Page 34 of Royal Surrogate 1

“But—” My protests aren’t even heard as the women begin chattering. I know I’ve seen enough—too much, probably. But I want to see more.

“This might be your finest work yet,” Sophia says, her hands still covering my eyes. “And you…I’m sorry, we weren’t properly introduced. I’m Sophia, Caspar’s cousin.”

“Renae,” she says, almost in a whisper.

“Renae.” I can hear the smile in Sophia’s voice. “I hear we have a wedding to plan.”

CHAPTER 26

Renae

The next few days are a blur.

If I’m not getting poked and prodded and measured, then I’m being asked to make decisions about everything from appetizers to ribbons to lilies to string quartets. Caspar is, thankfully, far more involved in the wedding planning than I ever expected a man to be, and if I could get away with it, I’d probably leave all the decisions to him. But even though he’s taken on the bulk of the work himself, he’s also been intent on getting my opinion on things.Honestly, I’m a little overwhelmed and afraid I’ll misstep somewhere, but I slowly let my walls come down and have a little fun with it. After all, there’s no guarantee I’ll ever get another wedding after this one, and I’ll certainly never get another royal wedding.

Whenever I have a moment or two to spare, I call my dad. He doesn’t like talking on the phone, but he speaks with me long enough to assure me that he’s safe and settled at the research center in Boston—and he even mentions that the food at his new facility “isn’t as bad as the garbage at the last place,” which is a glowing compliment from him. Every time I start to feel anxious about all the madness going on around me, I remind myself of why I’m doing all this in the first place, and it helps me stay focused. It’s a little strange to think I’ll be having a wedding without my dad there—and without him even knowing that I’m getting married—but I’m getting used to the idea that nothing about this is normal.

Now, Casper and I are poring over swatches of fabric that will be draped from the ceiling in Wintervale Manor’s grand ballroom. He mentioned that usually members of his family get married at the Royal Palace in the capital, but due to the tight timeline we’re making do here—and it’s clear he’s determined to make this event just as glittering and luxurious as he can get away with, despite the much smaller scale.

“What do you think?” Caspar asks me, running his hand across some expensive silk.

“I think the pale blue is lovely,” I tell him. “It would match the flowers. But I think I like the silver better—it will sparkle under the lights.”

He smiles at me, and for a moment I forget this is all pretend.

“Silver it is,” he says, taking my hand. “Then we can pretend we’re dancing under the stars.” He pulls me around in a half-twirl.

Among our other to-dos for the week, we’ve been practicing dancing, since apparently at royal ceremonies they expect a little more than the swaying-back-and-forth I usually see at weddings. Caspar, it turns out, is an exceptional dancer, and while I’m sure I look clumsy next to him, I’ve taken to Montovian formal dancing quickly, for which I’m grateful. That’s one less thing to worry about.

Well, I’m not worried about the steps, at least. But dancing with Caspar requires us to be a little too close for comfort. Pressed up against him, with his arms around me, it’s all too easy to forget the promise I made to myself. Despite my commitment to keeping my emotional distance from him, my body hasn’t quite gotten the memo yet. Even now, as he gently spins me around, there’s a fluttering in my stomach and my breath comes too fast.

I slip my hand out of his, trying to be casual about it, but I notice his smile falls for a second before he regains his usual composure.

At least he’s keeping his promise to me at night, I tell myself. He hasn’t touched me once in that bed, and though I’m grateful I can trust him, it hasn’t made it any easier to sleep. I spend half my days in an exhausted daze, pretending I didn’t spend most of the night tossing and turning.

Caspar, damn him, looks as fresh-faced as ever. It might sound petty, but I wish there was some sign he’s suffering as much as I am.

“Well, we should hurry if we want to make our meeting with the priest,” he tells me, guiding me out of the room and down the corridor. “He has a few final questions for us before the ceremony.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t care that I’m not part of the Montovian Church?” I’ll admit I’m not as religious as I once was—I haven’t felt especially pious since the accident—but I still feel some guilt around what we’re doing.

“He’s a modern man. He understands how things work these days,” Caspar says with a dismissive gesture. “We have nothing to worry about.”

“And you don’t feel bad about…” I glance over my shoulder, just in case. “About lying to him? About our marriage?”

“We’re not lying,” he points out. “We’re legally getting married.”

“But we’re not in love,” I remind him in a hushed voice. “Yes, we might be jumping through all the correct legal hoops, but everything else about this marriage beyond the technicalities isn’t real.”

“My cousin William had an arranged marriage,” Caspar says. “He certainly didn’t love his wife at the wedding. That doesn’t make their marriage less real. And many, many generations of my family before me have wed for political or economic reasons. What about them? There’s a long history, across many cultures, of marriages serving primarily as business arrangements. It’s only recently that people in general have started thinking of them as emotional arrangements instead.”

He does have a point, but I still have an icky feeling in my stomach as he leads me out the front of the manor, where a car is waiting to take us to the church.

But we don’t have a chance to hop in before we spot a pair of limousines coming up the long, winding drive toward us.

Caspar utters a curse, and when I look up at him, he quickly guides me toward the waiting car.

“Get in,” he says. “Maybe we can leave before they spot us.”

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