by Pippa Grant
Perhaps it’s because she insists she wants nothing to do with me. Perhaps it’s because she reminds me of a governess with the strict, disapproving way she reminded me that I’m unavailable.
Or perhaps it’s because she’s simply bewitching.
I rarely have to fight for a woman’s approval or attention, and I rather like needing to prove myself to this fascinating lady whose entire life is so blessedly simple and warm.
I must find a way to get out of my betrothal to Elin without causing irreparable political harm to my country or family. I’d rather be involved with a pleasant woman having my baby than married to a shrew who wants me for my title and connections.
I’m so absorbed in my own daydream that I miss the warning signs before I’m thrust into a water closet. Joey locks the door, grabs me by the collar, and shoves me against the wall across from the toilet.
“Do not give my sister false hope about something we all know will never happen,” she growls.
Quite impressive move, that, and now I’ll have to pay for Viktor breaking the door down.
I text him that I’m fine and will be out momentarily.
He doesn’t answer, but something thumps against the wood. Rather thin wood. I expect it won’t take but another four pushes before he’s through. If that much.
Viktor thumps against the door once more.
“We could be enemies or allies, Miss Diamonte,” I tell her. “You’re a smart woman. Assist me in finding a more politically advantageous match for Elin Liefsson, and I’ll happily do right by your sister. I’ll happily do as right as I can by her anyway, but not being forced into a political marriage would make caring for Gracie infinitely easier.”
The wood is splintering. Joey doesn’t spare the thumps even the briefest glimmer of a glance. “I’m not doing your dirty work for you, and Gracie doesn’t need you to do right by her.”
“I’m doing all in my power as well, but two minds are better than one.”
“My sister is not moving to Stölland.”
“One issue at a time, my dear Joey.”
The door splinters, and Viktor bursts in. “Unhand the prince,” he says.
“All’s well, Viktor,” I assure him. “Miss Diamonte was admiring my shirt. She’s considering getting one for Mr. Berger.”
She drops her hand, but her expression doesn’t flicker. It’s a rather new expression. I’ve witnessed her I will eat your entrails for breakfast glower, her Don’t make me toss you out the back of my airplane without a parachute snarl, and even her It will be my pleasure to make you eat your own balls on the golf course this morning smirk.
However, this woman is all bark. I suspect she’s bitten enough in her lifetime to lend credence to her threats, but I also rather suspect she has no desire to cause anyone physical harm unless she’s pushed into a corner and has no other means of recourse.
Which means the desperate fear she’s not quite hiding makes me feel like a bloody heel.
Whether her fear is for her sister or herself—she drives me crazy, but she’s all the family I’ve got, Gracie told me once—it’s not an emotion I would’ve expected from Joey Fireball Diamonte.
“Gracie owes you nothing,” Joey says quietly.
I nod as if I understand.
But what she doesn’t understand is how bloody refreshing it is for owing and duty and heritage to have no place in my relationship with a woman. However vague or delicate that relationship may be.
I’m rather unfamiliar with relationships.
But I’m rapidly becoming familiar with understanding an all-encompassing desire to enjoy the company of one specific woman.
Joey checks her watch and mutters a curse. “You’re going to fix that door. Understood?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, but instead flings herself out of the bathroom past Viktor, who appears to want to end all our sufferings by stabbing me with the blunt end of my hockey stick.
I’m rather difficult to keep in check, it seems. Even when I’m attempting to behave myself.
Not that taking a side trip to Alabama when I’m supposed to be in Copper Valley entertaining my betrothed between games and practices is exactly behaving, but it’s not misbehaving.
Yet.
“Your Highness, you still want to play?” one of the younger women in the dining area asks as she peeks into the water closet. Someone’s setting up the expanded board for Catan at four tables that have been pushed together.
“Always have time for a round or two,” I reply cheerfully, evoking another silent lecture from Viktor. I neglected my duties to visit Copper Valley’s mayor’s office and to do an interview with a local television station about Stölland, mead, and the Thrusters in order to charter a flight here after morning practice.
It’s highly irresponsible of me, if you ask Viktor. Or my father. Probably my brothers as well. I’m sure my young nephew—who’s barely old enough to tie his own laces—would even have a few words to say about it. He is a king-in-training, after all, regardless of his age.
But when the mother of your child and the object of your fascination refuses your phone calls, an in-person visit is in order.
And there was nothing Viktor could do this time to stop me.
“Hope you like fried chicken,” the lady says. “We bring it in from the Cluck Train down the way. Joey, you staying?”
She pauses at the door, peers at something outside, and looks at her watch again as though she’s considering staying.
Everyone winces, and I feel a twinge of sympathy for the woman. She doesn’t make anything easy on herself, but I suspect she doesn’t know how. Her phone dings. She glances at it, and her expression softens.
“Aw, did you get a message from that big ol’ hockey player who’s all colors of smitten with you?” the older lady asks.
