Page 95 of The Midnight Princess
I’ve tried. I keep telling myself a cute little story about how I just have to make it until Thursday. I’ll pack my bags and have a few memories about falling for a girl I was all wrong for and how it didn’t matter because we were never going to make it.
The real story is about how I fell completely in love with a woman intent on smoothing away my rough edges. How it hasn’t worked. How I want to carry her back to Vorburg over my shoulder and fight every man in Sondmark if I have to. How I will never deserve her. How I would spend the rest of my life making her happy. How I want her next to me when I am king.
No one else. A shudder works up from my spine as I fight against accepting the unalterable fact. My father doesn’t have another heir. What happens if I can’t have Alma?
“You’re still leaving in a few days?” Ella prods.
I imagine the future Alma has painted for me a thousand times. Frigid Djolny Castle. My father pushing me to marry and get myself an heir. Stumbling through thousands of meetings, receptions, and engagements.
I can do it. I can. Alma has taught me well. But a lifetime of doing it without Alma sounds like running a marathon on a belt sander. With every revolution, I’ll get smoother and smoother, smaller and smaller. Eventually, I’ll have to watch Alma move on. She’ll find a brand new Pietor, and every step will be in the news. Parliamentary approval. Roslav Cathedral. Royal babies.
I flinch against the pain. It’s still too easy to imagine another future. One in which I’m not a secret and she isn’t placing me last on a list of considerations. Thanksgivings in Blackberry with the cousins. Roslav Cathedral. Restoring the castle. Our babies.
I swallow. The House of Wolffe could use some hearty peasant stock.
“The king has ordered me back,” I answer.
Ella rolls her eyes as she maneuvers her avatar across a rope bridge. “Idiots.”
28
Little Ceremony
ALMA
No amount of shouting will get Jacob to understand what he owes to his position, to his people, and to the responsibilities he has to take on. So I use the oldest war tactic in the book. I freeze him out.
It’s an imperfect strategy. Unlike Napoleon’s troops marching into Russia, he seems prepared for winter, digging in across the drawing room from me, his warm gaze thawing me faster than I can summon the cold. The barrier between us is translucent, brittle. It would take nothing to break through it.
On the night before he leaves, I lie in bed and watch the clock, eyes fastened on the second hand racing around its tiny axis. Four minutes until midnight. Three. Two.
The second hand is without mercy, and I want to throw the thing out the window, watching the priceless clockworks shatter against the stones. The minute hand turns over with a tiny click.Today is the day he leaves. I turn off the lamp and screw my eyes closed.
My commitment to Sondmark and my queen provide precious little comfort when I’m standing in the palace forecourt the next day. Though the sun is shining, a chilly wind blows up from the harbor, and I shiver. Karl, shoving a disreputable duffel bag into the boot of the car, holds a conversation with Caroline. I open my mouth to tell him to take care of the ‘JohnnyFlamenMarr’ shirts, but Ella emerges from the doors, holding Jacob’s arm as she navigates the steps.
They look comfortable together, and I can’t stop the bitter thought that he should have fallen in love with her. If he had asked her to throw over every consideration of royal life and damn the consequences, she would have done it. She would have hacked into the security feed, climbed over the palace walls, and phoned for a getaway car.
I look away, into the wind.
“Cold, ma’am?” Caroline asks.
I turn with a set expression—neither pleased nor displeased, neither hopeful nor despairing. Neither happy to speed the parting guest nor wishing he would stuff me into the car and kidnap me to his foreign kingdom to love me forever. I blink rapidly.
Caroline bobs a curtsey. “I hope your stay was pleasant, sir.”
Stultes es. That was my line. Jacob turns to me, performing the ceremony as though he was born to this. “Your Royal Highness,” he murmurs.
My smile is weak. “We look forward to your return.” We.I.
In the thin air of early spring, it’s a wonder no one can hear the sound of heartbreak. When he comes back, I’ll never have him to myself. He’ll be the crown prince, and he won’t be sleeping in the room next door. I want to scream and throw my shoes,demanding he see reason. None of this shows on my face, which is good. I haven’t lost my touch.
But my lip shakes, and I catch it between my teeth. Holding my hand, Jacob leans forward, lips at my ear. “Don’t look like that.”
My hand tightens on his.Don’t go. Don’t go.But though the words rattle in my chest, the tether doesn’t snap.
“Sir,” Karl prompts. “We must respect the schedule.”
Jacob steps back, taking half of me with him. Brisk spring wind sweeps across the lawn, ruffling the grass as he speeds away.
