by Jane Porter
A new life here.
A new normal.
Be happy...eventually.
The words echoed in her head. She raised a hand to her face, fingertips pressing against her forehead where pain throbbed. She didn’t want a new normal, and she didn’t want a new home, but none of that seemed to matter, and honestly, she had no one to blame but herself. She’d lost her head on Khronos. She’d thrown caution to the wind. They’d made love a dozen times. Risks had consequences and the consequence was that they’d created a new life.
She dropped her hand, looked up at him. “Does anyone even know about me?”
“They know you rescued me after my...accident. They know you saved my life, and they believe you’re here to be thanked by my parents.”
She frowned as a troubling thought came to her. “What about the pregnancy? Does anyone know about that?”
“No. It’s a closely guarded secret. Only four people know you are pregnant: our parents and the doctor who performed the ultrasound, and I’m determined that no one else know, not until we choose to make an announcement, most likely once you are well into your second trimester.”
“Who is we? The palace, or you and me?”
“It will be up to us, I promise.”
Up to us. Us.
“Don’t you think I should meet both of your parents before I say yes?” she asked, taking a deep breath. “I realize your father is the king, but he will be the grandfather of my child. I want to be sure he approves of...me.” Us.
Alexander hesitated. “My father can be difficult.”
“Is that your way of saying I should lower my expectations?”
He smiled crookedly. “You’re quite good at subtext.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY WERE TO have dinner in his tower library that night. Alexander had given his staff instructions to set a proper table and provide a proper meal with a proper dessert, and since he had a few minutes before dinner, he stopped by his father’s room.
The king’s butler opened the door to Alexander. “He’s awake,” the butler said. “But he’s not in the best of tempers.”
“Thank you,” Alexander replied, grateful, as forewarned was forearmed.
King Bruno was in bed already, and he watched Alexander approach his bed from beneath heavy lids. “You’ve cleaned up. Who are you trying to impress tonight?”
“I’m having dinner with Josephine.”
The king’s jaw tightened, his expression closing. When his father said nothing else, Alexander added, “I intend to present her to you tomorrow, Father.”
“I’d prefer not.”
“I’m aware of that, but she doesn’t need to be, and then after I introduce you, I’m moving her into the palace. It will be a short meeting. You won’t have to do much—just nod and I’ll whisk her out and it will be over.”
“I heard that you and Damian had a falling-out. I hope it’s not true.”
His father had always been more interested in Damian than him. “We’re fine.”
“Why hasn’t he come around, then?”
“I wondered the same thing.”
“He’s always been very loyal to me.”
“Just as I have, Father.”
But Bruno had no response to that, choosing to close his eyes, ending the conversation.
* * *
In the tower library, iron-and-glass wall sconces had been lit so that the room glowed with red and gold light. A ruby brocade cloth covered the round dining table and the stemware had ruby-colored crystal stems. The walls of books added to the richness, and Josephine found herself relaxing as they were presented with their second course.
“You will meet my father tomorrow before lunch,” Alexander said. “I cannot predict how he will behave.”
“You have a difficult relationship?”
“It’s been tense since I was a very young boy.”
“Is he that hard to please?”
“He’s quite pleased with my mother.”
“How have you disappointed him?”
“I’m too cerebral. He would have preferred a son more like my cousin, Damian. Damian is physical, shrewd, and aggressive. My father admires a man who will lay down the law and command.”
“How are you not commanding?”
Alexander smiled, and then his smile faded. “Josephine, we might never be who we were on Khronos, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be happy and that we can’t create a strong and loving family for this child and any others we choose to have.”
“Would you want more?”
“I would like more.”
“Because you need an heir and a spare?”
“Because I was an only child and was often lonely. I would love my son or daughter to have siblings, brothers and sisters to play with. Why grow up in a castle if you have no one to chase you up and down stairwells, or play hide-and-seek with in the dungeon?”
She swallowed hard, unaccountably moved by his words. “Your nannies didn’t play with you?”
“How can a nanny ever be a substitute for a brother? Nannies don’t whisper secrets and share dreams.”
Josephine hated the lump filling her throat. She didn’t want to care for him; she didn’t want to feel connected, and yet his words made her heart ache. She understood better than he knew. She had grown up alone and lonely. She had grown up wishing for a playmate, someone to talk to late at night, someone to wake up with in the morning, someone who would go on an adventure with her. Instead, she’d spent her life entertaining herself. She’d spent her childhood trying to pretend she didn’t need anyone.
“You want our child but you don’t want me,” she said after a moment. “I think that is the most difficult part for me. And maybe it sounds selfish—”
“But I do want you. I want you very much. I locked you here, trapping you in my home, to keep you from leaving.”
