Chap­ter 24: Brid­get’s expe­ri­ence at the roy­al ball high­lights the stark con­trast between the expec­ta­tions placed on her as a princess and the per­son­al desires that stir with­in her. The evening, which was meant to be a step­ping stone in secur­ing her future with an appro­pri­ate suit­or, quick­ly turns into a series of awk­ward and unsat­is­fy­ing encoun­ters. She is intro­duced to suit­or after suit­or, from the self-impor­tant Count of Falser, who is more con­cerned with boast­ing about his gym and tai­lor than get­ting to know her, to the shy Alfred, whose love for his birds makes him more com­fort­able in con­ver­sa­tion with them than with her. Each inter­ac­tion under­scores the dis­con­nect Brid­get feels in this orches­trat­ed attempt to find love, and her yearn­ing for sim­plic­i­ty and sin­cer­i­ty becomes more appar­ent.

In a rare moment of relief, Brid­get con­nects with Alfred over a mishap involv­ing his birds. This small and seem­ing­ly insignif­i­cant exchange offers Brid­get a brief escape from the forced nature of her social inter­ac­tions and high­lights her deep desire for a more authen­tic con­nec­tion. How­ev­er, the pres­sure to ful­fill her roy­al duties remains ever-present, and as the evening wears on, Brid­get seeks solace away from the crowd. Step­ping into the restroom, she becomes con­sumed by thoughts of Rhys, her body­guard, whose pres­ence at the ball only adds to her inter­nal con­flict. While he rep­re­sents a con­nec­tion she can­not open­ly pur­sue, his pres­ence is com­fort­ing, yet it also ampli­fies the pain of her roy­al oblig­a­tions that sep­a­rate them.

Rhys’s pres­ence in her life is both a source of com­fort and tor­ment, as their bud­ding rela­tion­ship con­tin­ues to remain a secret, fraught with obsta­cles nei­ther can ignore. Their stolen moments—those brief encoun­ters filled with qui­et, charged emotions—reveal a deep bond that Brid­get longs to nur­ture but can­not open­ly embrace due to her roy­al posi­tion. She recalls how Rhys had wished her a hap­py birth­day ear­li­er in the evening, an act of ten­der­ness that stark­ly con­trasts with the rigid for­mal­i­ty of her pub­lic life. The mixed emo­tions she feels are com­pound­ed by the grow­ing real­iza­tion that her con­nec­tion with Rhys is more than just fleet­ing attrac­tion; it has become some­thing much deep­er and more mean­ing­ful.

Amidst the tur­moil of her pri­vate feel­ings, Brid­get faces a con­fronta­tion with Lord Erhall, the Speak­er of Par­lia­ment, whose crit­i­cisms chal­lenge her already frag­ile sense of self and her abil­i­ty to rule. Erhall’s remarks, ques­tion­ing her com­pe­ten­cy and cast­ing doubt on her capa­bil­i­ty to ful­fill her roy­al duties, high­light the intense pres­sure Brid­get faces as a woman in line for the throne. His skep­ti­cism, and the polit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of her gen­der, serve to rein­force the bar­ri­ers she faces in her quest to break free from tra­di­tion­al expec­ta­tions. Erhall’s dis­mis­sive­ness of her ideas only deep­ens Bridget’s inter­nal strug­gle as she real­izes the immense weight of the respon­si­bil­i­ties she must bear, all while try­ing to nav­i­gate a world that refus­es to see her as more than a sym­bol.

The encounter with Erhall also under­scores the soci­etal and polit­i­cal forces work­ing against Bridget’s per­son­al hap­pi­ness and growth. She is remind­ed time and time again that her role as a princess is to serve the king­dom, not to indulge in per­son­al desires or to chal­lenge the patri­ar­chal struc­tures that define her world. This strug­gle between per­son­al ful­fill­ment and roy­al duty defines the emo­tion­al core of this chap­ter, as Bridget’s desire for a life out­side of the palace’s con­straints grows stronger. The gift Rhys gave her—an inti­mate sketch that speaks vol­umes of their unspo­ken connection—becomes a sym­bol of her desire for a dif­fer­ent life, one where she can choose love over duty and authen­tic­i­ty over pre­tense.

As the night pro­gress­es, Bridget’s inter­ac­tions at the ball con­trast with her deep­en­ing emo­tions for Rhys. Her expe­ri­ence with the men at the event, com­bined with the pres­sure from the roy­al fam­i­ly and polit­i­cal fig­ures like Erhall, forces her to grap­ple with the lim­i­ta­tions placed on her as both a woman and a roy­al. The inter­nal con­flict she faces, between her duty to her peo­ple and her desire for a gen­uine con­nec­tion, reveals the com­plex­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion. The chap­ter cap­tures Bridget’s emo­tion­al tur­moil, high­light­ing the intense desire for some­thing real and mean­ing­ful that seems increas­ing­ly out of reach in her world of expec­ta­tions and appear­ances. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of her pub­lic role and pri­vate feel­ings sets the stage for fur­ther explo­ration of Bridget’s char­ac­ter as she nav­i­gates the many chal­lenges before her, both polit­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly.

This chap­ter not only show­cas­es Bridget’s strug­gle between her roy­al respon­si­bil­i­ties and her per­son­al desires, but it also paints a pic­ture of her growth as a leader. She begins to ques­tion the lim­i­ta­tions placed on her by her posi­tion, all while try­ing to main­tain the image of per­fec­tion expect­ed from her. Rhys, as her body­guard and con­fi­dant, rep­re­sents a per­son­al escape from this real­i­ty, though their rela­tion­ship remains con­strained by the world around them. As Brid­get con­tem­plates her future, she is faced with the dif­fi­cult deci­sion of whether to con­tin­ue down the path set out for her or to take a leap of faith toward a life filled with love and authen­tic­i­ty. The stakes are high, and Bridget’s inter­nal bat­tle will only inten­si­fy as she moves for­ward in her jour­ney.