Chap­ter 21: Brid­get

SIX WEEKS LATER

“His Majesty is ready to see you.” Markus stepped out of my grandfather’s office, his face so pinched he looked like he’d just swal­lowed a lemon whole.

“Thank you, Markus.” I smiled. He didn’t smile back. He mere­ly gave a quick nod of cour­tesy before he spun on his heels and marched down the hall.

I sighed. If I thought my becom­ing crown princess would improve my rela­tion­ship with Edvard’s clos­est advi­sor, I was sad­ly mis­tak­en. Markus seemed more dis­pleased than ever, maybe because the press cov­er­age after my brother’s abdi­ca­tion had… not been great.

Also not great? My nick­name: Part-Time Princess. Appar­ent­ly, the tabloids did not appre­ci­ate all the time their future queen had spent away from Eldor­ra, and they delight­ed in ques­tion­ing my com­mit­ment to the coun­try and gen­er­al suit­abil­i­ty for the throne every chance they got.

The worst part was, they weren’t com­plete­ly wrong.

“I’ll see you tomor­row for the rib­bon-cut­ting,” I told Mikaela, who’d accom­pa­nied me to my meet­ing with Elin ear­li­er regard­ing image dam­age con­trol.

“Sounds good.” Mikaela snuck a peek at Edvard’s half-open door. “Good luck,” she whis­pered.

We didn’t know why my grand­fa­ther want­ed to speak to me, but we knew it wasn’t good. He didn’t sum­mon me to his office unless it was seri­ous.

“Thanks.” I mus­tered a weak smile.

Mikaela had been my best friend grow­ing up and was cur­rent­ly my right-hand woman dur­ing my train­ing to be queen. The daugh­ter of Baron and Baroness Bra­he, she knew every­thing about every­one in Eldor­ran high soci­ety, and I’d recruit­ed her to help me tran­si­tion back into Athen­berg soci­ety. I hadn’t lived here in so long I was com­plete­ly out of the loop, which was unac­cept­able for the future queen.

I hadn’t expect­ed her to say yes to such a big task, but to my sur­prise, she’d agreed.

Mikaela gave my arm a quick squeeze before leav­ing, and I steeled myself as I entered Edvard’s office. It was a huge, mahogany-pan­eled room with dou­ble-height ceil­ings, win­dows over­look­ing the palace gar­dens, and a desk large enough to nap on.

Edvard’s face crin­kled into a smile when he saw me. He looked far health­i­er than he had in the weeks fol­low­ing his col­lapse, and he hadn’t shown any symp­toms since the big scare, but I still wor­ried about him. The doc­tors said his con­di­tion was unpre­dictable, and every day I woke up won­der­ing if that would be the last day I’d see my grand­fa­ther alive.

“How’s train­ing going?” he asked after I slipped into the seat oppo­site him.

“It’s going well.” I slid my hands beneath my thighs to tamp down my nerves. “Though some of the par­lia­men­tary ses­sions are quite…” Tedious. Snooze-wor­thy. So bor­ing I would rather watch paint dry. “Ver­bose.”

Nobody liked hear­ing them­selves talk more than a min­is­ter who had the floor. It was amaz­ing how lit­tle one could say using so many words.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, a monarch’s duties includ­ed attend­ing par­lia­men­tary ses­sions at least once a week, and my grand­fa­ther thought it would be use­ful for me to get acquaint­ed with the process now.

Ever since I returned to Eldor­ra, my days had been jam-packed with meet­ings, events, and “queen lessons” from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. I didn’t mind, though. It kept my mind off Rhys.

Dammit. My chest squeezed, and I forced myself to push aside all thoughts of my old body­guard.

Edvard’s chuck­le brought me back to the present. “A diplo­mat­ic way of putting it. Par­lia­ment is a dif­fer­ent beast than what you’re used to, but it is an essen­tial part of gov­ern­ment, and as Queen, you’ll need a good rela­tion­ship with them… which brings me to why I asked you here today.” He paused, then said, “Actu­al­ly, there are three things I want­ed to dis­cuss, start­ing with Andreas.”

Con­fu­sion min­gled with my wari­ness. “My cousin Andreas?”

“Yes.” A small gri­mace crossed Edvard’s face. “He’ll be stay­ing in the palace for a few months. He’s due to arrive on Tues­day.”

“What?” I quick­ly com­posed myself, but not before my grand­fa­ther frowned at the breach of pro­pri­ety. “Why is he com­ing here?” I asked in a calmer voice, though I was any­thing but calm. “He has his own house in the city.”

Andreas, the son of my grandfather’s late broth­er Prince Alfred, was—how should I put this tactfully—a com­plete and utter ass. If enti­tle­ment, misog­y­ny, and gen­er­al ass­hole-ness could walk and talk, they would come in the form of one Andreas von Ascheberg.

Luck­i­ly, he’d moved to Lon­don for uni­ver­si­ty and stayed there. I hadn’t seen him in years, and I didn’t miss him one bit.

Except now, he was not only return­ing to Eldor­ra but stay­ing in the palace with us.

Kill me now.

“He would like to return to Eldor­ra per­ma­nent­ly,” Edvard said care­ful­ly. “Become more involved in pol­i­tics. As for why he’s stay­ing here, he said he would like to recon­nect with you since you haven’t seen each oth­er in so long.”

I didn’t believe that excuse for a sec­ond. Andreas and I had nev­er got­ten along, and the thought of him any­where near pol­i­tics made me want to run for the hills.

