Once Upon a Prince

by Rachel Hauck

  “Nathaniel, would this American even marry you if you asked her?” Henry asked, removing the cloak from their conversation.

  He faced the painting of his father and grandfather. “She said she would not.”

  “Then why cause all this needless fuss?”

  Because he didn’t believe Susanna. Because he wanted a chance to woo her and change her mind. “Because I want my children, should I have any, to marry whom they love.”

  “She’s thinking of Brighton even if you’re not,” Sir George said.

  “It’s a grave thing to let a nation disappear from the face of the earth, Nathaniel.” Seamus continued to shed his congenial politician persona. “The history books will remember us, remember you, for giving Hessenberg her independence. Allowing her to remain a sovereign nation.”

  “I’ll say it now. I won’t marry Ginny. Even if I can’t pursue Susanna. I don’t love her.”

  “What does love have to do with freeing a nation?” Seamus, so casual, so practical. Because his heart wasn’t on the line. Perhaps Ginny had wooed him too. Like Henry and Mum. And promised him a lofty reward should she become the grand duchess.

  “Love has everything to do with freeing a nation, Seamus.”

  The room fell silent. The arguments had been mounted and failed.

  “Thank you, gentlemen, for your council.” Nathaniel made his way to the door, tired, ready for luncheon. “It is a grave thing to let a nation disappear from the earth, Seamus. I grant you it will be a sad day in Hessenberg. But it’s an even graver thing to ask a man to disappear from his own heart.”

  Out the door and down the hall, his heels tapped the marble mezzanine and echoed between the crystal chandeliers. Liam fell in step behind him.

  Jogging down the sweeping staircase, Nathaniel checked the time. Six-ten. Rollins had sent a car ’round for Susanna by now. She was back at Parrsons, but he’d not be able to see her before the evening stroll through the street parties.

  He’d have to arrange a way to see her later tonight. He nearly ached to see her.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Jon waited with a knowing grin. “Nathaniel, I received an interesting call this afternoon from Tanner Burkhard.” Jonathan fell into step with Nathaniel, heading for the Parliament House main doors. “It has to do with the entail.”

  “Go on.” Tanner was Hessenberg’s Minister of Culture and a former university mate of Nathaniel’s and Jonathan’s.

  “Tanner Burkhard studied the entail at the law college the same year as I. It kind of became a hobby for him. Anyway, in his pursuit of entail trivia, he came across an old navy chaplain, Yardley Prather.”

  “Yardley Prather. Didn’t he perform services on campus when we were in university?” Nathaniel hurried toward the waiting SUV. The street stroll began in an hour, and he wanted to dine first. “He was old then. He must be nearing a hundred now.”

  “He’s ninety-four, and Nathaniel,” Jonathan said, pausing by the passenger door of the motor, “his older brother Otto witnessed the signing of the entail.”

  Nathaniel stood aside as Liam opened his door, regarding Jon with a suspicious gaze. “And we’re just now hearing of it? Come on, man, is Tanner serious?”

  “Apparently the old chap was sworn to secrecy, but he hinted at something when Tanner interviewed him on the anniversary of D-Day about life in Brighton right after World War I. Yardley kind of drifted on him and said something about the ‘entail’ and ‘the secret princess.’”

  “The princess? You think he might really know something?” Nathaniel asked. “Can we talk to him? Is he around? Of sane mind?”

  “He’s living in a senior home on the north end of the County Haybryer. I’ve an appointment with him in the morning. He’s sharp, Nathaniel.” Jonathan’s eyes lit. “Told me his older brother Otto was sworn to secrecy by Nathaniel I and Prince Francis. But he got into his father’s bourbon one Festive Day and confessed something to Yardley, swearing him to secrecy. The old man has never told a soul. But with the end drawing near, he’s ready to tell his tale.”

  “I’m going with you.” Nathaniel clapped his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder, his hope rising.

  “You can’t, your diary is full tomorrow, Nathaniel. It’s the last day of the coronation celebration. Tanner and the entail barrister are going with me.”