“Had to beat a reporter away from here with a stick last week,” announces the younger woman who looks just like the older one, except with more brown in her hair and a nose and ears in smaller proportions. “Wanting to know if you’re planning a wedding.”
“Hope you used a big stick,” Joey says.
“I used a spare steering wheel.”
“Good girl. Beat the shit out of his royal cheerfulness, will you?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Excellent.”
She leaves, everyone sighs in something akin to relief, and I settle down at the table for a game after inquiring as to whom in town I might provide a rather large sum of money in exchange for fixing Gracie’s door.
I’ve gotten the message from her loud and clear.
She wants nothing to do with me until I’m a free man.
While I solve that problem, I want to know that she’s safe and cared for here. And so Catan it is.
Let’s see what Gracie’s friends are made of.
And what they can tell me about her.
12
Manning
After three rousing games of Settlers with Gracie’s friends—all of whom believe she hung the moon and have at least four stories apiece about Gracie organizing a meal train for a new mother, charming her way out of speeding tickets, losing her car keys, applying for a bank loan with a pineapple upside-down cake, and running about town in that dinosaur costume shooting off a confetti gun before their annual Grits Festival—I convince Viktor we need to verify Gracie’s door is locked before we leave town.
Rumor has it she hasn’t seen her house keys in a few weeks, and if reporters are snooping around this little town because of Zeus Berger and Joey already, they’ll surely be coming in thicker droves once they hear a local daughter is dating royalty.
Which, of course, is what the rumors will say.
My father truly is going to have my head on a platter before the end of next week if I can’t find Elin a better husband. And I don’t wish to discuss what Elin’s father will do to me either. Or what Colden will do to me, since he’ll probably be her consolation prize.
I’m still waiting on a call from
Gunnar, who loves to cite crown prince duties as a reason to avoid subjects he wishes to not discuss.
Such as my betrothal.
Gracie’s house is a small cottage on a street I would’ve called quiet until we step out of the SUV. A hound dog wails next door, night insects chirp in the pleasant evening, and voices carry through an open window one house down. A television or radio show, I suspect, from the canned laughter that accompanies the voices.
I rap twice on her door.
No one answers.
“We should go, Your Highness,” Viktor says.
Poor man. He’s not incorrect. He also insisted we should not travel to Goat’s Tit at all today—such a bloody fantastic name—but here we are, which I believe speaks to his blooming loyalty for Gracie as well.
He hasn’t said as much, but I do believe he’s aware of the subject of our conversation two days ago, and I expect he sees himself as responsible for the welfare of my child as well.
Good man, Viktor.
He’s getting a raise.
I knock again, wait, and after a third knock, I test Gracie’s door. If it’s not locked, I have a problem.
It easily turns.
Which means the mother of my child is leaving herself open to heaven only knows what.
I push the door open. “Gracie? Are you about?”
“Your Highness—” Viktor starts, only to be interrupted by the plaintive wail of an animal.
Can’t have an animal suffering, can we? “Gracie?” I call out again as I step into her house.
She doesn’t answer. An orange and black feline fluffball waltzes across the brown carpet of the living room, around scattered piles of laundry, a three-foot-long stuffed zebra beside an ancient console television, and various cups and saucers. It yowls again and flops onto its back at my feet, where it silently dares me to touch its furry belly.
“Viktor, I smell a trap,” I say.
“Please do not touch the animal, Your Highness.”
“You know how much I love to do things I’m told not to.”
“Suit yourself, Your Highness. But do remember your game tomorrow would be most uncomfortable if you were sporting swollen eyes and wearing bandages beneath your gloves.”
“Whatever would I do without you?”
“Undoubtedly drive another man to drink.”
I chuckle and step over the cat. “Gracie? Are you home? You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked, love.”
“Your Highness, we need to be off to the airport.”
I hate it when he’s right.
Still, I can’t leave without mentioning to Gracie the importance of locking her door. If she can’t find her keys, I’ll order a locksmith out tomorrow. I’m reaching for my phone to text her when it buzzes with an incoming call.
Gunnar.
Rather late for a Friday night in Stölland.
“Just a moment, Viktor.” I step over the cat and toward a back doorway that apparently leads to Gracie’s bedroom. “Ah, the king-in-training finally has time for his brother?” I say.
“Why are you gallivanting across America chasing a woman?”
Quite annoying how quickly word travels in the digital age. “You believe everything you read on the internet?”
“I believe in phone-tracking apps,” my brother replies dryly. “Go home. Now.”
Bloody fucker. “I’m doing charity work.”
“Go home, Manning,” he repeats. “If you fuck up your engagement to Elin, our family will owe Austling six times what you’re being paid to dance around with a stick and a puck on the ice. Grandpappa mismanaged the estates and left us flat broke. Austling bailed us out in exchange for you marrying Elin upon her coming of age.”
A glacier presses up from my stomach and into my breastbone. Despite Colden basically saying as much the other day, hearing it confirmed by my eldest brother makes it real. “Connection must be bad,” I say, “because it sounded like you just said—”
“Interest-free loan to refill the royal coffers in exchange for your hand in marriage,” Gunnar repeats.