Unlike most con­sti­tu­tion­al monar­chies, where the roy­al fam­i­ly stayed polit­i­cal­ly neu­tral, Eldor­ra wel­comed roy­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in pol­i­tics on a lim­it­ed basis. I wished it didn’t if it meant Andreas would have a hand in any­thing that might affect people’s lives.

“Why now?” I asked. “I thought he was busy liv­ing the par­ty life in Lon­don.”

Andreas had always talked a big game, brag­ging about his grades and sub­tly hint­ing at what a good king he would make—sometimes to Nikolai’s face, back when Niko­lai had been first in line to the throne—but that was all it’d been. Talk. The clos­est he’d got­ten to actu­al­ly tak­ing part in pol­i­tics was major­ing in it.

Edvard raised one thick, gray brow. “He’s next in line for the throne after you.”

I stared at him. He couldn’t be imply­ing what I thought he was imply­ing.

Since my moth­er had been an only child and I didn’t have any chil­dren, Andreas was indeed sec­ond in the line of suc­ces­sion now that Niko­lai had abdi­cat­ed. I tried to pic­ture him as king and shud­dered.

“I’ll be frank,” Edvard said. “Andreas has hint­ed at cer­tain… ambi­tions regard­ing the crown, and he does not believe a woman is up for the job.”

Oh, how I wished Andreas was in the room right now so I could tell him where to shove his ambi­tions. “Per­haps he should tell Queen Eliz­a­beth that the next time we vis­it Buck­ing­ham Palace,” I said cool­ly.

“You know I dis­agree with him. But Eldor­ra is not Britain or Den­mark. The coun­try is more… tra­di­tion­al, and I’m afraid many mem­bers of Par­lia­ment secret­ly hold the same sen­ti­ment as Andreas.”

I curled my fin­gers around the edge of my chair. “It’s a good thing Par­lia­ment doesn’t appoint the monarch then.”

I may not want to rule, but I wouldn’t stand for any­one telling me I couldn’t rule because of my gen­der. Nev­er mind the fact the monar­chy was mere­ly sym­bol­ic. We were the face of the nation, and there was no way in hell I’d let some­one like Andreas rep­re­sent us.

Edvard hes­i­tat­ed. “That’s the oth­er rea­son I want­ed to speak with you. Par­lia­ment may not appoint the monarch, but there is the mat­ter of the Roy­al Mar­riages Law.”

A tight coil of dread formed in my stom­ach. The Roy­al Mar­riages Law, enact­ed in 1732, was the archa­ic law requir­ing mon­archs to mar­ry some­one of noble blood. It was the rea­son Niko­lai abdi­cat­ed, and I’d avoid­ed think­ing about it as much as pos­si­ble because it meant my chances of mar­ry­ing for love were slim to none.

It wasn’t sim­ply a mat­ter of find­ing a noble­man I liked. Poten­tial mar­riage part­ners were cho­sen for max­i­mum polit­i­cal gain, and I wasn’t naïve enough to hope for a love match.

“I don’t have to mar­ry yet.” I fought to keep the trem­ble out of my voice. “I have time—”

“I wish that were true.” Edvard’s face creased with a mix­ture of guilt and trep­i­da­tion. “But my con­di­tion is unpre­dictable. I could col­lapse again any minute, and the next time, I might not be so lucky. Now that Niko­lai has abdi­cat­ed, there’s even more pres­sure to ensure you’re ready for the throne as soon as pos­si­ble. That includes find­ing an accept­able hus­band.”

Mar­riage tech­ni­cal­ly wasn’t a require­ment for the monarch, but Eldor­ra hadn’t had an unmar­ried ruler in… well, ever.

Bile rose in my throat, both at the pos­si­bil­i­ty I might lose my grand­fa­ther at any minute and at the prospect of liv­ing out the rest of my life with a man I didn’t love.

“I’m sor­ry, dear, but it’s the truth,” Edvard said gen­tly. “I wish I could shield you from the harsh truths of life the way I used to, but you’re going to be queen one day, and the time for sug­ar­coat­ing is over. You are the last per­son in our direct line of suc­ces­sion, the only one who stands between Andreas and the crown”—we shud­dered in unison—“and mar­riage to a respectable aris­to­crat, ide­al­ly with­in the next year, is the only way to ensure the throne and the coun­try remain in good hands.”

I dropped my head, res­ig­na­tion fill­ing me. I could abdi­cate the way Niko­lai had, but I wouldn’t. As much as I resent­ed him for putting me in this posi­tion, he’d done it for love. If I did it, it would be out of pure self­ish­ness.

Besides, the coun­try wouldn’t sur­vive two abdi­ca­tions so close to each oth­er. We would be the laugh­ing­stock of the world, and I would nev­er tar­nish our fam­i­ly name or the crown by pass­ing it on to Andreas.

“How am I sup­posed to find a hus­band so soon? My sched­ule is already so full I hard­ly have time to sleep, much less date.”

My grandfather’s eyes crin­kled, and he sud­den­ly looked more like a mis­chie­vous youth than a king who’d ruled for decades.

“Leave that to me. I have an idea, but before we get into it, there’s one last thing we need to dis­cuss. Your body­guard.”

The word body­guard made my heart twist. “What about him?”

I was still get­ting used to my new body­guard, Elias. He was fine. Nice, com­pe­tent, polite.

But he wasn’t Rhys.

Rhys, who’d reject­ed my offer to extend his con­tract.

Rhys, who’d walked away a month ago with­out look­ing back.