Page 38 of Nobody in Particular

“So, you understand, Rose,” Aunt Belinda said to me at the endof the story, “you must be mindful of who you give your heart to. Choose unwisely, and you risk both your heart and theirs.”

“My parents would never do that to me,” I said.

“Hmm,” she replied. “Your father thought the same thing, once. He learned, though.”

And that was when I understood that Aunt Belinda’s story was not a fairy tale at all.

As the congregation rises from the cathedral pews, I spot Aunt Belinda through the crowd, and wonder if she would have done the same to her own children, had she ended up queen. Her daughter, Sukey, is third in line after myself and Uncle Albert. Sukey’s three-month-old, Augustus—the one whose christening just concluded—is fourth. Third-in-lines do not face much restriction in regards to who they marry. Not when the first in line is poised to take the throne without obvious complications. So, I suppose, it’s more than likely that baby Augustus’s parents were a true love match.

What a luxury. I wonder if Sukey appreciates her luck.

My phone buzzes in my pocket with a text. I check it surreptitiously, and break into a smile when I see Danni’s name. Unfortunately, I will have to respond to her later. It would be unforgivably rude of me to be caught on my phone during an event like this.

It was difficult for me to see Augustus during the christening—though the royal family enjoy front-row seats at an event like this, Saint Mariana’s Cathedral is notoriously large, and the altar is approximately three miles ahead. Now, however, I manage to get a better look at the bundle of joy as the guests file out of the cathedral into the dreary day and mill about in the attached gardens. Baby Augustus has a pursed mouth, a wrinkled forehead, and no hair. He waves tiny clenched fists in midair and scrunches his face up in a squishy, pudgy frown.Cheer up,I want to tell him.You get all the benefits of being a little prince, but none of the pressure. It’s a good deal.

I don’t mean for my lip to curl. It does it of its own accord. Luckily, the swarm of paparazzi bordering the gardens don’t see me, as I’m angled away from them. Unfortunately, Alfie, who attended the christening with his parents, does.

“Why’d you look at the baby like that?” he asks in a low voice.

“Oh,” I say, before blowing a noncommittal raspberry. “He’s just a bit…”

Alfie patiently waits for me to elaborate. I hold back until we’ve cleared enough space between us and the nearest potential eavesdropper to reply. Sidney and Theodore break away from my parents and follow Alfie and me down the dirt path.

“Well, he’s a bit ugly, isn’t he?”

“Rosie.”

“He looks like a grandpa!” I say, indignant at his indignance. “He’s got all those wrinkles, that little frown, like he’s reading a newspaper article that’s outraged him. That is an old man who’s been shrunken down and clothed in a little terry cloth one-piece.”

“Rosie.”

“But he’s not fooling me.”

Alfie folds his arms and gives me a stern, if somewhat amused, look. “Rosie,” he says, and I mouth my name along with him. “Where’s your soul?”

“Traded it for beauty.”

We slow our steps as we reach a number of cone-cut trees and stand together beside one, surveying the crowd of attendees. The trees block us from the paparazzi. It’s instinctual for us to seek out a photo-opportunity obstacle, though I’m sure my parents will be furious if they notice. It’s the perfect opportunity for me to be seen on my Very Best Behavior, after all.

“You won’t feel that way about your own, you know,” Alfie says, still gazing ahead. “Wrinkles, frowns, all of it. Once it’s lived in your stomach for nine months, it’ll look like a diaper model.”

This time when my lip curls, I make no effort to conceal it. “Babies don’t grow in your stomach, Alfie, there’s acid in there. Besides, why on earth would I want to give birth to a baby? Ghastly.”

“Can’t you ever be serious?”

“I’m perfectly serious.”

“For just aminute?”

“I’m not sure which part is confusing you, Alfie.”

Alfie gives me a long-suffering sideways glance. “The part where your job is to produce an heir?”

“Ahh. Yes, now you point it out, I can see the incongruence.” He’s clearly waiting for me to go on, so I reluctantly give him an earnest answer, though it comes out sounding rather less sincere and rather more sulky than I would have liked. “I said I don’t want to birth a baby, not that I won’t.”

It’s not as though I have much of a choice. The Hennish royal family, like most, is a blood lineage. While I may have an array of duties and responsibilities, the most overarching, the most urgent, is to preserve us. That means protecting the institution in the present, and ensuring its continuation. I hardly need to ask what would happen should I announce my refusal to bear children. Father would do everything within his power to change my mind and, should that fail, he would be at liberty to consult with parliament over changing the line of succession to Uncle Albert. A future monarch who refuses to prioritize her duties over her own selfish wishes has no business being a monarch at all. Not when it’s so widely accepted that the symbol of a strong royal family is analogous to the strength of the country itself. Somehow.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a reigning king or queen has skipped over a prince or princess when handing down the crown, though historically it’s been in favor of a younger sibling, of which I have none. Father does, though.

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