I grip the old metal doorknob to Gracie’s bedroom and squeeze it hard enough to leave etchings on my palm.
And not the good kind of ice. “Why was I never told of this?”
Gunnar’s voice carries across the Atlantic with the weight of the world in it. “I believe our father thought that the earl would come to his senses and wish for a love match for his daughter instead once she came of an age to have fanciful notions of love and devotion.”
“Not too late,” I say with a cheer I don’t feel, ignoring the silent jab about me being an unlovable rapscallion.
Broke.
Sold to save the kingdom.
My betrothal isn’t about a dukedom or a family friendship.
It’s about money.
“Go home,” Gunnar repeats a third time. “The earl is getting twitchy with all your extracurricular activities, and I suspect he’s more interested in causing us heartburn than he is in getting out of the arrangement. Wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’s planning on going to Parliament with a proposal to oust us anyway. If you wish to end your betrothal, you’ll have to find another way beyond scandalous behavior. Preferably a way that involves a rather large bank account for you or Elin.”
My fingers are going numb, as are my toes.
Being traded for land, for peace, for economic advantage all seem so much more gentlemanly than being traded for a pile of cash. “How did he lose it?” I ask.
As if how our grandfather squandered the family’s riches is the most important question.
How the fuck do I get out of this? is more pressing.
“Gambling and poor investments, I believe. Including half the money Austling gave him before Pappa inherited the crown. I wasn’t given specifics, and I honestly don’t give a damn. If you cry off, we may as well hand the kingdom to Austling.”
“We still owe him money?”
“It was quite the loan. Took several years for our holdings to become profitable enough again to begin making a small dent.”
“Fuck.”
“I’ve a call in to Willow,” Gunnar tells me. “Her otherwise useless fiancé has rich friends. Perhaps you could make a personal plea to her as well. If she could offer Elin a few introductions to New York society, perhaps we could appeal to Austling’s greed. A New Yorker wouldn’t be titled, but money talks. I’ve met your betrothed one too many times to wish to share Christmas dinner with her.”
“I’ve met her one too many times to wish to share anything with her,” I grumble. Gunnar’s arranged wife hadn’t been his best match either, but at least she hadn’t been a screecher.
“Chin up. And do your bloody best to annoy the shit out of Elin while she’s in town without making it obvious you’re trying to annoy her.”
“She brought the monkey with her.”
“I know too many of your hockey friends. You’ve lost the right to complain about a monkey.”
The cat swishes itself against my legs and meows. I can already picture the hives breaking out.
Felines and I have a special relationship. They have a primal recognition of my sneezing and wheezing talents, and generally go out of their way to inflict as much cat dander on my person as possible at any opportunity.
Gunnar lets out a muffled curse.
“More bad news? Jolly good Friday night, isn’t it?” I say.
“Stepped on a Lego,” he grunts.
Now that is good news. Serves him right. I make a mental note to send Viggo ten more Lego sets.
Fuck. Can I afford to buy more Lego sets? I’ve honestly no idea. Money’s never been something I’ve worried about.
Apparently I’ve been a fool.
“Speaking of my nephew, if you sell his hand in marriage to anyone I’ll have your bloody head.” If he dares sell my child in marriage, I’ll do far worse.
Fuck again.
“No need,” Gunnar says dryly. “The earl overpaid for you. Once you
’re married to Elin, the debt is forgiven, and we’ll be fine.”
Bloody fucking fuck.
“If you’re not headed home in the next three minutes, I’m waking Pappa.” Gunnar sighs. “I’m doing what I can, Manning. But the more trouble you create for yourself, the less time any of us have to find an alternate solution.”
“Your Highness,” Viktor says again. Which translates to We need to remove ourselves from this house before Joey Diamonte catches word that we’re snooping about her sister’s residence and calls the local law enforcement for the sheer joy of watching a shoot-out.
He’s right, of course. He usually is.
I study the cat again, the chair in the corner of Gracie’s bedroom piled with laundry, the lack of space for a baby in the small, cluttered home. Breathe in vanilla and peaches and something reminiscent of fresh detergent. Note the rusty hum of the refrigerator in the next room as it cycles on, the insects still audible inside the house.
Such a small life she lives. But such a large impact she’s had on mine in so few minutes together.
A roar wells up deep within me.
It has nothing to do with this house, nothing to do with the feline, nothing to do with Viktor, and quite honestly, nothing to do with me.
Because very little in my life is for me.
Even hockey isn’t just for me.
Gracie could be. My child could be.
But only at the expense of my family and my country. Austling might have money, but that doesn’t mean he has the soul necessary to protect the people.
Which means I have very little choice in what I must do. Because the needs of the many will always outweigh the needs of the few.
I hang up with my brother, shove my fists into my pockets and force a smile that’s probably more of a snarl. “To the airport then, Viktor. ‘Tis time.”
Past time, I suspect.
A lesson two months too late.