by Pippa Grant
“Did you enjoy the feast?” I inquire.
“I sat between a couple who had been married for sixty-seven years. They sniped at each other the whole evening until the alpacas arrived, and then they quite agreed their daughter would have done far worse in her teenage years. It was lovely, and they’re convinced you shall be a king of the people, as you understand people things, which was evident in your complete inability to deal with a teenage girl.”
As I’m entirely uncertain if she’s meant to compliment me or mock me—siblings are quite special that way—I nod. “Excellent. Sleep well.”
Papaya’s door is closed, and no light sneaks from beneath her door, so I hope she’s sleeping.
I’m not entirely optimistic, but I am tired enough to allow myself a sense of false security.
There’s only my own bedroom left.
Mine.
I turn the handle as noisily as possible, entering through the sitting room rather than the bedroom proper.
Much to my surprise, Peach is curled into one of the two wingback chairs before our fireplace, whose flames provide the only light in the room. Fall comes early in the mountains, and the temperatures have already begun to drop toward freezing in the evenings, though we most likely shan’t see snow at our elevation for another month or so.
She sniffles over her gelato, and my headache is forgotten.
“Peach?” I ask hesitantly.
She pulls her legs tighter to her chest. “When I was fifteen, I had a pregnancy scare,” she whispers. “Meemaw raised me in a trailer. He was from money. And he told me if I didn’t get rid of it, he’d deny it was his and make sure everyone knew I was a whore. I thought he loved me, but he—”
She stops herself with a shake of her head. I cautiously take the seat beside her, torn between the desire to fillet a man alive to avenge her honor and the more rational knowledge that she most likely would prefer I sit and listen.
A man learns a thing or two watching a hockey-playing prince go through his dating years.
“I wasn’t pregnant, but I was old enough to know what it would’ve meant if I had been. And I think I grew up that day.”
“Understandable,” I murmur.
“I hate that he made me who I am today.” Her voice is froggy again.
If I thought she’d allow it, I would pull her into my lap in a heartbeat. “You made yourself.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t care enough to fight for myself until a boy who claimed he loved me showed me just how much lower my life could go, and how flippantly people toss around the word just to get what they want. The day I graduated high school with a full ride scholarship to a private school, I thought about him. The day I graduated college with three job offers, I thought about him. The day Joey and I opened Weightless, I thought about him.”
“You loved him?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I loathe him. But it’s his parents I hate more. They raised him to be like that. They taught him he was better than me because he was richer than me. That he could have anything he wanted, including me, because he was better than me. When really, what had any of us earned at fifteen?”
I remember little of being fifteen beyond a driving desire to right the wrongs done to my family in any way I could, and also an obsession with a countdown to being of legal driving age. “Not much,” I hedge.
“But at fifteen, you think you know it all.” She sighs and drops her spoon into the bowl with a clatter.
“And so you worry for Papaya.”
She shakes her head. “I worry for me, Viktor. My whole life has been about making something of myself so that I don’t need to rely on anyone. Because love is a lie men tell to get in your pants.”
“Not all men,” I feel honor-bound to point out.
She lifts haunted eyes to meet my gaze. “No. Not all men.”
Not you, Viktor. Love means something to you.
She doesn’t say it. Of course she doesn’t.
We’ve married as part of a bargain, a bargain growing more complicated by the day.
And love has never been my driving factor.
But I fear it may sneak up on me when I least expect it.
Or perhaps it already has.
“Some days I hate myself for being here,” she whispers.
“For removing your sister from a situation in which she could harm herself and doing what a ridiculous judge insisted was needed to keep her safe?”
She frowns at me, and a smile takes me by surprise.
I’d thought I shouldn’t find anything to smile about tonight. Especially with Ms. Aurora asking for a private meeting to provide marital counseling for us. Which I shan’t be mentioning anytime soon.
Yet Peach frowning at me is quite possibly the most normal part of my day.
“Should you hate yourself less had you married the duck man in Goat’s Tit?” I ask.
Her lips don’t twitch, and her voice goes dryer than the Sahara. “I hate myself for buying into the ridiculous notion that who your parents are makes the man.”
As of course I understand.
She’s made a successful business from scratch, but she’s in demand for a title given by a marriage of convenience in a way that the success she earned by her own blood, sweat, and tears never afforded. “My lady, I promise you, I have never once imagined that you would ever put me on a pedestal for my being named a king.”
“I heard Leonie telling someone King Roland thought it was his right to be king. But to you, it’s a responsibility. You’ll be a very good king, Viktor. This country has no idea yet how lucky they are.”
And once again, this woman has rendered me speechless. I clear my throat and look to the fire. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m inviting half the parents from school over for tea tomorrow.”
I jerk my head back up.
“Like I said, some days I hate myself for being here. But I’m clearing the air with these parents before anything gets started. Like I should’ve done with that little brat’s mother back in Goat’s Tit.”
I’ve an idea as to which brat she’s referring, yet I still feel as though I’m missing half the story. “Shall I clear my calendar?”
