Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  Despite my unease over seeing Liam and telling him what’s up, I can’t wait to see the countryside. I shower quickly, humming while Grey walks on the bathroom counter.

  “Hmm, I need my bag,” I tell him, like he cares.

  When I get out, I call the concierge and request they get my bag from the valet parking deck. A few minutes later, I take the bag from a short man with black hair and green eyes, reaching out the door in the hotel-issue bathrobe to hand him a ten-pound note.

  I think about his accent as I shut the door and pad back toward the bathroom. It’s like Liam’s…only different. And I realize that’s because Liam’s is more like mine. More American, I realize. I wonder how he knows Declan Carnegie. I don’t want to drag out my laptop for sleuthing before I dry my hair, in the event that I pass through the northern costal town of Torr—where Haugr Castle is—today and need to look alive, so I deal with hair and makeup first, then stretch out on the bed to do some Googling via the international plan I got my phone before departing. And sure enough, I find that Liam and Dec both went to boarding school at Lawrenceville. Formally known as The Lawrenceville School, in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

  I guess I knew Declan went there, but I’d forgotten.

  Liam on the other hand… I’m surprised.

  Wouldn’t a country want its prince educated within its own borders? Making a mental note to ask about that if I ever get the chance, I stuff my dirty clothes into my silky hamper bag and pull an ankle-length, dark gray dress over my head. It’s thick like linen, soft like cotton, and just a little flowy. I pair it with brown Tory Burch sandals and a soft cream cardigan sweater, then fasten my hair into a loose side pony-tail, which I tie with a short strand of red velvet ribbon.

  Then I spritz myself with the old-fashioned rose water my sisters make so much fun of me for having custom made.

  When I’m sure I look good enough for a surprise paparazzi attack that probably will never happen on the Isle of Gael, I re-pack my suitcase, grab it and Grey’s carrier, and ride the elevator down three floors.

  With the cat carrier at my feet, I buy a fold-out map at the concierge desk, and watch a fire crackle in a huge hearth while the valet gets my car.

  It’s a charcoal gray Range Rover, which makes me feel a little silly when I walk up to it holding my cat Grey’s carrier and wearing my gray dress: as if charcoal is my theme color or something. Maybe it should be, I think as I get sick beside the rear left wheel.

  “God.” I have to find a pharmacy. Like, yesterday. Or at least a petrol station with some ginger snaps or something. “Fuck me.”

  This is just gross. I didn’t even see that coming. Now I need to brush my teeth. With a guilty glance back at the pool of drool I left on the asphalt, I take a swig from a bottle of water I swiped from my room and follow the vehicle’s GPS onto a busy street.

  “Fuck me,” I murmur as my stomach churns.

  Grey shifts in his carrier.

  It takes a lot of focus to drive correctly, on the correct side of the road, hugging the line without leaving too much or too little space, and even more effort to find a fueling station. But eventually I do, on what appears to be the north, and more rundown, side of town.

  I buy three bottles of ginger ale, one small box of ginger snaps, a box of Pepto Bismol—does that even work for preggos?—and an enormous bag of something that looks like a cross between a biscuit, a wafer, and a cracker.

  For the next half hour, as I navigate my way out of Clary, the capital of Gael, my nerves buzz like a swarm of bees between my ears. I don’t have the mental energy to actually think cohesive thoughts, so it’s just stress humming up there—vague and unformed thoughts about myself as a mother, about the possibility that every car behind me is someone Bryce sent to have me murdered (yes, I’m crazy), about where I’ll spend the night tonight.

  The guard/escort I left behind at the port had my itinerary, and I guess I could always try to call his company and get it, but for some reason, I don’t want to. I feel like I need to do this on my own. So what I’ll lose a little money on any pre-booked rooms? There’s got to be some point of being ridiculously wealthy, to balance out the low-points that come with scrutiny and criticism. This kind of spontaneity is it, I tell myself.

  Originally, I’d planned to tour the island country before doing anything else, but I’m finding myself drawn north, toward the city of Torr.

