Chap­ter 37: Brid­get finds her­self caught in the whirl­wind of emo­tions fol­low­ing her unex­pect­ed depar­ture from the recep­tion with Rhys. With the evening unfold­ing in ways she had not antic­i­pat­ed, Brid­get couldn’t bring her­self to return to the fes­tiv­i­ties. By the time Rhys had fin­ished with her, there was no way to regain com­po­sure, so they slipped out dis­creet­ly, avoid­ing notice by the crowd. The deci­sion to leave ear­ly, with­out inform­ing any­one, weighed heav­i­ly on her, espe­cial­ly as she reflect­ed on her brides­maid duties. For­tu­nate­ly, the recep­tion had already start­ed wind­ing down, and most guests were too intox­i­cat­ed to notice her absence. How­ev­er, she still felt a pang of guilt about leav­ing Stef­fan in the lurch, so she imme­di­ate­ly reached out the next day to apol­o­gize. Her excuse about a friend’s emer­gency was met with grace, but Brid­get couldn’t shake the feel­ing that Steffan’s behav­ior had shift­ed dur­ing the evening, maybe even secret­ly relieved by her ear­ly exit.

As Brid­get and Mikaela sit in her room the fol­low­ing day, the focus shifts from the after­math of the recep­tion to the more press­ing mat­ter at hand: per­suad­ing Erhall to bring the Roy­al Mar­riages Law repeal to the par­lia­men­tary floor. While brain­storm­ing ideas, Mikaela casu­al­ly asks about Bridget’s sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance, rais­ing the ten­sion between the two. Brid­get quick­ly deflects, claim­ing it was a col­lege friend’s emer­gency, though the doubt in Mikaela’s voice sug­gests she’s not entire­ly con­vinced. More lies pile up, each one adding weight to Bridget’s already strained con­science. When Mikaela men­tions that her cousin Andreas had been look­ing for her at the recep­tion, Brid­get’s heart skips a beat. She had thought Andreas had already left, but now doubts began to cloud her mind. Had he seen her leave with Rhys? If so, how much did he know? The thought of Andreas find­ing out about her secret rela­tion­ship with Rhys unset­tles her, but the uncer­tain­ty of what he might know keeps her on edge.

Brid­get’s mind races as she con­tem­plates the pos­si­bil­i­ties. What if Andreas had fol­lowed them, wit­nessed every­thing, and was now plan­ning to con­front her? Despite the anx­i­ety, she reas­sures her­self that her reac­tion might be overblown. Still, the thought lingers in her mind, caus­ing her to feel more para­noid with each pass­ing moment. She’s left ques­tion­ing whether Andreas tru­ly was look­ing for her for triv­ial rea­sons or if some­thing more sig­nif­i­cant is at play. The con­ver­sa­tion with Mikaela only inten­si­fies Bridget’s inter­nal con­flict, as she tries to main­tain con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion. She brush­es off Mikaela’s con­cerns, opt­ing for a laugh to down­play her stress and dis­miss the mount­ing pres­sure. With Mikaela leav­ing for din­ner, Bridget’s mind refo­cus­es on the work in front of her, but the anx­i­ety over Andreas’s poten­tial dis­cov­ery nev­er ful­ly leaves her thoughts.

After Mikaela departs, Brid­get dis­tracts her­self by attend­ing to a grow­ing stack of let­ters from cit­i­zens. Despite her assis­tants han­dling much of the work­load, she still takes pride in respond­ing per­son­al­ly when she can. It offers a much-need­ed dis­trac­tion from her spi­ral­ing thoughts about Andreas. Brid­get tries to con­vince her­self that her wor­ries are irra­tional, that Andreas could have been seek­ing her for any num­ber of insignif­i­cant rea­sons. How­ev­er, the more she attempts to con­vince her­self, the more her doubts con­tin­ue to gnaw at her. As she sifts through the let­ters, the con­stant wor­ry about Andreas hangs over her, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate. Just as she begins to set­tle into a more pro­duc­tive rhythm, her lap­top pings with a new email noti­fi­ca­tion. She hes­i­tates but is com­pelled to open it, only to find an unset­tling, cryp­tic email address—a string of ran­dom num­bers that rais­es a fresh wave of sus­pi­cion. What was this email about? Could it be linked to her con­cerns over Andreas, or was it just anoth­er dis­trac­tion?

Brid­get is now caught between her per­son­al anx­i­eties and the polit­i­cal real­i­ties she must face. The Roy­al Mar­riages Law con­tin­ues to loom large in her mind, along­side the con­stant pres­sure to act deci­sive­ly for her kingdom’s future. Mean­while, her com­plex rela­tion­ship with Rhys and the secrets she keeps from those clos­est to her con­tin­ue to com­pli­cate her emo­tion­al land­scape. This chap­ter under­scores the weight of Bridget’s respon­si­bil­i­ties, not only as a roy­al fig­ure but as a per­son grap­pling with love, duty, and the con­se­quences of her actions. The ten­sion between her per­son­al desires and her pub­lic role inten­si­fies, with each deci­sion pulling her fur­ther into a labyrinth of emo­tions. As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, Bridget’s inter­nal con­flict takes cen­ter stage, set­ting the stage for the bat­tles she must face both with­in her­self and against the forces that seek to con­trol her.