“That would be very brave of you.”
“I majored in bravery at university.”
“Oh, bless your heart.”
Ah, the sass is coming back. “You’re quite determined to leave your own unique mark on Amoria, aren’t you, my lady?”
“No, I’m leaving my mark on the whole fucking world.”
She’s leaving her mark somewhere.
I fear it’s my heart.
“I’ve intended to clear my calendar for this weekend anyway. There are two estates to the north belonging to the monarchy that I should like to inspect for myself. Would you be available to accompany me?”
She peers at me, and for a moment, I fear my heart has stopped beating, which of course is impossible.
But a smile shimmers to life on those lips of hers, I remember the sight of them wrapped around my cock, and my world is suddenly more than right.
“I’d love to.”
31
Peach
Saturday morning is cold as a snake’s heart, with odd clouds closing in over the mountains. Snow clouds, Viktor called them.
I call them alien formations that my Southern bones aren’t ready to deal with.
“Are you certain you wouldn’t like to borrow my coat?” Viktor asks.
“I’m already wearing three coats,” I reply as we follow an overgrown jungle path in search of a lost ark at some temple of doom.
Okay, fine, we’re hacking our way through dying underbrush on a mountain in the Alps headed toward the second of two royal summer homes apparently owned by the monarchy. The first was cozy and adorable—though still four times as big as my house back in Alabama—and staffed by a lovely woman and her husband who were hired two years ago, but hadn’t ever met King Roland. They kept everyt
hing neat and tidy and it reminded me more of a bed and breakfast than a royal estate.
And the gazebo in the gardens was so picture-perfect, I snapped several pictures to share with Alexander. I have a feeling he’d see what I saw, though I’ll deny it. And he’ll convince Viktor that if Amoria wants to fully embrace its country of love title, the estate out here should be opened for couples getaways and weddings and marriage retreats.
It was so charming and comfortable, I slept better last night than I have any night since we arrived in Amoria.
Probably better than any night since my mama died, if I’m being honest. But I don’t think it was just the fresh mountain air slipping in through the window Viktor left cracked, or the thick comforters and his body heat keeping me warm.
Viktor’s mum has a tight leash on Papaya, helped back at the palace by Alexander and Samuel and Eva. I video chatted with all of them before bed, and she was so tired she was nearly falling asleep on the phone. Apparently after school, Eva took her on a mission to hunt out the old oil paintings of the previous kings and royal families, and they wore themselves out battling spider webs and unexpected surprises in various boxes and trunks in the palace attic.
Today, they’re keeping her busy with horseback riding and grooming the alpacas, and this afternoon she’s having a cooking lesson with the palace chef, which I think is Viktor’s mum’s way of infiltrating the kitchen.
Viktor takes my hand and helps me over a massive log blocking the road, which is why we’re walking instead of driving, and I let him, because I might secretly like touching him.
Plus, his hands are warm, and my fingers are like ice.
“You’re anticipating spinning this story to make me appear ungentlemanly, aren’t you?” he asks.
“Hush. We haven’t been married long enough for you to have figured out all my faults.”
“I was highly aware of your nature before our wedding.”
“And you still married me, so what does that say about you?”
“That I am madly, desperately in love with you despite yourself.”
Yes, there are guards with us. But the statement still sends warm heart bubbles through my chest.
Shut up. Maybe I’m starting to like hearts. Is that a crime?
I didn’t think so.
Also, for the record, since I spilled my guts over the fire a few nights ago, nothing’s changed.
Nothing at all.
Except that maybe I’ve done a little inappropriate swooning over the little things. Like that Viktor always leaves a dry towel closest to the shower for me. That he preps my favorite vanilla caramel blend after he’s made himself a pot of black coffee every morning. That he’s been leaving puzzle books open on the table—which is very unlike him to leave anything out of its place—because I think he knows Papaya needs the mental challenge, but prefers to tackle them if she’s solving something she thinks the last person wasn’t smart enough to solve, or because she knows it would irritate her if someone else finished the puzzle she left for herself for later.
Which he’s been doing the entire time we’ve been at the palace, I just hadn’t caught on until yesterday.
We push through more drying weeds, and I catch a glimpse of stone through the evergreens. “Is that it?” I ask.
He consults the map on his phone, then peers through the trees, his expression going suspiciously blank. “Should be.”
One of the guards asks something in German. Viktor answers, and the guard frowns at him.
Viktor frowns back.
“Oh, for the love of Thor, quit having pissing contests over who should go first,” I tell them all. And then I go first.
Which I’m almost positive amuses Viktor.
Which also means he’s somehow used his Super Bodyguard magic powers to deduce that there’s no danger lurking in the trees or the forest ahead.
I march past four more trees, and a building appears in the clearing. It’s two stories high, stone but covered in vines, with part of the roof caved in. There were obviously gardens on this side of the building at one point, but they’ve all grown wild and blended into the forest, with only the merest hints based on the spacing of the trees and bushes—and also the utterly unnatural rusted archway with long-dead vines clinging to it—to suggest this was once a place someone cared to cultivate.
