A Princess for a Bride (Rothman Royals Book 2)

by Noelle Adams

  I came over to take his arm in a comforting gesture. “Well, give them time. It must have been a shock to them, but after they get used to it—“

  “They think it’s wrong. They’re not going to get used to it. They think it’s wrong.”

  I knew they did. His parents were devout Catholics with traditional views on sexuality. It was why Bryce hadn’t told them his orientation until now. My voice was rough with emotion as I said, “I know they do. But they love you.”

  “They think it’s wrong.”

  “They love you. I know your parents. I think that’s going to be the stronger thing. Give them some time to put it all together.”

  Bryce just stood there, holding himself very still, but I could sense the grief shuddering through him and it absolutely broke my heart.

  I couldn’t imagine being torn apart in the way he was right now. I simply couldn’t imagine it.

  I could feel for him, though, and I reached out to pull him into a hug, needing to comfort him in any way I could.

  Bryce hugged me back—tightly, almost frantically.

  “They love you, Bryce,” I murmured against his shoulder. “That’s never going to change.”

  “I hope so.”

  We hugged for a long time, and eventually I felt that terrible tension in his body relaxing. I started to pull away then, rubbing the back of his neck and checking his face to make sure he was all right. His arms were still around me.

  A sound at the door that led onto the balcony surprised me. We both turned to see who it was.

  It was Edward. He’d started to step outside, but he’d paused midstep, his hand poised on the handle of the door.

  Something absolutely terrible reflected on his face for just a moment before his expression went completely blank.

  Completely blank.

  “Edward,” I said, my voice breaking in my surprise and concern. “We were—“

  Edward didn’t wait for me to complete my explanation. He turned around and went back into the ballroom, closing the door behind him with a loud click.

  I stared at Bryce, both of us startled and still recovering from the intensity of our emotions before.

  “What on earth…” I began.

  “He saw us hugging.” Bryce sounded a lot more like himself now.

  “But he can’t possibly think that you and I would be… I mean, that’s crazy. Just on the balcony? That would be crazy!” Panic was starting to ripple out from a tight coil in my chest. “He’s not so stupid.”

  “It might have looked bad, though. Just go talk to him. It will be easy to clear up.”

  His words made sense, but they weren’t enough to pierce through the pulsing fear that was filling my body. Edward’s face just now—it had been… shattering.

  “Talk to him,” Bryce said again, turning my body to face it toward the door leading inside.

  I glanced back at him. “You’re all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. Edward is more important right now. Talk to him. You can tell him the truth about me if you need to.”

  This was a very generous gesture on Bryce’s part, and I was fully aware of it. I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before I hurried inside to find Edward.

  He’d already made it out of the ballroom, but I tracked him down the stairs and finally caught up with him as he was standing outside, waiting for Claude to pull the car around to the front of the palace.

  “Edward,” I called, running down to him as quickly as I could in heels. “Edward, wait!”

  He turned around, his expression as cold as I’d ever seen it.

  “Where are you going? You’re just leaving without me?”

  “You appeared to be occupied.”

  “For God’s sake, Edward! Don’t be ridiculous. Whatever you think you saw wasn’t that.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “No, it wasn’t. Bryce and I are friends. You know that.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I know you continually tell me that. And I also know you go to him whenever you’re upset. I’m not a fool. I know how much he means to you.”

  “As a friend,” I insisted, trying to keep my voice down although I felt like screaming with frustration. There were footmen around, and they might gossip. “Just as a friend. I’m allowed to have friends.”

  “And I told you there were limits to the freedoms in this marriage that I can allow.”

  “You can allow?” My fear was quickly being replaced by anger, resentment, and a kind of pained betrayal that Edward would actually think I would cheat on him, that he thought so little of me, when I thought so much about him. “You don’t get to allow anything regarding me.”

  “So this marriage means nothing, then?”

  “It’s not going to mean anything if you trust me so little. You really think I was having a little dalliance with Bryce, right there on the balcony during my mother’s ball, when you were just inside the room?”

  “It’s not about what was happening right then.”

  “Then what is it about? Bryce is my friend, and I’m not going to give him up just because you have some sort of irrational paranoia about him. You’re going to have to trust me if this is ever going to work.”

  Edward took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder at the car that had just pulled up. “And what exactly am I supposed to trust? You never wanted to marry me at all.”

  I gasped. “Yes, I did! You know I did. I was the one who came to you to talk about it!”

  “You wanted it for your family. You didn’t want me. I’m not a fool, you know. What exactly am I supposed to trust about that?”

  I stared at him, suddenly slammed with the knowledge that he didn’t know me at all. He didn’t know my heart. He didn’t know how much my feelings had changed.

  And it cast everything that had happened between us in the few months of our marriage into shadow, as if none of it meant what I thought it had meant.

  It was nothing more than a house of cards that had now utterly toppled down into a flattened mess.