  Why the governments hadn’t done this research before was beyond Nathaniel. A task lost in translation? Lost in transition? It was right and fitting to find the true heir to Prince Francis, not settle for a counterfeit who was doing her level best to manipulate the king of Brighton.

  Outside Parliament, the retiring day pulled the night shade over Cathedral City. This was not how Nathaniel planned to spend his first day as king, but the overnight in St. Stephen’s and the bomb ignited a media storm.

  As he climbed into the motorcar, firecrackers popped in the distance. A band began to play. The glow of a central city party pushed back the darkness. Another night of coronation celebrations awaited.

  “Liam, can we send a security detail to Parrsons, pick up Susanna and Avery later this evening?” Nathaniel asked. “Jon, how is she? She returned to Parrsons safely, I presume.”

  Jon and Liam exchanged a look.

  “What? Don’t hide anything from me.”

  Jonathan turned around in his seat, facing Nathaniel. “She’s gone,” he said. “Rollins called. Susanna and Avery left for the airport this afternoon.”

  “Liam”—Nathaniel tapped the big man’s shoulder—“to the airport.”

  “Nathaniel,” Jon said, concern making his eyes appear sadder than usual. “Let her go. Let this whole mess go. She’s most likely gone by now.”

  “Then I have to see for myself. Liam, to the airport.”

  “She’s leaving without saying good-bye to you, Nathaniel. What does that tell you? Don’t do this … another Lady—”

  “Adel?”

  “—all over again. Don’t scoff … you know I’m right.”

  “No, you are not right,” Nathaniel huffed, crashing back against his seat, staring out his window at the night sky. Was Jon right? Was Susanna just this decade’s Lady Adel? Was he doomed always to lose his heart to a woman who didn’t love him? And make a fool of himself in the midst of it?

  “Nathaniel, it’s a security risk for you to go to the airport. Liam?”

  “I have to agree.”

  “She did leave without a word to me. I suppose that says more than a thousand words.” Nathaniel frowned at his aide, his heart heavy and sad. “You’re right too often these days.”

  Jon faced forward, shaking his head. “Sorry, Nathaniel. I know she meant a great deal to you.”

  Yeah, whatever. He closed his eyes, breathed deep and tried to focus on the night ahead, his responsibility, his duty to Brighton. “Stratton Palace, Liam. I’d like to dine and change before the street stroll.”

  As Liam motored through the crowded, festive city toward home, Nathaniel watched the celebrations from his window. Pints were being raised in his honor. Music and dancing celebrated him. But it all seemed stars and moons away.

  Did they know, under the banner of their merriment, his heart was breaking?

  Tomorrow evening would be the Grand Coronation Parade. He’d ride in a gilded white horse-drawn carriage—alone—toward the palace through a city overflowing with citizens wishing him well.

  The day after that, life would return to normal, and Nathaniel would settle into his duties. Settle into a life without Susanna Truitt.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Susanna wore the gold Louboutins out of Parrsons House and into the taxi, through airport security, and down the long thoroughfare to their gate for home.

  Brighton to Atlanta. Nine hours. All while wearing the magic, stupid shoes. A reminder never to believe in fairy tales, nor the wild musings of a half-sane homeless woman. Even if she was a millionaire.

  “You look ridiculous.” Avery pointed at the shoes, her elbows propped on her knee.


  “Do I look like I care?” Susanna crossed her legs, exposing her right shoe in all of its crystal and glitter glory, pumping her leg up and down as she flipped through a magazine.

  “What if someone recognizes you?”

  Susanna tugged the brim of the wide hat she’d purchased at a souvenir shop in the airport. “They won’t be expecting me under a hat.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Avery stood, flapping her hands against her thighs. “Colin said he’d bring us around when the flight actually left. But no, we have to sit here all day like a couple of jack wagons.”

  “I’m sorry, but we have to get out of here before it gets worse.” While packing, Susanna had turned on the television to discover she was the topic of a TV show. Madeline & Hyacinth went on and on about “the American,” playing the coronation video where Susanna stood instead of kneeling and popping up pictures of her this morning at St. Stephen’s in Nathaniel’s arms.