Half the windows are broken, but it seems more likely to have been caused by the vines growing through them and weather and animals adding to the strain on the building than from random teenagers like Papaya climbing a remote mountain to cause property damage.
“It’s like no one’s been here for—”
“Fifty years,” Viktor finishes. He stops beside me, his arm brushing mine, and there’s something in his tone that makes me grip his hand.
He squeezes back. “’Twas my grandfather’s favorite retreat. He talked of this estate until he died.”
I glance up at him.
Stoic, reliable, unflappable Viktor is very much flapped.
His lips are drawn down, his eyes what I’d call misty on any other man, and there’s a tremble in his grip.
All I know about his grandfather, the man, are the stories I’ve heard from his mum. All I know about his grandfather, the king, are little tidbits mentioned in passing around the castle. When King Jonas was here, he had a grand feast every year to celebrate all the newlyweds in the kingdom.
When King Jonas was here, his birthday was celebrated by every family donating blankets and bottles for wee babes.
When King Jonas was here, he visited every village annually to ask what they needed most.
I’ve heard Viktor making plans to do all those things as well.
Viktor’s grandfather must’ve made mistakes too—kings aren’t exiled for no reason—but the people I’ve met who have stories to share believed he cared about his kingdom.
If he hadn’t, I doubt Viktor would have married anyone to claim the throne.
“You’ve never been here?” I ask quietly.
He shakes his head. “My grandmother salvaged pictures.”
I don’t know how long he needs, but I stand in the chilly afternoon with him until he gestures me ahead. We circle what’s left of the gardens first, and it becomes clear nature has reclaimed most of it. There are even bones of an animal large enough to have been a mountain sheep or a deer sticking out from under a bush.
“King Roland was my grandfather’s half-brother,” he tells me while we walk. “Older by six months. Never claimed by my great-grandfather, yet a confession was found in his diary after his death.”
I ignore the twinge in my shoulders, wondering what Roland must’ve endured, being the bastard unclaimed child of a king.
“My grandfather ruled for two years before Roland launched his attack on the legitimacy of the king. Amoria is the country of love. He was a product of the love of the king, and therefore claimed himself to be the rightful heir.”
And then I ignore the twinge in my shoulders questioning if anyone would’ve listened to Roland if he’d been born Rolanda instead.
“He had no training, no preparation. No impression put upon him from birth of the responsibilities and duties of a king. Simply a deep-seated belief that as the eldest child of a king, the kingdom should be rightfully his.”
“And the kingdom agreed?”
“Enough of the kingdom.”
He lifts his gaze to the building again. “His mother was a maid here.”
I grunt out a hmph before I can stop myself.
“Yes, she was sacked.” He squeezes my hand. “I realize her treatment to be the greatest sin in all this mess, yet seeing my grandfather’s haven and country fall into such disrepair makes me wish I could dig up the old king so I might strangle him with my own hands. Quite irrational of me, but I cannot seem to stop myself.”
“King Roland, or your great-grandfather?”
He pauses. “The both of them.”
My family never had estates. Or stories of the great t
hings we’d done for our country. Or even our town, or our neighborhood. Joey was right.
I’ve been given a chance to do some serious good in the world.
In Viktor’s world, but it’s still a world bigger than Casper County and Weightless.
We reach the front of the building. The iron hinges have rusted and the wood rotted in places. I wonder if there was furniture left behind. Books. Candles. Linens.
A noise breaks through the rustle of the wind. Something not human—animal, maybe.
Coming from inside.
And it sounds way bigger than a polecat.
I instinctively move closer to Viktor, who’s already shielding me with his body. “Back toward the trees,” he orders.
And leave him here? Not a chance. I grip onto the back of his dark winter coat.
Yes, fine, I’m still behind him.
But I’m not leaving him. And I’m peeking around him to see what the noise is. That counts for something, doesn’t it?
Movement passes just inside the door. The light angles just right, and—
“Bloody hell,” Viktor mutters.
I stifle a snort of laughter.
This isn’t funny.
It’s his grandfather’s favorite retreat. He clearly has some emotional attachment to it, and he must’ve loved his grandfather and his father very much to have taken up the responsibility of moving back to a country they still loved despite being run out.
The two animals inside grunt and snuffle, and the one on bottom bleats as though she’s in pain.
I assume she’s a she, anyway.
I don’t know much about the proclivities of mountain goats, but apparently they like to do their seducing and mating in buildings fit for a king.
I bury my face in Viktor’s back and try to hold back my laughter.
He sighs, and I wrap my arms around his waist in apology.
“This is your fault,” he informs me crossly.
It is not, and he knows it. “All part of my master plan to steal a kingdom for Papaya and me.”
He shudders. “My life was quite orderly before you.”
“You mean boring.”
He turns in my arms, wraps his own around me, and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Very boring indeed.”