Next in Line

by Vanessa Acton

  For a long moment, he just glared at Carly, silently daring her to come up with a retort. Which she couldn’t. Bet he spent all day working on that speech, she thought furiously.

  He sauntered past Carly, leaving the stairway clear.

  ***

  Alone in her bedroom, Carly got out her phone and messaged her family. Miss you all. How are you doing?

  But it was still Monday morning back in the States, so she didn’t expect to hear back right away. Her parents would be at work. Her brothers would be sleeping late.

  She pulled up a web browser on her phone and typed Charlotte Valmont Evonia into the search engine.

  A picture of her cemetery visit popped up immediately, under the headline evonian princess pays respects at grandmother’s grave. Carly clicked on the brief write-up and scanned the comments.

  I’m from Evonia originally and this warms my heart!

  What a lovely girl—looks like Princess Isabelle!

  She looks like a true princess!

  Can’t wait for this poised young lady to become queen. She’ll put Evonia back on the map.

  Lord G had gotten what he wanted: good publicity. And Carly felt vaguely gross. It was so weird that people who knew nothing about her were weighing in about everything from her appearance to her future.

  She thought for a moment and then typed Arthur Valmont into the search engine.

  Headlines from European news sites filled the results page.

  arthur valmont punches waiter at restaurant

  princess isabelle’s out-of-control grandson

  arthur valmont sets fire to boarding school athletic field

  evonian queen’s great-grandson crashes car . . . again

  “arthur valmont trashed his hotel room and i had to clean it”: a maid’s story

  Well, no wonder everyone kept saying that it was important for royals to know how to behave. And no wonder Lord G wanted Carly to make the family look good.

  Her phone buzzed. Rafe had just sent her a message. Hey sis! Does Evonia RULE? Get it? Sorry, I’m still mostly asleep. Not at the top of my joke game.

  Out of nowhere, tears pricked at Carly’s eyes. She wanted to be home in Ohio. She wanted to talk to her mom and Sal and kid around with her brothers and eat ice cream from Frozen Paradise instead of a thousand bad scones.

  She didn’t want to have to hold all of this Evonian drama in her brain and try to figure out how to feel about it. How to be okay with it.

  But it looked as if she would have to. As Arthur had said—it was her job. Just like it had once been her dad’s job. If her dad had handled it, she could too.

  I’ll show Arthur, she thought fiercely. I’ll prove that I can do this. I’m not going to let him scare me away.

  8

  For the next two weeks, Carly paraded around Evonia meeting people. Or people visited her at Mortmain Castle. All the names and faces blurred together after a while. Several times, Carly noticed photographers zeroing in on her from a distance. And ordinary people with cell phones started showing up in the vicinity of Lord G’s car. Seton made sure they didn’t get “too close.” Though Carly was starting to feel like everything and everyone was too close. The country was too small, the city was too crowded, even the Mortmain estate wasn’t big enough for Seton to lose track of her.

  Between social calls, Lord G had her take horseback riding lessons, tennis lessons, and etiquette lessons. The instructors he brought in to teach her these skills were as stiff and formal as the portraits in the front hall. They were always saying “Well done, your highness,” in a tone that clearly meant the opposite.

  In her rare hours of downtime, Carly had to study the family tree, memorize nobles’ names and titles, practice proper table manners, and work on formal handshakes and waves. It was so mind-numbing that she started raiding Lord G’s library for books on Evonian history. At night she’d immerse herself in the dramas of long-ago wars and power couples and trade agreements. Compared to everything else she had to learn, it was fascinating.

  After dinner one night—her second Saturday in Evonia—she said to Seton, “I’d like to go for a walk. Is that cool with you?”

  “I go where you go, your highness,” he said. Which wasn’t No, so Carly headed outside.

  “How about an ice cream run?” she asked, pushing her luck. “I hear there’s a great place in Alaborn.”

  He gave her a withering look. “I suggest we stay on the castle grounds.”

  Carly shrugged. “Worth a try.”

  So they wandered around the estate as the sun started to go down. Past the tennis court, past the stables, past the fancy gardens, past the maze made out of carefully trimmed bushes . . .

  “Hang on. What’s that little shed over there?” The white-painted wooden structure was so simple compared to everything else on the estate. It looked out of place.

  “I’m not certain, your highness,” Seton admitted.

  “Let’s check it out. Unless you think there are assassins lurking in there. Or paparazzi, for that matter.”

  Seton gave her blank look.

  Right, no sense of humor, Carly remembered. “Come on.”

  The door to the shed was unlocked. Inside, Carly could make out some familiar shapes. A rocking horse. A sled. Two bicycles. Cardboard boxes were stacked on the floor. Carly leaned down to get a look at the labels on the boxes.

  Frederick—old toys

  Walter—photographs

  Frederick—school essays (only his best)

  Walter—rock collection

  A model spaceship perched on top of one box. Carly carefully picked it up. It looked as if it had been built from a kit but put together slightly wrong. Some of the parts stuck out at wonky angles. “Whoa,” Carly breathed. “This is all their old stuff. My dad’s and uncle’s stuff, from when they were kids. Normal kid stuff.”

