Page 5 of Coronation
The maze is roughly an acre and could take hours to find your way through if you don’t know where you’re going. There are no maps that I’m aware of, and during the hours I spent exploring as a boy, I’d often happen across stretches of maze which the palace groundskeepers hadn’t tended to in quite some time. The path is easy for me, though, and it isn’t long before I find myself at the center.
The perfectly circular path of grass is interrupted only by a lonely stone bench and an ancient oak whose branches stretch out over the tops of the nearest hedges. The place hasn’t changed a bit, and I blow out a long breath as I make my way over to the bench, sinking down on it and burying my face in my hands.
I think I’m going mad. Actually mad.
With every passing day, the pressure increases, as do the omnipresent reminders that all my efforts have been all but useless. I’m fucking terrible at this, as ill-suited as it seems possible to be, and it seems a cruel joke that I’ve ended up in this position.
It was never supposed to be me. Nobody bothered to prepare me for the role. I was the spare, after all, and, with modern medicine at our disposal, a fairly unnecessary one. The likelihood of my ever becoming king wasn’t large, and it grew even more improbable after the birth of my insufferable brother’s equally insufferable sons.
My hands shake as I scrub them roughly over my face, as if doing so can clear my mind of its perpetual fog of misery. If the last eighteen months have proven anything, though, it’s that escape is impossible. The royal institution has its teeth in me, and the only way out is death.
Something to look forward to.
My heart jolts at the sound of footsteps along the neighboring path, and my hands fall as I stare at the entrance to the maze’s center. Waiting.
I know who it will be.
There is a very short list of people who would dare interrupt me here, and only one who is in the palace today. Sure enough, when the tall, brown-haired man moves into view, the gold buttons of his officer’s uniform glinting in the sunlight, I groan.
“Brother,” Damien greets me mildly as he strolls forward, his hands buried in his pockets. “I thought I might find you here.”
Once, I would have been embarrassed at being found hiding. Now, I don’t have enough remaining pride to care. “You’ve found me,” I confirm wryly. “What can I do for you?”
In response, Dam reaches into the breast pocket of his coat and produces a cream envelope with a flourish. “Actually, it’s what I can do for you.”
He hands it over, and my mouth goes dry as I make out the seal, pressed into the thick paper.For fuck’s sake.“Why would you bring me that?” I demand, tossing the letter onto the stone bench beside me and glowering at my brother.
Damien lifts an eyebrow, smirking. “I thought you could use a night with better company than your right hand. How long has it been?”
The answer is too humiliating to truthfully admit, even for a man who believed only minutes ago that his pride was a nonissue. “I couldn’t possibly get away.”
“I’ve arranged everything,” counters my brother smoothly. “It will all be very discreet. You know these things are kept under lock and key. The Hosts are more than happy to accommodate an evening with additional security to have you on the guest list. It’s quite the feather in their cap, I’d imagine, getting the King of Stelland off.”
My lips twist as I search for more reasons to refuse. It’s not as though I’m totally unfamiliar with the particular type of gathering that The Hosts offer. As a personality-poor but financially wealthy young man, I’d attended more than my fair share. That was a long time ago, though, before the decade I spent in my cold, transactional charade of a marriage.
“Go,” Dam insists firmly. “It will be good for you. Find a gorgeous woman who doesn’t mind you scowling while she sucks you off, and you’ll feel like a new man in the morning.”
“Jesus, Dam.” My gaze falls to the envelope. “You said it’stonight?”
He laughs. “I thought it would be better to spring it on you. Less chance of you trying to find a way out of it. Heaven forbid you do something enjoyable, right?”
Raking my hand through my hair, I groan in resignation. “Christ. Fine.”
“Thank you, Damien, for being such a good brother that you worry about my lack of sex life?”
My god, he’s obnoxious. “Thank you, Damien, for being such a meddling pain in my ass.”
He throws his head back and laughs, the sound of it echoing out over the surrounding hedges. “Don’t mention it. If I were in your position, I would also need to get out of my own head from time to time.”
Being in my position isn’t something he will ever have to worry about. We may be brothers, but Damien’s place in this institution couldn’t be more different than my own, or that of our youngest brother, Leopold. While his father was a king,my brother’s cocktail waitress mother makes him all but inconsequential.
His relationship to The Crown isn’t public knowledge, and I can’t imagine how it ever could be with both his parents dead. As has been done with most of the royal family’s illegitimate progeny through the ages—as he is certainly not the first—my brother was given an excellent education, a trust fund, and an esteemed position within the royal household.
While Leo and I have lived our entire lives in the public eye and became products of the institution masquerading as a family, Dam is free. He is allowed all the benefits that befit an Ashwell son, but none of the burden of a title or the public scrutiny. No one cares in the slightest whether Dam marries, divorces, has children, or dies a bachelor.
Shaking off the familiar pang of bitterness, I take the invitation from the bench beside me and stand. “Will you be there?”
Damien scoffs, strolling past me, his gaze trained on the branches of the great oak. “I’ll leave this one to you. There are some things that can’t be unseen. Unless you’d like a wingman, of course. Though I can’t imagine what enticement I could offer your prospective lovers that tops the crown. You should bring it along.”