“To keep your unborn child here.”
“To keep you here, Josephine.” He signaled for the table steward to leave, and once the door closed, leaving the two of them alone, he said, “I still don’t have all of my memory. It hasn’t completely returned,” he added. “It’s incomplete, and there are areas of my life that still have...blanks. I know things because people have told me things, but I have no memory of them.”
“Such as?”
“The trip with my friends on the yacht.”
“Is that all?”
“The first day or two on Khronos.”
“You were recovering from an injury. I’m not surprised you’re having difficulty with those memories.”
“But I was on the yacht for a week before the accident. That’s essentially nine days I don’t remember, plus the week where I had amnesia.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“I haven’t told them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m worried it would get back to my mother, and she has enough to deal with at the moment.”
“Is there more I don’t know?”
“My father is dying,” he said bluntly. “He has lung cancer. It’s stage four now. The radiation and chemotherapy have stopped. There is no more prolonging his life. The only thing that can be done is to try to make him as comfortable as possible—and that’s not working.”
“And this is why you keep saying we’re running out of time. Because you literally are running out of time.”
He nodded. “I want my father there when we marry...if humanly possible.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me? I would have better understood the pressure and urgency.”
“Because this is how families like mine operate. We’re royals. We maintain facades. We keep up appearances. We’re not supposed to have problems. We’re not supposed to struggle. And to accomplish that, we suppress anything that is remotely probl
ematic—”
“Like emotions?”
His lips curved wryly. “Indeed, emotions are terribly dangerous.”
“I think living without emotions is dangerous.”
“Says the woman who loves volcanoes and lava.”
“Don’t forget plumes of ash.”
“How could I?” He hesitated, gathering his thoughts. “We don’t do dramatic here. And we don’t have volatility in the palace. It’s all very contained and controlled.”
“That’s dreadful.”
He hesitated. “It can be.”
“So who knows about your father?”
“Just a handful of us. Those who must know.”
“Rather like my pregnancy.”
“But that will be good news, just as our wedding will be good news. I know my mother is hoping our happy news will help soften the public’s grief when they learn of my father’s cancer.”
Josephine swallowed hard, her mouth going dry. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
“I’ve grown up in a fishbowl. You’re being thrown into it. But I have faith in you. You’re a strong swimmer.”
His gaze held hers, and there was something in his eyes, as well as the gruffness in his tone, that made her feel tender. She pressed her hand to her chest, pushing against her heart. “Thank goodness I like the water.”
He rose and left his chair, and once standing next to her, he reached into his coat and withdrew a small velvet box. As he lifted the lid, he knelt at her side. “Josephine, would you do me the honor of marrying me and becoming my wife and future queen?”
She looked from the huge ring in the box—a massive square-cut emerald surrounded by layers of diamonds—up into his face. He was so very handsome and yet so very aloof. In Khronos he’d been relaxed and physical, and she suspected that in bed he’d be just as sensual here, but she worried that there was no room for emotion. She wondered if he’d ever loved a woman. She wondered if he’d ever love her.
His mouth tugged into a reluctant smile. “I’d hope you would say yes.”
She flushed. “Yes, it is a yes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just give me your hand.”
Mortified, she held her hand out to him and he slid the ornate ring on her fourth finger. It was loose and slid sideways. She shifted it around, struck by the weight of it.
“We’ll get it sized tomorrow,” he said, rising.
Josephine couldn’t look away from the immense emerald. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s an Alberici family heirloom, from the early nineteenth century.”
She balled her hand to keep the ring from slipping sideways again. “Your world is overwhelming.”
“Trust me, I understand.”
“I never wanted to be a princess...not ever, not even as a young girl playing make-believe. I loved fables, not fairy tales. I identified with animals, not villagers.”
“I never wanted to be a prince,” he said, taking his seat at the table again. “As a boy I rebelled against my birth. I didn’t want to be nobility. I didn’t want to be privileged. My father thrashed me for being ungrateful and undeserving of my position, and I learned never to voice my concerns or objections again.”
“It must have been quite a thrashing to have permanently silenced you.”
“The thrashing wasn’t that bad, but being sent away from home was. Although I imagine it would have happened sooner or later.”
“Do you remember it still?”
“The conversation with my father, or the punishment?”
“Both, I suppose.”
Alexander leaned back in his chair. “I remember the conversation because I felt very pleased with myself. Rather righteous, if you will. You see, from a young age I’d been uncomfortable with royal protocol, almost cringing when government officials and the public bowed to me, thinking I’d done nothing to earn their loyalty and deference. I didn’t think it fair that I was simply born with advantages. It wasn’t egalitarian.”
“Oh, dear, I can see that being problematic if your father was as old-fashioned as you say.”