  “Normal might be going too far,” said Seton. “That ship is named the Duke of Space, according to the label on its wing.”

  Carly squinted, and sure enough, someone had written that name in awkward block letters. “How could you even see that from over there?” Carly asked Seton, astonished.

  “Bodyguards have excellent vision, your highness. And we keep excellent track of time. It’s nearly sundown. You should get back inside soon.”

  Reluctantly, Carly put the spaceship back down, closed the shed’s door, and headed back the way she’d come. Seeing her dad’s old stuff left a warm, pleasant feeling in her stomach. Not just the fact that the stuff had belonged to her dad—but the fact that someone had saved all of it. Someone had cared, had known it mattered.

  “It really is beautiful here,” Carly remarked to Seton. She pictured her dad and Arthur’s dad racing around the estate on their bikes, or piloting The Duke of Space through the garden maze. “But I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to grow up in a place like this. It’s so big and full of luxury, but at the same time it’s, like, stifling, you know?”

  “I have no comment,” said Seton.

  Which Carly figured meant Yes.

  ***

  Back in her bedroom that night, Carly called her family. She didn’t have many chances to catch up with her parents and brothers. The time difference made it especially hard. When she did talk to them, she always felt as if she might cry at any moment. Which she hated.

  She also hated complaining. So when her family at home asked what she thought of her Evonian family, she didn’t know what to tell them. She didn’t dislike her grandfather. Lord G seemed to be doing his best, from his point of view. He hadn’t been unkind to her. And she often found his wry comments amusing. But he also seemed to be purposely insensitive about things that should matter to him. Like whether his relatives—his own grandchildren—were happy.

  Seton was actually all right. But Carly wasn’t sure how to explain what she liked about him. Maybe it was the fact that she could tell him whatever she was thinking, even if he wouldn’t respond. And that he beat her mercilessl
y every time she tried to play tennis with him. And that he’d gone on that walk with her tonight, no questions asked. But nobody who wasn’t living here would understand why any of that mattered so much.

  Then there was Arthur. He had kept a low profile after their talk on Monday night. But she still saw him at meals. Apparently he wasn’t enough of a rebel to turn down Mortmain Castle’s first-rate food. And he still hadn’t said a single pleasant word to her. Best-case scenario, they ignored each other.

  But she didn’t tell her parents and brothers any of this. She stuck to vague, neutral comments, or tidbits that she could spin to be entertaining. Like she did tonight. “So I’ve been reading about Queen Charlotte the First. Did you know she was the first reigning queen of Evonia?”

  “What does that mean?” asked Nic, his voice fuzzy through the phone.

  “It means she ruled in her own right. She wasn’t just married to the king. She was the one who decided that anyone born into the Valmont family would take the last name of Valmont, even if it came from their mother and not their father. Because she saw women as equal members of the family, equally important to carrying on the Valmont legacy. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Um, sure . . . if you think so,” said Rafe.

  Carly laughed. “Well we have the same name so I like learning about her. Plus, every royal and noble household in Evonia has a portrait of her. It doesn’t have to be the same portrait, as long as there’s a portrait. It’s like an unwritten rule.”

  “Like most rules for Evonian royalty,” her mom replied dryly. Which made Carly wonder how much her mom already knew about this experience. Maybe she understood more than Carly had thought.

  She wanted to mention the shed with her dad’s childhood stuff. But she was afraid it would make her cry for real. And she didn’t want to bring it up in front of Sal, as if a guy she’d never known meant more to her than Sal did.

  But after they hung up, Carly did something she’d never tried before. She looked up her mother online.

  The most-viewed headlines were twenty years old.

  heir to the evonian throne marries an american commoner

  scandal in the evonian royal family

  rumors swirl around secret royal wedding

  queen emilia refuses to meet grandson’s new wife?!

  And then it got worse.

  evonian prince dies of heart attack

  frederick valmont: killed by a broken heart?

  an evonian embarrassment—an evonian tragedy

  Carly felt sick to her stomach. She shut her laptop a little too forcefully, then got up and walked to the window.

  No wonder her mom had seemed so uneasy about Carly coming here. No wonder she hadn’t been excited that Carly was in line for the throne. This was what happened to you when you were next in line. You got followed, gossiped about, lied about. Your life didn’t belong to you anymore.

  Arthur had been right about that.

  9

  “Good news,” said Lord G at breakfast a week later. “Queen Emilia is feeling well enough to meet you. We’ll go to the royal palace tomorrow for an official introduction.”

  Arthur, sitting across from Carly, muttered “Joy to the world” through a mouthful of oatmeal.

  Carly stuffed some food into her own mouth so she wouldn’t be able to snap back at him. Besides, she felt kind of the same way about meeting the queen.

  “But first, here’s today’s schedule.” Lord G passed Carly the latest printout. Carly instinctively scanned the page for a (P). There was always at least one. This time it was at the very end of the agenda: Visit Devoir Soup Kitchen.

  Carly held back a sigh. She ought to be used to putting on an act by now, but it just kept getting harder.

  ***

  The soup kitchen was a surprisingly cheerful building. Kids’ artwork hung on the walls, and large potted plants stood in the corners of the dining hall.