  For a long time, as I head out of town, there’s traffic thick around me. Then I’m on a long, winding road that tilts upward, driving into rocky, high-grassed fields that ripple into foothills rising between lakes. Fog sprawls across the road and climbs the hills and makes them hazy, even in the golden sun. I see a rainbow, some lone houses, finally a small township.

  Behind the scattered, whitewashed buildings, which are organized around a stone cathedral that looks like a Catholic church, I see mountains—the ones that were visible from downtown Clary. My map says they’re called An Ocht.

  Driving in their shadows, I feel slightly dizzy. They’re just…so big. They’re not as wide as Colorado’s Rockies. They’re steeper. And greener. Possibly taller. When the fog clears momentarily on a narrow mountain pass, I see a peak, and it’s snow-white.

  Fallen rocks crowd the little road I’m on, and I stick close behind the navy blue van in front of me. It’s tall and skinny, not like mom vans in the U.S. I crack my windows, inhale cool air, eat a ginger snap.

  When I start feeling sick again, I eat a few of the weird cracker things and chase them down with ginger ale.

  I breathe slowly.

  You can do this.

  I notice that I don’t have service on my phone and worry that it won’t come back as I head toward Gael’s north coast.

  “It’ll be fine,” I tell Grey. “We’ll borrow someone’s landline or stop at an internet café. Do the still make those? I think they do.”

  I realize I don’t have the slightest idea what towns or cities stand between me and Torr, so at an observation point, I pull over and unfold my paper map.

  I see a few dots on the map, but they’re all pretty smallish. Larger ones like Clary are all along the coast, especially the island’s western coast, which points toward Scotland. There are a few more big dots along the southeastern coastline, but only one big one up north, and that’s Torr.

  So I’m stunned when, just a few miles later, I approach the area where there was a little, black tower symbol on the map, and find myself looking down a massive, stone fence-line, behind which I see four brown stone towers.

  “Castle!”

  I’m so surprised, I actually hit the brakes—and promptly pull off the road, onto the grassy shoulder.

  “Sorry, Grey.”

  He meows, and I decide to let him out. I hold him for a minute, rubbing down his head and back while he paws at my lap.

  “Whoa…”

  This thing is big. My gaze darts down the fence-line. The fence is tall, like almost as tall as a two-story house, and the castle behind it is even bigger. The weird thing is, the stones themselves don’t look worn or anything.

  The castle doesn’t face the road—it’s angled in another direction, as if the road’s path near it is purely coincidental—but I can see a few large flags, including Gael’s, with its cream background and two navy blue lions. I look across the grass between the road’s side, where I am, and the fence, which is really more a wall.

  It’s probably two hundred yards of distance. I’m not sure what would happen to me if I walked over to the wall, and I’m not really sure I want to find out. A few more minutes looking around reveal small guard towers along the wall. Real guard towers. Crazy!

  I set Grey’s carrier in the passenger’s side floorboard and set him on the chair, where he seems comfortable enough.

  Then I open my bag and pull out the thick stack of papers I printed before leaving the states, fishing for…this one. I skim the article. It says in a story from the Guardian a few months ago that the ancient Gaelic castle in
Torr has been fully renovated over the past few years for use by Prince Liam, whose actual first name is—shudder—Willahelm. I’m not sure how you get Liam from Willahelm, but I’m sure glad you do. Poor guy.

  My stomach flip-flops as I think it.

  Poor Prince Liam my ass. Poor me.

  I get back into the car and commence my drive, looking in awe up at the craggy, moss-streaked mountains with their jagged edges and their cloudy wreath. I’m fascinated by the rug of pure, Ireland-style green that runs around their foothills, which I assume, from my time in Colorado, is maybe due to lots of rain and snow on the mountains’ peaks, which runs off into streams around the foothills. In any event, the lands around the base of the mountains look much greener if you see them from high-up, on one of the mountain passes.