  “He was going to take me riding.” Avery pouted, kicking at Susanna’s chair.

  “You don’t ride.”

  “If I can stand on a board and ride an unpredictable wave, I think I can manage a horse.”

  “Aves.” Susanna flipped the magazine closed. “We’re going home. Stop complaining.”

  With a sigh, Avery flopped back down to her seat and peered at Susanna through a reddish sheen of her chestnut hair. “We were living a fairy tale, weren’t we? Just for a moment.”

  “For a moment,” Susanna said, “though I never wanted the fairy tale thing or to be a princess. I just wanted true love. The one.”

  “You just happened to find a real prince.”

  “But not true love. Not the one.”

  Avery sat up and gripped Susanna’s forearm with her hands. “You are such a liar. You do so love him.”

  “I don’t, and I told him I’d never marry him.”

  “You did not … Susanna, come on, he loves you.”

  “What difference does it make, Avery?” Susanna leaned right up to her ear. “He can’t marry me.” The tears she’d been bottling up fizzed and hissed. “I’ve told God I’d go anywhere, do anything, be anyone he wanted. But I’m not staying here to make a mess of things. Make fun of me if you want but not of him.” She dabbed her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Oh, Suz.” Avery dropped her arm around Susanna and rested her cheek against her shoulder. “You do love him, don’t you?”

  “And not because he’s a prince.”

  “King.”

  “Whatever.”

  A commotion a few gates away interrupted the sisters’ conversation. Susanna peered down the thoroughfare. A cluster of men with cameras scurried toward her gate, elbowing each other for first place, flowing against a stream of travelers heading for alternate gates and baggage claim.

  “Paparazzi,” Avery said.

  Susanna tugged on her hat. “Get your stuff. Slowly. No quick moves. Put your hood up.”

  She’d just settled her backpack on her shoulders when she heard the shout, “There she is!”

  A chorus of clomping shoes echoed in the thoroughfare as the troop of photographers charged, the lead man toppling a woman and her carry-ons.

  “Aves, go, go, go.” Susanna held onto her hat and sprinted, her body moving twice the speed of her slick-soled Louboutins.

  “There’s the elevator.” Avery ran ahead, dashing through a cluster of kids dressed in matching royal-blue T-shirts.

  “Suz, come on.” She pinched between the closing elevator doors and pried them open.

  Susanna slipped inside and collapsed against the elevator’s handrail, gasping, catching her breath.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, the doors … slid … closed.

  “Susanna?” A photographer raised his camera, and the shutter whirred just as the doors closed.

  “Oh my stars.” Susanna sank down the wall, her quivering legs refusing to hold her up. “I can’t breathe.”

  The elevator stopped with a ding, and before she could collect herself, the doors opened to another battalion of photographers.

  Avery pressed the Close button, then held her palm toward the photographers, belting out a deep “Leave us alone.” Then she knelt next to Susanna. “Know what? We’re going back to our gate. Forget them. What can they do to you? Besides, you can’t run from everything, Suz.”

  “Run? Me? Ha.” She was coming to life now. “When do I run? I’m the one who stays. Remember? Adam? Twelve years?”

  “He was all about you running from your past, your fears of growing up with Mama and Daddy fighting.”

  Susanna made a face. “Where did you get such a cockamamie idea?”

  Avery tapped her temple. “Right here. I’m right and you know it.”

  “I’m not running from Nate. I’m just going home. He can’t be with me anyway, and I’m complicating things for him by being here.”

  “You’re complicating things by running.” The elevator jerked to a stop, returning Susanna and Avery to the beginning of their escape.

  As much as she believed she was a control freak who hated change, Susanna also hated confrontation. She hated pain. She ran. Hid under covers. In dark, small closets that transformed into magical gardens.

  Avery grabbed her hand as the elevator stopped. “Ready?”

  “Ready.” Susanna squeezed her sister’s fingers. “Thank you.”