  The people looked less cheerful. Some were lined up at the serving station to collect their food. Others were already sitting down at benches on the long tables. They all stared at Carly when she came in with Lord G and Seton. And they looked nothing like the fans who’d tried to get a glimpse of her. They looked bored, and maybe a little resentful.

  The photographers were positioned near the entrance. They started snapping shots of Carly as soon as she walked in.

  Lord G had explained the deal. The two of them were supposed to help serve meals for an hour. The soup kitchen’s director bustled over to greet them, and moments later Carly was wearing a hairnet and gloves. She and Lord G joined an assembly line of servers. A staff member passed Lord G a bowl of soup. He put it on a tray, added a slice of bread, and passed it to Carly. Carly added a cup of fruit and handed the tray to the next person in line. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

  It was an easy job, but Carly kept fumbling. The photographers’ presence was distracting. And the people she was serving looked so unhappy with the whole setup. Carly was amazed that there was so many of them. She hadn’t seen anyone panhandling on the streets. She’d only seen rich people in their fancy houses, fancy restaurants, fancy stores. Rich people and tourists. And now here were all these people with worn clothes and rough, wrinkled hands. All these people who clearly knew who she was and couldn’t find the energy to care.

  And why should they, really?

  The next person in line was a boy about Nic’s age. Carly instinctively smiled at him. He looked surprised but smiled back. “Are you a melon fan or a grape fan?” Carly asked him, holding up two fruit cups. “Option number one has mostly melon. Option number two has more grapes.”

  “Uh . . .” The kid hesitated, then pointed to the cup with more grapes.

  “Good choice. Grapes are, like, nature’s candy, right?”

  The kid snorted in amusement.

  “Well done,” murmured Lord G. “I hope the photographers caught that.”

  For a moment Carly wanted to throw a bowl of soup in his face and see if the photographers caught that.

  But she could tell that just by being here, she was being disruptive. She didn’t want to make it worse. This place was clearly doing good, necessary work. And these people deserved to get their food without Carly making it all about her.

  ***

  In the car on the way home, Carly blurted out, “How can there be so many poor people in a country this small? Everything I’ve read makes it sound like your economy is pretty strong, thanks to all the tourism.”

  “Well, I’m not terribly familiar with the ins and outs of the tax code,” said Lord G dismissively. “But my friends in other parts of Europe tell me it’s a disgrace.”

  Carly frowned at him. “So—people like you are super rich, and ordinary people are super poor?”

  “That’s roughly it, yes.”

  His breezy tone was starting to get to her. “Can’t somebody do something to fix that?”

  “Somebody could, I suppose. Perhaps you can call up your friend the prime minister and ask him to look into it.”

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  “My dear, I’m not being sarcastic. If you’re concerned about something, you have a right, as an Evonian citizen, to take that concern to your government. Just don’t expect me to have any say in the matter. Parliament makes the laws.”

  “You just benefit from them.”

  Lord G shrugged. “It’s better than having us make the decisions. Believe me. Some of the older Valmonts like to ramble about the days when they had real power, and it makes me shudder. Really, it’s much wiser to leave that to people who actually know what they’re doing.”

  Carly had to admit that was a fair point. “But what if a member of the royal family does know what they’re doing? What if somebody really cares about an issue and really understands it and—”

  “Then you can start a charity foundation,” said Lord G. “Or create an ad campaign. Your grandmother sponsored billboards that warned of the dangers of smoking.”

  Carly
gaped at him. “I mean, that’s great, but it’s not the same as passing a law.”

  “No,” Lord G agreed, speaking very deliberately. “That’s the tradeoff we’ve made. We have our status for life—no need to run for election, no fear of being booted out. And in exchange, we don’t try to run the country.”

  She remembered her brothers joking about how she would have to get the parliament’s permission to open ice cream shops in Evonia. Suddenly she missed them and Sal and her mom so much it was physically painful.

  How would she ever get used to living an ocean away from them? No matter how often they visited her here, it would never be the same. It wouldn’t be home.

  And without them around, nobody in Evonia would know the real Carly. Maybe the real Carly—the Carly who had opinions and went after concrete goals—would cease to exist. Instead she’d just be a nicely dressed girl going through the motions, smiling for the cameras.

  Carly bit her lip, struggling to rein in her frustration. “I wish there hadn’t been so many photographers.”

  Lord G shot her a truly puzzled look. “Oh? Why?”

  “It just feels really dishonest. Like the whole thing was staged for their benefit.”

  “A little good PR never hurt anyone, Charlotte. I know you Americans have a saying about any publicity being good publicity, but in Evonia we see things differently.”

  Carly’s throat stung. “So did we go there just for the good publicity? Not because we actually care about those people?”

  Lord G gave her a thoughtful look. “It isn’t that we don’t care, Charlotte. It’s just that we show it differently.”

  Carly had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the soup kitchen at all. And that he meant to make her feel better.

  It didn’t work.

  10

  Arthur was waiting for her at the top of the staircase, sitting beneath the portrait of Charlotte the First.

  “What’s the matter? Had a bad day?”

  Carly glared at him. “Arthur, I am not in the mood.”