  It’s cold up here, like thirty-eight degrees cold, and I drive through several bursts of snow-slush stuff. Then I start to descend, and when I get another chance to pull off and look down at one of the lakes, I realize I’ve just gone right over the mountain range, which extends from the northwest corner of the island up toward the northeast, with the peaks due east of Torr.

  As I drive slowly down, my car’s lights on, piercing through the fog, shining against the hazy afternoon gray, I think of what I’ll tell Liam when I see him.

  I spend a few minutes worrying over how the baby might be raised. Liam wouldn’t try to take it, would he? Raise it on the island? Surely not, especially if he was educated in America. I tell myself he obviously has a lot of American friends, a lot of women all around the world, a lot of money.

  We’re not married, so the child is mostly mine…right?

  By the time I stop at a one-horse prairie town in the mountain’s shadow to pee at a gas station, I’m feeling almost hostile toward Prince Liam.

  You could just not tell him, a small voice whispers. But I know that’s wrong. This baby is his child, too, and he or she deserves a father. I’m not sure how great a father Prince Liam—just Liam, I correct myself—will be. His own sire is a notorious asshole who terrorizes the country’s parliament and overrules them in ways that violate the island’s constitution all the time. But…who knows. He’s been really nice to me.

  For sex.

  “Shut up,” I mutter.

  I wonder when I’ll get the nerve to approach his castle in Torr. I wonder whose castle I just passed. I think maybe that’s his father’s? Will Liam’s castle be smaller? I remember from my readings that it backs up right against the sea. That should be pretty.

  I wonder how long I’ll stay. Maybe just long enough to tell the gate keepers that I’m here to see him (about something important, if they press me) and have a quick sit-down by the throne where I can let him know I’m his baby mama.

  I look down at my stomach. Looking pretty normal. It’s hard to believe I’m even pregnant.

  I take another swig of ginger ale and munch a few more crackers before I realize I’m starving. Like, for real food.

  I pass a car on the narrow road and notice how bright the lights are. The sun has gotten a good bit dimmer. The sky is cloudy now. A mile or two later, a steady rain starts pelting my windshield. Followed by hail. Geez, it’s like I’m back in Colorado.

  All out ahead of me, it looks like rolling prairie. I can see a town’s lights glowing faintly on the cloud-swathed horizon. Far out to my left, I swear I can see the dark slat of the ocean. And to my right, the mountains, mostly swathed in fog.

  What if he’s not home when I drop by?

  What if he’s got a girl with him?

  What if he’s having a party?

  When I reach the little town I saw on the horizon line, I think of pulling off for

  l-inner, but…I don’t want any. I just want to drive the next hour or so to Torr, go up to the castle, and get this godforsaken experience behind me.

  I tell myself the best that I can hope for is that he’ll be polite and support my notion of me birthing and raising the baby somewhere in Georgia, near my family but away from the cameras.

  I’ve already decided I’ll offer not to tell anyone who the father is, if that’s what he prefers. I don’t want financial support or anything, really, but it would be nice if my child could know him privately. I feel a pang of sorrow for my child-to-be and hope that Liam will want to do that. Maybe I could pay him.

  I drive into a valley as the mountains rise up on my right side, then up a hill, and I see the village of Torr, with lots of trees and crags and little old streets. Everything look so old here. There are no traffic lights, just brick roundabouts. Due east of town, the mountain range drops right into the sea.

  I stop at an adorable, red brick petrol station with round, white cottage windows and antique-looking pumps. After filling up the car, I give in to my stomach’s growling and get a cheese croissant, plus some canned cat food for Grey, then stand there staring at the thin, gray-haired cashier while I nibble a bite of my croissant.

  “So… Does the prince live here? In the castle?”

  The lady chuckles. “You hoping for a sighting, dearie?”

  “Something like that.”

  “He lives here at times, when he’s not abroad,” she tells me, leaning on the counter.

  “Is the castle open for tours?”

  “Not anymore, not since he’s been living there. Since last September. He keeps it private. They may do a showing at Christmas this year. That’s what I heard.”

