Page 1 of The Midnight Princess
1
Royal Weddings
ALMA
“You look happy,elskede.”
My uncle spins me around, and my dress, deep blue with a scattering of brilliant sequins across the skirt, swirls against my hips. Sleeveless and low-cut, I’m aware of how it frames the line of my shoulders and delicate collarbones, a daring look for a princess of Sondmark.
I give him a kiss and continue on my way, circulating throughout the ballroom, taking care of my mother’s guests—a wide network of family and friends—smiling at their jokes and dancing when I must. I have a word with the band leader when the songs get depressing. No one is allowed to be famished or friendless on New Year’s Eve. Not on my watch.
I’m halted in my course by Caroline. “The Crown Prince of Vorburg arrived, ma’am,” she informs me as we step away from the loud music.
“Finally.” My gaze arcs over the crowd. “Did he say what detained him?”
It’s almost midnight, and even though his arrival was always going to be discreet, the man is hours late. I’m not impressed. The requirements of my royal position suffocate me as tightly as the corset bodice giving structure to this gown, but I’m still doing my duty.
“Snow in the mountains,” Caroline answers. “We lodged him in the Tower Suite along with his aide, as you instructed, and communicated that Her Majesty will meet with him in the morning.”
Check, check, check.
My mother’s secretary melts into the background, and instead of running off to monitor the canapé situation, I take a glass of champagne offered by a passing footman. The queen’s last assignment of the year has been discharged, and I’ve earned a rest. I down the liquid in two swallows, and the bubbles wrinkle my nose. It’s a party, isn’t it? Depositing the flute on a side table, I lift another from a tray, giving it the same quick treatment.
Everyone deserves a night off. Even me.
I wait to feel the heavy load of royal responsibility roll from my shoulders. The relief. The peace. I wait.
And wait.
Maybe a little more alcohol will solve it.
I chase an ever-retreating serenity to the bottom of the next glass and the next, but the champagne does more than jostle the Pandora’s box of emotions I’ve kept padlocked for an entire week. It knocks the lid off, spilling the contents where anyone might see the betrayal, exhaustion, and pain.
As the clock nears midnight, I stand in the middle of the dance floor, and my cheeks burn hot. It would be nice to stand here and cry myself sick, but the horror of such a thing roars to life, its size and scope dwarfing every other emotion. I’m not supposedto have feelings. I shake my head, and my brain knocks against my skull with a bruising thud. I’m allowed tohavefeelings—just not allowed to show them.
A swirl of blue and red and yellow lights flash against my eyelids. I’ve never been drunk before, not even in college. At royal engagements, I’ve only ever sipped half glasses of champagne, nursing them along until the bubbles go flat.
This is not a comfortable sensation.
The room is stiflingly hot, and a burning pressure shifts from my eyes to my heart, affording a brief window of sobriety.Get out before you disgrace yourself.
Jolly good idea. Pressing a hand over a hiccup, I melt through a doorway into a narrow hall, following an instinct to find someplace cool and quiet.
Music follows me from the ballroom, a depressing pop ballad about the misery of meeting your ex in the boxed wine aisle of the grocery store on a snowy New Year’s night. Instead of turning around to have another talk with the band leader, I speed up, brushing heavily against a potted fern, wandering blindly until I find myself at the orangery—a little-used room with fountains, rows of south-facing windows, and blue moonlight streaming through the glass.
As soon as I step across the threshold, the relief is immediate, and I let out a loud sigh of pleasure, the sound of it swallowed up in the soft shadows. This is perfect. There’s no one here to ask questions about my engagement—about when stupid Pietor will be returning from his stupid charity trip to the other side of the stupid world. No aunt will tell me how lucky I am to have him or drop a gentle hint about wanting an early notification of the wedding date because she’s spending spring on the Riviera and needs to have this nailed down so the jeweler knows what to take out of the vaults.
A tear slips down my cheek, and I wipe it away with a white-gloved hand. Surely it won’t hurt to cry where no one can see.
I breathe slowly, deeply. No one in the palace will ask about the Italian bikini model Pietor had his hands all over because no one but my family knows about her yet. No one is going to congratulate me on the broken engagement and pronounce me well rid of my fiancé because no one knows about that, either.
No one is going to tell me that they thought I was the reliable one. That I’ve let down the family. That I’m causing trouble for the House of Wolffe. That will come later.
A distant bell chimes the last quarter hour of the year, and I shake my head to clear it, clapping my hands at my temples to make the clanging stop.
Am I sober enough to return to the party? A gust of cold air hits my bare shoulders and I shiver, peering into the dark shadows, past root-bound citrus trees in their ornate pots, their branches cringing against the high glass ceiling. Then one of the shadows moves.
“Who’s there?” I call, half-convinced I imagined it.