  “By the time we get home, I’ll be the most popular girl in school, maybe all of south Georgia, thanks to Facebook.”

  “Might as well do this right.” Susanna whipped off her hat, fluffed her hair, and stepped off the elevator as the doors opened.

  The photographers swarmed.

  “Susanna, are you in love with the king?”

  “Did you spend the night together, Susanna?”

  “Are you having his love child?”

  With Avery, Susanna cut a swath toward their abandoned seats. The photographers continued to digitally document the event, shouting questions.

  “Will you be back, Susanna?”

  “Suz, is that your nickname?”

  “What do you think of Lady Genevieve?”

  But Susanna sat where she’d left her bags and didn’t answer. She had learned from this morning. Don’t feed the jackals.

  “Susanna, how about a smile?”

  Enough. Susanna stood in her chair, towering over the photographers. “Please, we just want to wait for our flight in peace.”

  “When will you see the king again?”

  “Is he coming to say good-bye to you?”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “Psst.” The woman waiting in the chair next to Susanna tugged on her jeans. “Who are you anyway?”

  Yeah, just who was she anyway? Nobody. A small-town south Georgia girl. Loving Jesus. Loving Nate Kenneth.

  Her fifteen minutes of fame ended right now.

  “Okay, y’all …” The cameras whizzed and clicked, flashing. “First of all, thank you for giving my sister and me a heart attack. Have you ever tried to run in Louboutin spikes?”

  The photographers laughed. Passengers slowed and added to the crowd.

  “I’m no one of acclaim or interest. I was your king’s landscape architect on his father’s garden on St. Simons Island. We became friends. His mother and brother invited me to the coronation. I came. I saw. I’m going home. End of story.”

  Susanna tugged on her hat and dropped down to her seat. Now, if they would shoo, leave her alone. She was tired, drained, and ready to go home.

  “One last question, Suz.” A skinny photographer bent toward her with a friendly smile. “What did you think of our great sapphire isle?”

  She sighed. That question was easy. “It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.” She peered toward the window, lit with the golden edge of the Cathedral City lights. “It felt like home.”

  Part Three

  The Proposal

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The world was
quiet except for the sound of the surf roaring in Susanna’s ears as she rode her board toward the shore. A southern storm off the coast churned the Atlantic, exhorting the waves. She’d been home from Brighton for two hours, arriving in Atlanta from New York in the early morning.

  Avery hugged Daddy and Mama, talked a mile a minute, and then passed out on the couch midsentence.

  But Susanna was restless. Burdened. She donned her wetsuit and grabbed her board. She’d not slept a wink on the flight, but she knew if she lay down, she’d only stare wide-eyed at the ceiling and wonder what he was doing.

  The long journey home branded an excruciating question on her heart: Did she leave too soon? Should she have waited to say good-bye?

  The wave beneath her softened, breaking as it carried Susanna toward the beach. She fished the board with the flow of the current, staying erect until at last she sank through the shallow, cold water to the slippery ocean floor.

  She climbed back up on the board, sitting and bobbing with the lap of the waves, paddling the board around to face the northeast. To face Brighton.

  In retrospect, she felt like some sort of drama queen—pun on queen intended—skedaddling out of there at the first sign of controversy.

  But what would she have done differently? She replayed the morning at St. Stephens in her mind until her head ached and came to the same conclusion each time. She’d have done nothing differently. Besides, after he dropped her off at the puff shop, she never heard from him again.

  So why bemoan her own quick departure?

  She scooped up a handful of water and washed away the heat of doubt. The water ran into her eyes, and she blinked back the burn. But the salty sting wasn’t from the ocean but her own tears.

  She surfed until the tide began to change and the tempest eased in the waves. It was time to go home. Time to move on. Time to eat dinner and begin the first day of the rest of her life. New year. Fresh start.

  A recommitment to “I got nothing, Lord. I’m a hundred percent available to you.”

  Mama met her in the kitchen when she came home. Avery remained passed out on the sunroom sofa, her burnished tresses flowing over the brown microfiber fabric like molten lava.