  I nod. “Thanks for the info.”

  “Where are you from?” she asks me as I amble toward the door.

  “The U.S.” I add, “Georgia.”

  She nods, smiling.

  Back in the car, I polish off my croissant and lick my lips. Damn, I was hungry. I’m still sort of hungry.

  “Are you hungry, too?”

  I set Grey’s food in the floor, move the carrier to the back, and wait while he eats and drinks some water I pour in a bowl I brought for this purpose. When he’s finished and seems settled in the passenger’s seat, I drive the city’s brick streets with an eye for hotels. I end up at a beach—a rocky beach with violent, crashing waves. I park my car beside the only other one in sight: a small, white Saab, swallow some ginger ale, crack the windows so the breeze keeps Grey cool, and get out. The wind is crazy here, despite this beach being between a smattering of houses. It whips my hair around my face, loosening pieces from the pony-tail, and makes my long skirt flap against my shins.

  The sky is white now. White and cloudless. Seagulls caw above me, diving toward the black and tan sand, landing for a moment, then taking flight again. I watch them fly in vaguely circular patterns. I wonder what they’re talking about. Can seagulls communicate? I never was much one for the National Geographic channel.

  I sit on a big, black rock a few stones behind the ones where waves are breaking. I can feel the spray against my cheeks. I inhale the salty smell.

  Then I put my face in my hands. God. I thought I was getting my life together, but I guess I was wrong. Suddenly I feel so lost. And overwhelmed. I can barely make a grilled cheese sandwich and remember to buy toilet paper. How am I going to care for a baby? I don’t think I’ll ever find a guy now, not that I care so much. I’ve been single for two years. It’s been okay. It will be okay for more years. I might meet someone when the baby is older. You never know.

  I think about Prince Liam’s hands in my hair at Declan’s house that night, and it depresses me. He wasn’t being nice. He was trying to get into my panties. Now that I’m knocked up, he won’t care about that anymore, and he won’t care about me, either.

  I watch the ocean roll and try to tell myself it doesn’t matter. I can handle life on my own terms. I’m a big girl. And I’ll be a good mom. I just know I will. I watch the white sky and the gray sea until tiny, cold raindrops start to hit my scalp. Then I hurry to my car, where Grey is perched up on the dash.

  I can’t help laughing at him as I get back in.

  I rub his head. He purrs, making me feel a little less guilty for
dragging him on this trip with me.

  I pull my map back out, then take off, west-bound down the tiny streets. Several minutes later, I leave the quaint neighborhood I’d passed through and drive into the forest. The road is paved but narrow, twisting through the trees. I roll my window down to feel the air, to ground myself. I glance down at my map once, but it looks like I’m on the right path.

  And then the trees clear some and I can see the castle. Damn. It’s gorgeous. Nothing like the one I saw earlier today. This one is made of ancient-looking, dark gray stones and looks as old as time—or at least the middle ages—with spots of green moss in some places. As I drive closer, I notice something glinting…

  Oh my heavens, that’s a moat! It encircles the castle. There’s no gate or wall, only this moat and what, from here, looks like a bridge. The grass around the castle is a vibrant green, with groves of trees. I notice something to my left and slow down, finding it’s a piece of an old wall. So the castle was surrounded by a wall. It’s crumpled now.

  I’m a little disoriented, unsure where the ocean should be, but I think I hear it through my cracked window. Rain is coming down as fine mist.

  “Shit…”

  I rub my hair back off my face and exhale slowly, still pressing the brakes. It’s sort of late now. Maybe I should come back tomorrow.

  I’m looking at the road that leads up to the moat, wondering if I could do a three-point-turn without driving on the pretty grass, when there’s a bump on my car window.

  “Aaaaah!”

  My head whips to the left, where there’s a bearded man wearing…some kind of uniform. My pulse slows, slowly.

  “Shit.” I roll my window down and realize there’s a small building behind him.

  “May I help you?” he asks in a Scottish-sounding accent.