Chapter Thirty-Seven
The sound of my bedroom door opening awakened me. There was a squeak in the hinges that palace maintenance staff had never quite silenced, and when they’d told me the only thing left to do was replace the beautiful, ornate brass hinges with modern, mass-produced ones, I had politely declined.
Because sometimes beautiful things made squeaks. That’s what made them beautiful.
So it was that tell-tale squeak I knew so well that caused my eyes to pop open. Instantly, I knew where I was. My bedroom. In the palace.
Then I smelled the coffee and my heart nearly burst.
It was Hugh, with a bag slung over his shoulder, and then a maid pushing a cart.
“Hello,” I said groggily, with a smile. Seeing him made me feel anchored. Rooted.
“Good morning, ma’am,” the maid said. I didn’t recognize her, so I hoped she didn’t mind me not greeting her by name. I thanked her as she laid out the coffee and then left me alone with my bodyguard.
My bodyguard, who, I realized, didn’t look nearly as happy as I wished he did.
My stomach dropped. “What is it?” I immediately feared the worst. “Father?” I threw back the bedclothes and my feet landed on the floor. “I knew I shouldn’t have left yesterday.” Wait. What time was it? Morning? I checked the Limoges clock on top of the fireplace mantel. “How did you let me sleep for so long?” I went toward the closet, where I had left my clothes the night before.
“Everything’s fine,” he said, catching my hand. “There’s just been a lot happening this morning.”
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“It’s only the press. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
I saw the paper on the breakfast tray. The screaming headlines were in bold black ink across the top, middle and bottom of the first page. I made myself look. If Hugh had to deal with this, so did I, and it was awful. Terrifying. The Crown Prince on life support. Rampant rumors, specious speculation, and me and my mother making the circus complete. There was even a side column wondering, “Where is Karl Sylvain?”
Because Karl and I were engaged, apparently.
“They’re camped outside the gates, the hospital. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to go back.”
“They’re not keeping me away,” I hissed.
“For your security, I’m not sure that’s wise.”
This was exhausting. This argument, this life. “Are Henry, Sophie, and my mother still there?”
Hugh nodded.
“If they are there, then I should be as well.”
“But you’re different. The press is used to Sophie, they’re not used to you.”
“I’m going back to the hospital, and that’s that.”
Hugh paused for a moment, and I recognized the expression on his face. It was the same one he used when Thea gave him orders.
And I had sounded just like her. Princessy and superior and authoritative.
And…oh God. This was no way to have a relationship. One person constantly submitting to the other.
Well. Maybe some people got off on that. But it wasn’t my thing. I tried keeping the princess out of my voice when I spoke again.
“I want to go back to the hospital, Hugh. I have to be with my family.”
And when he looked back at me, I saw the man, not the bodyguard. The man who actually cared about all of the parts of me, the one who would move Heaven and Earth for me.
The one who didn’t stop me as I changed into the clothes that someone had retrieved for me. The one who had a coffee poured for me to carry to the cars downstairs.
The one who held my hand, however briefly, before I ducked out and ran toward the doors of the hospital, the one who shielded my body with his own, a useless defense against the yells and camera flashes.
Henry and Sophie had spent the night keeping watch, while, due to an unexpected complication, the doctors had put Father in a medical coma in order to give him the best chance at recovery from open heart surgery.
In the Ören wing, there was a safe space for the family to gather, and I didn’t see any bodyguards after Henry and Sophie left to go take their rest at the palace.
It was just me and my mother, who had woken perfectly and miraculously refreshed. The only woman in the world who could get beauty sleep on a hospital chair.
But that wasn’t to say that she was bright and chipper.
No. The world loved to think of Felice as flighty and flippant, but as she waited for good news about my father’s recovery, she was quite serious and subdued.
A kind nurse brought us a small breakfast and a pot of tea. Felice touched neither until I forced a buttered roll into her hand. “You must eat,” I told her. “I can’t worry about you both at the same time.”
Felice’s eyes went watery. “Darling Caroline. You were always the one keeping us all together.”
“I don’t know about that,” I sighed, thinking of how I had been disowned, ostracized, and was now only reluctantly accepted by my grandmother. “If I was so good at keeping the family together, you’d think I would keep myself in the mix,” I grumbled.
Felice smiled. “Just because you take care of the rest of us doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve your flights of fancy.”
Her choice of words rubbed me wrong. “Marriage isn’t a flight of fancy.”
“No, of course not,” she allowed. “But eloping does indicate a certain spontaneity.”
I had to give her that.