  I could tell him that I loved him right now. I could tell him he could trust that he was first in my heart.

  But he wouldn’t believe me.

  And I wasn’t going to lower myself to that.

  I was Victoria Rothman, daughter of a king. I wouldn’t be humiliated that way.

  I’d done all the work in this marriage, and I wasn’t going to do any more.

  Not when it got me exactly nothing.

  I was a Rothman, and if I bent anymore I would break.

  “You really don’t have an answer for me?” Edward asked, when all I did was stare at him blindly.

  “What kind of answer would possibly satisfy you?”

  He opened his mouth. I saw his lips move. But no sound followed the motion.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said after a minute.

  Edward rubbed at his face and glanced back again at the car. “Let’s go home. We can talk about it later.”

  I stood where I was. Didn’t move.

  He blinked twice. “You’re not going to come home with me?”

  “To what, exactly?”

  Neither of us spoke for a full minute. We just stared at each other with what felt like ice between us.

  Then I said, “The ball isn’t over. I have responsibilities here.”

  Not waiting for a response, I turned on my heel and walking slowly, with as much dignity as I could muster, up the stone steps and back into the palace. My back was very straight and my head held as highly as my governesses had trained me as a girl.

  I was nearly at the front doors when I heard Edward’s car driving away.

  ***

  I made a quick stop in the powder room to pull myself together, and then I returned to the ballroom. The event was wrapping up, and I joined my family for the final formalities as the guests began to leave.

  Everyone acted perfectly normal. No one mentioned Edward’s absence. I wasn’t even sure anyone noticed he wasn’t here.
<
br />   Evidently, one’s life falling apart could be a very private affair.

  I held on to my polished, social smile until the final guest was gone.

  “Where’s Edward?” Lisette asked, following me out of the ballroom.

  I’d done an excellent job of staying controlled up to his point, but for some reason the innocent question completely undid me. I strangled on a sob as I fought to keep from crying.

  “Oh no!” Lisette breathed. “What happened?”

  “He left,” I managed to say. “He left without me.”

  This was true, although it wasn’t the entire story.

  Lisette’s pretty face twisted in sympathy. “Then you can stay the night with me. Let’s go get some milk and cake.”

  A few tears slipped out of my eyes at this piece of kindness, and I went with my sister to the kitchen, where we snuck a tin of leftover cake and a pitcher of milk, carrying them to one of the small sitting rooms on the first floor.

  “Now tell me what’s going on,” Lisette said, hiking up her long ballgown so she could sit cross-legged on the soft rug.

  I pulled my skirt up so I could sit down across from her, leaning against the wall. I grabbed a piece of chocolate cake and took a bite before I started to talk.

  I explained in broad strokes what was going on between Edward and I, stopping occasionally when I got too upset. Lisette listened carefully, occasionally asking a few questions. When I was done, I was exhausted and depressed, but it felt like my sister had really heard me.

  There was some comfort in that.

  Lisette took a sip of milk and thought for a while before she finally said, “What I don’t understand is this. Why don’t you just tell Edward how you feel about him?”

  “How I feel about him?”

  “That you love him.” She said it so matter-of-factly that the words didn’t even feel shocking.

  They felt inevitable.

  I knew they were true.

  “He won’t believe me.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “I stood right in front of him earlier and told him Bryce was just my friend, and he didn’t believe me.”

  “It sounds like it’s not really about Bryce at all. He thinks you don’t love him, and you do. So just tell him. He’s always believed you before when you’ve opened up to him for real. He’ll believe you now.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “And you don’t think it’s worth taking that risk?”

  I made a face. “Haven’t I risked enough? How low am I supposed to stoop to make this work?”

  Lisette’s eyes went wide, and I suddenly heard what I’d just said—how proud it sounded, how appallingly arrogant.

  I used to think Edward was the snob.

  How ironic.

  “Damn,” I murmured. “That sounded terrible. I just meant I’m a Rothman, and we have this problem with embarrassing ourselves.”

  She giggled, her face relaxing. “I don’t seem to have a problem embarrassing myself, but I know what you mean. The thing is, you’re not just a Rothman now, are you? You’re a Channing too.”

  I stared at her, realizing for the first time that she was right.

  Of course I was more than a Rothman.

  Edward was my husband, and that meant something.

  Plus, I loved him, and that meant even more.

  “I don’t mean to sound like it’s easy,” Lisette added, when I didn’t reply. “I wouldn’t want to put myself out there either. And maybe it’s even harder for you because dealing with other people has always been easy for you. I’m afraid all the time of saying things to other people, but you’re different. You don’t know what it’s like to be afraid to say something, and you’re afraid now.”

  “I’m not—“ I broke off my own words because I knew they weren’t true.

  I might try to use the excuse of my pride, but there was an even deeper reason for my reluctance to open up all the way with Edward.

  I was afraid. Terrified. What if I told Edward how I felt and he didn’t feel the same way? It would be far worse than humiliation. It would be heartbreak.

