swiftly intercepts her, scooping the Mother of Sondmark and the Sonderlands up and striding her away a few paces.
She struggles to free herself from the arm banding her waist. Wordlessly, Marc slips his arm around my waist, holding me fast.
“Your Majesty,” the prime minister shouts. “Madam, contain yourself!”
“You threatened my child,” Mama roars.
I take it in, frozen in disbelief. Where is the diplomat?
Gone. There is something primal in the way words tear from her throat.
A line of the national anthem runs through my head.
None will bridle the dragon of Sondmark.
Her fury is powerful enough that she might even recover Freja’s HRH—but, dominanstid, if it ever gets out that she shouted at an elected official…
“Did you expect me to take that meekly?” she thunders, completely unhinged. The sound of her voice rattles the walls as Père holds her.
My mother’s priorities might be disordered, but it is a rare joy to hear her voice, billowing with ancient power and royal rage, fighting for the Crown and its prerogatives.
“Her online activities are outrageous,” the prime minister blusters, snatching up his briefcase.
I roll my eyes. Freja’s Pixy videos encouraging more visits to The Nat aren’t a scandal.
He points a shaking finger. “If you have any hope of holding your present role, Princess Ella must be sacrificed—”
I straighten, bumping into Marc’s solid mass. Princess Ella is me. They are talking about me. I grapple with the arms around my waist but Marc’s hold tightens as Mama’s voice, low and menacing, carries through the door. “How dare you speak of my precious child.”
I gasp, and Marc puts a hand over my mouth, whispering a hush against my ear.
Slowly, his restraining arms become an embrace, holding me tightly.
Precious? I turn the word over, examining it for flaws and conditions as a jeweler would search for fractures and clouds.
Mama doesn’t put anything before the Crown.
Not herself. Not her family. Certainly not a child who battles her at every turn.
But through the narrow opening, I see evidence that tells another story.
Marc folds me against his chest, keeping me steady and secure even as my mother rages. “If you threaten my daughter, you will get a fight.”