“Ma’am?” The kind nurse had returned and she addressed me with a respectful dip. If I had been less bone tired, I would have told her that I wasn’t a princess, that I didn’t deserve a curtsey, but it was exhausting to correct people all the time.
“This came for you.” She handed me a large white envelope bearing the Hotel Ilysium logo.
“Oooh. What is it?” Felice’s interest was immediately piqued because Felice loved surprises and surprise packages even more.
I broke the seal on the envelope and two notes spilled out.
The first had handwriting that I recognized still, even all these years after I used her to relay my gossip column to the editors of the national tabloids.
Well, that made sense. It happened all the time—an employee inside a hospital, rehab facility, or government tax office looked up the files on a famous name and accidentally leaked a substance abuse problem or a previously unreleased tax return. I had been a victim of a curious and bored data clerk who was looking for some extra cash.
It was the most logical explanation. But something wasn’t quite right.
I opened the next note. It was written on the personal stationery of Karl Sylvain von Falkenburg.
It was very kind and thoughtful, and when I fingered the note I realized there was another thin page stuck to the back.
“Who are they from, darling?” Felice asked.
I placed Sybil’s note back in the envelope. My mother had once been close to Sybil, who had served as her personal astrologer, but I wasn’t sure what the current status of their friendship was. Therefore, I moved quickly on to something I knew would distract my mother. “This is from Karl Sylvain von Falkenberg.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh.” She drew the word out like a schoolgirl with a crush. “He’s something, isn’t he? Good for you, my girl. You clearly inherited my good taste in men.”
She said it cheerfully, like it would be something I should be proud of, but since we were currently in a hospital waiting room because of her ex-husband’s poor health, I couldn’t help but wonder about her choices. And mine. If I had inherited anything from my mother, I feared it was not good taste in partners but the ability to make bad decision after bad decision.
“Do you know why Father still had you designated as his medical representative?” I asked suddenly.
The smile slipped from her plumped lips and the tears returned to her eyes again. Instantly, I regretted asking, but I found I couldn’t tell her to forget I had asked. I had to know—“Do you regret marrying him?” I asked in a low voice.
She sank into her chair, her slim shoulders rounding, as if protecting herself from the chilly Driedish wind outside. “We were practically strangers when we agreed to marry, your father and I. It was a perfect arrangement on paper. At last, the Laurent and Sevine dynasties united.” She smiled weakly. “But if he had been ugly or repulsive, I would have said no, no matter what my mother urged me to do.” Her eyes closed. “Your father was not ugly or repulsive. He was what every woman would dream of. So kind, so sweet, and a prince! How could I not fall in love with him?”
And I had seen the photographs. Felice and Albert’s wedding day had been picture-perfect, the ideal Driedish prince and princess. Of course my father would have loved her, so beautiful, charming and ebullient.
Felice shook her head, bringing her back to the present. “How could I regret marrying a man I loved deeply? A man who gave me my children?” She placed her palm on my cheek, a cool, light touch, and then she let her hand drop.
“And the divorce? Do you regret that?” As a child of that broken marriage, I wasn’t sure which I would rather hear—that my parents could have worked things out and spared us all so much heartbreak or that all the drama was for a good reason.
Her voice grew fainter when she replied. “Perfect princesses exist only in fairy-tales. Humans wear tiaras, my darling. Humans who deserve love and forgiveness, just like everyone else.”
My mother inhaled sharply through her nose before continuing. “You’ve been married, my love, you know as well as I do what that means.” She glanced away, avoiding my gaze. “You can love someone with your whole heart, but you must find someone willing to walk with you, grow with you, no matter how difficult it is. No matter the differences between you.”
That familiar Felice smile returned. “Which is why someone like Karl Sylvain von Falkenberg would be so perfect for you. He’s Driedish, for one, and he’s incredibly wealthy. I mean, a billionaire is the next best thing to a prince, wouldn’t you say?”
“Now you’re sounding like all the newspapers,” I accused her. “Karl and I have met exactly once and already the press are a nightmare to deal with.”
My mother laughed. “You know what Konnor used to say, when he was on my security detail?”
I ignored the sudden extra thump of my heart when I heard Konnor’s name. “What?” I tried to ask, as neutrally as possible.
“He said a swarm of press was his best friend while guarding me.” Felice’s eyes twinkled. “Because he always knew right where to find me.”
I chuckled softly along with Mother, because it sounded like Konnor and it was also, to everyone in the royal staff’s great despair, eternally true. Where Felice was, paparazzi were soon to follow.
Yet another thing I inherited from my mother. Unfortunately.