Page 65 of The Impossible Princess
“I have responsibilities you don’t understand,” she says. She’s tired, almost shaking with the effort to say what she’s come to say. Her mouth tightens and pulls. “I’m not the queen. I’m not the important person in all this, but I’ve been the means of dragging my whole family through the tabloids more times than I can count. I have to do what I can to minimize it, and right now, that means setting aside my personal life. We’re finished, Max.” Her tongue runs along her lip. “I’m sorry if you think that makes me a coward.”
Watching her, I slam the door on thoughts about the disaster this is for me; how I’ll never get over her and how she could fight for us if she wanted to. Stupidly, my mind returns to last night; to the memory of my father parking and reparking the rented caravan, his shouts to my sister ringing over the lake, how the plastic chairs and battered wicker loveseat were arranged around the fire. It was nothing like this garden; nothing like the queen’s standard waving over the mansion.
An ordinary Naval officer was always a longshot, and it’s gotten too complicated. What remains simple is that I love her. If she wants to be free of me, I have to give her that much.
I nod and she swallows thickly. I can’t detect relief or heartache on her face, only tense fatigue. I always thought I was good in a crisis. If warning bells are ringing or a vessel is taking on water, I always have the answer. Not now.
I lean close, pitching my voice low enough that the security camera near the ornamental hedge won’t pick anything up.
“You want to know what I think of you?” The next time we meet will be behind a fortress of royal protocol. Her glance touches mine and darts away. My breath stirs the hair at her temple. “The girl underneath this royal shell isn’t disappointing or spoiled. She has gifts, even if her mother has no use for them. She’s fun, charismatic, and kind. She deserves to have a patronage because she’s good at what she does, not because anyone has to do her any favors. She’s enough, exactly as she is.”
29
Relationship Wrecker
CLARA
He steps back and bows slightly. An ocean breeze blows between us, unfurling the royal standard atop the house—the rampart dragon of Sondmark and the harp seal of the Sonderlands. The standard, I think, desperate to focus on anything but how Max is leaving me right now.
No one has seen a harp seal near Sondmark for almost a hundred years, and our claim to the Sonderlands relies on plate tectonics and a few Viking raids. Still, an enterprising ancestor stitched the harp seal into our flag and the moment someone discovers a natural resource we can exploit, there we are.
It looks like the dragon is about to devour the seal. The poor, sacrificial seal.
Emotion drags at my throat. I’m not enough. I have never been enough. Isn’t that Mama’s whole point? That I need to fit myself into this royal vessel and it doesn’t matter how much I bend or break, there is no gainsaying the shape I must take in the end. Even now, I feel the walls closing in.
“I’ll see myself out,” he says.
Before I can respond, he’s gone. I stare at the maze of greenery that swallows him up, and though I drag air deep into my lungs, I am unable to get enough. I don’t deserve to cry. I don’t deserve the release. Not for putting that look on Max’s face.
I don’t go down to the sitting room either, to report to my mother—as Caroline sits in the next room—that the thing is finished. Instead, I turn to the ocean, stumbling through the winding path with the sharp seagrass. I slip my sandals from my feet and jog down to the beach, setting off cascades of sand that wreck the smoothness of the surface. My security detail struggles in his loafers and suit, but he keeps a respectful distance as the wind buffets my face, pulling the tears from my eyes before they’ve had a chance to fall. I walk and walk and walk.
When we return to the lodge, Mama is tactful, her silence cloaking even her need to manage the world while Caroline sits in the front seat with the chauffeur and buries her nose in a paperback with an unexpectedly lurid cover. Mama doesn’t even flip open a notebook and make a list to go over later. She keeps herself from saying the words I can almost hear pressing from her throat.It was for the best.
When we arrive, I race up the steps and Mama doesn’t call me back. Like a good diplomat, she doesn’t insist I come down for dinner when the family returns from a long ride, covered in mud and the smell of horses.
Alma finds me later, sliding onto the end of my bed and pretending not to notice that my eyes are puffy and bloodshot. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong but tells me about how a lizard scuttled across the path and how she almost fell off her animal.
“I’ll be imagining beady black eyes all night,” she insists, giving me a gentle, cajoling smile.
“Don’t you ever feel like screaming?” I ask, hugging my pillow tightly, the question only superficially about the reptile.
She knows it too. Her smile checks and firms up. “I try to remember it will pass quickly enough if I don’t lose control.” She leans over and kisses me, curving her arm around my shoulder and staying there for a heartbeat or two. I look at my phone for hours, willing it to ping a notification and wondering what I will do if it does. I’m not brave enough to block his number.
At first light, I rise, pulling on a pair of tweed slacks. I pass Caroline in the hall, coming out of the garden smelling of fresh air and sunshine. I am startled at her appearance, momentarily shocked by the tangle of mousy hair down her back and the flattering simplicity of the wrap dress patterned in tiny blue flowers. Understanding catches up to me. It’s her day off. I wonder if she dashed outside before everyone was awake so no one would catch her looking like a fallible human being.
She dips into a curtsey as though she were still clad in sober business attire. I should have known that, day off or not, she doesn’t really get a rest from Mama’s service when she’s up here.
“Good morning, Your Royal Highness. Her Majesty wishes me to inform you that you’re slated for a number of engagements when we return to the Summer Palace and asks that you supply yourself with a suitable wardrobe.” Her stilted tone makes me wonder if Caroline is part cyborg. Perhaps she’ll spend the balance of her day plugged into her charging station in the corner of Mama’s office. “Your stipend will reflect your needs, and I’ll forward the list to you this afternoon. She doesn’t mean you to begin on your selections until we return to Handsel.”
I feel battered by the events of yesterday, fragile even, but Caroline’s words sound like a crisp schedule slipped under my door.
I take a fortifying breath. More engagements are what I wanted. They are what I’ve given Max up to achieve. More responsibility. More trust. I wait for the swell of satisfaction to begin to fill the void inside, but instead, there is a persistent voice.She’s enough, exactly as she is.
“Will the Palace be making an official comment about the TV program?”
Caroline shifts slightly, and I notice for the first time how young she is. Maybe not even thirty. Teeth briefly worry at her lower lip. “It was decided—”
In a committee, I think, roiling with mortification. Aides and worthy advisors sat around a conference table passing judgment on this latest escapade.