“Mmm. How dare I be a populist?”
“And you, his only child.”
“An embarrassment to the Alberici name.” Alexander smiled wryly. “I’m sure I didn’t help things by pointing out to my father that the monarchy was a huge expense for the people of Aargau, costing over two hundred million euros a year to support the monarchy here, and yes, a portion comes from the Alberici estate, but didn’t an equal portion come from the Aargau government, which was really from the taxes the people pay?”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“And then what happened?”
“Thrashed, sent to my room without food or water for the night, and then the very next day I was packed up and shipped off to a military academy where the staff was told to turn me into a proper man.”
“I would think that was an invitation for abuse.”
“For someone raised outside society, you understand it very well.”
“I read a lot.”
He reached across the table to fill her glass with more sparkling water. “I remained at the academy until I was seventeen, then served three years in the Royal Navy and was finally allowed to attend university at twenty. I escaped Europe for four years in New Haven, Connecticut, where I studied philosophy, economics, and environmental science before returning to Europe to earn a graduate degree from Cambridge in land economy, a field that combined environment, law, and economics.”
“That’s why your English is so good.”
“I confess, I liked living overseas and loved my time in America. You have a freedom we don’t have here. It’s probably why I took a job in Paris after my graduate degree. I wasn’t ready to come back to Aargau and be Prince Alexander. I liked being one of the people.”
“You don’t think you can be one of the people as your country’s king?”
“Not the way I was raised.”
“Then when it’s your turn, do it differently so that our son or daughter can embrace a future in which he or she has the opportunity to be happy.”
“I would encourage a career, then.”
“Your father didn’t have one?”
“From the age of eighteen he has been king.”
“He has done his duty, then.”
“Yes.”
“And when it is your turn, you will do your duty, too.”
* * *
The meeting with his father was short and rather brusque, but Alexander admired Josephine’s calm and gracious manner even under fire. His father spoke barely a dozen words to her, but at least those words included curt approval granting them permission to marry.
Queen Serena didn’t speak until the end, but once her husband had given his blessing for the marriage, she rose and gave both Alexander and Josephine a kiss on the cheek. “Congratulations,” she murmured. “And welcome to the family,” she added to Josephine.
The meeting lasted barely five minutes and they were done, exiting the room with Josephine’s hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Her hand was trembling. He’d had no idea she was nervous until then.
He glanced down at her bent head as the doors to his father’s room closed behind them. Her thick, light brown hair with the streaks of blond had been pulled back in a stylish twist. She was wearing a simple navy dress paired with navy heels. Small pearl drop earrings dangled from her earlobes. “You look very elegant,” he said quietly, trying to distract her from the hollow ring of their footsteps on the marble floor. “Have I seen this dress before?”
She reached up and touched the matching strand of pearls at her neck. “No.” Worry darkened her green eyes. “Your mother sent the dress, shoes, and jewelry to me this morning. She said I was probably wishing I had something chic for my presen
tation and hoped the dress and shoes would help me feel suitably prepared.”
He was surprised, but then again not. His mother excelled at soothing and smoothing tension. And yet she was no pushover. His mother was probably the strongest woman he knew. “I wish I had thought of that. You do need a new wardrobe. And an assistant. I will have a team meet with you after lunch.”
“I don’t need an assistant or a new wardrobe, and I have this dress now in case I need to see your father again.”
He stopped on the bottom marble stair. “I don’t think you realize what is about to happen. Our engagement is being announced this afternoon. We will soon become the focus of the press and a great deal of speculation, particularly when we announce the wedding is just a week from Saturday.”
“Nine days from now?”
“It’s not a lot of time, no, which is why we’ll have a little preparty next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, to celebrate our good news—”
“Is that really necessary?”
“We must do something or people will find it odd that I’ve kept you locked away—”
He broke off as she arched a brow. He laughed softly. “You will never let me forget I locked you up, will you?”
“Absolutely not. You’re terrifying. I should call you Bluebeard.”
He smiled and kissed her, and then again, his lips lingering against her mouth. She shivered against him, her hands pressed to his chest. “You’re too good at this,” she murmured. “You make me almost want to be locked up with you.”
“I knew it,” he said. “Now, where are my handcuffs?”
“Easy does it, Your Highness. We’re not even married yet.”
“True, and speaking of marriage, I think it’d be wise to make some decisions so my mother won’t worry.”
“Can’t we just make some decisions now and tell her?”
“Do you know what you want?”
“Small wedding, only our immediate family—yours, and my father. I’d like it to be a quick service, if possible, so that it’s not too much for King Bruno. Afterward cake and a toast with our parents and then, later, a private romantic dinner for just you and me.”