  It would be far worse than watching him drive away from me this evening.

  I was scared. It all boiled down to that.

  But I’d never been held back by fear before, and I didn’t want to start now. Being a Rothman didn’t just mean being proud—it meant being brave.

  I knew in that moment what I needed to do.

  Lisette gave me a little smile. “So now I get to be the one to tell you to be brave and just say it, the way you’ve always told me. It’s a very big day for me.”

  I laughed, and then the laughter turned to tears, and I reached over to hug Lisette. “Just wait until you fall in love,” I told her. “Then you’ll see how hard it is.”

  She laughed and didn’t answer.

  ***

  Now that I had made up my mind, I didn’t want to waste any time. Lisette carried the empty pitcher and mostly empty tin back to the kitchen while I went to the front of the palace and asked that a car be brought around to take me home.

  I was standing at the bottom of the steps, waiting for the car, wondering what Edward was doing now and what he would say when I showed up to talk to him, when a sleek, black car came up the front drive at a surprisingly fast speed.

  I stared at it, recognizing the car but not processing what it was doing here.

  It pulled to a stop and Edward jumped out, still wearing his tuxedo.

  I was so surprised I couldn’t move. I just stared at him as he ran toward me, hardly comprehending when he pulled me into his arms.

  He hugged me tightly—very tightly—and when my mind finally caught up, I was able to hug him back.

  “I’m sorry,” Edward was murmuring. “I’m so sorry I left.”

  “I’m sorry too,” I said, finally breaking into his repeated muttering. “I was just coming home to talk to you.”

  “Were you?” He searched my face urgently. “Can I show you something?”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “It’s at home. I’ll show you at home. I should have showed you a long time ago.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but he clearly thought it was important.

  If it was important to him, then it was important to me.

  I let him help me into the car, and we drove home in the dark.

  Nine

  We sat in silence in the back of the car for several minutes. I was too confused and overwhelmed with emotion to even know what to say, and Edward appeared to be feeling something similar.

  I felt better, though.

  No matter what was happening here—no matter what he wanted to show me—he’d come back for me. He wasn’t giving up on our marriage.

  I wasn’t giving up either.

  “Did you even make it home before?” I asked at last.

  He blinked as my voice broke the thick silence. “No,” he said with a huff of ironic amusement. “I was almost there when I told Claude to turn around and go back.”

  “I’ve done that before too.” Just a couple of weeks ago, when I thought I was going to see Bryce but turned back around—only to discover Edward’s studio.

  That had been a revelation.

  Tonight felt like it would be a revelation too.

  Edward seemed set on waiting to talk until we got home, so he could show me whatever he wanted to show me. I had some things to say too, but I could wait until he was ready to talk.

  It wasn’t as difficult as I would have thought to make it through the ride home, and then Edward got out and leaned over to help me out of the backseat too. He took my hand and led me into the house and then down the hall and to the door of his studio.

  “You want to show me something in here?” I asked, watching as he walked in.

  He nodded and, still holding me by the hand, he pulled me into the room. “I’m not any good at talking. I’ve never been good at it. So I wanted
to show you instead.”

  I gazed around, recognizing that the room looked mostly the way it had before. There was a different half-finished painting on the easel, though, so I stepped over to look at it.

  I gasped as I realized it was of me.

  I’m not sure how I knew it was of me because the representation wasn’t very close, but I knew nonetheless. The painting was from the perspective of someone looking out a window at a garden very much like ours, with mountains and sharp blue sky beyond. There was a figure in the garden—blond and recognizably female. I was sure it was me. It felt like me.

  I raised a hand to my chest as I gazed at the painting and felt something like yearning, loss, pain.

  The woman in the painting was so far away from the viewer—achingly far, too far to reach.

  “No!” I exclaimed as the meaning of the painting sank in. I whirled around to face Edward. “This isn’t right! This isn’t the way it really is!”

  He was gazing at me—naked emotion in his eyes, like I’d never seen before. “There are more,” he murmured.

  I walked with him to the closed door in the room, and he opened it up to reveal a large walk-in closet in which were several more paintings. He pulled one out and propped it against the wall so I could see it.

  This one was of a party—one of the elegant parties at the palace—and it was filled with well-dressed people. The same blond woman was in this one—this time in a beautiful dress. She was smiling and surrounded by other people. Family and friends. A young man was beside her—his hand touching her with an emotional intimacy that was clear despite the slightly abstract style.

  The man wasn’t Edward. I knew it. The perspective in this one—despite the crowd of people—was just as aching as the half-finished one. Terribly lonely. As if the blonde and everyone else was so far away.

  There were tears in my eyes as I turned to look at him. “Edward, no! It’s not like that. I’m not out of reach like that. Do you really believe that?”

  He didn’t answer. From the look on his face, I wasn’t sure he was even capable of answering at the moment. He reached into the closet to pull out another painting.