To Love a Prince

by Rachel Hauck

  * * *

  Gus

  He had a good weekend. Met with old and good friends. Had a blast. He needed to forget himself and laugh. On Saturday and Sunday, he explored the castle renovations, which were more impressive than he realized.

  The old family homestead was set for the next generation, and the one after. Despite being constructed of stone and timber, Hadsby had always been a place of elegance and luxury. Every regent from the sixteenth century on had found a way to put his or her mark on the old fortification. Especially since flaming arrows and ballista stones no longer threatened the high walls.

  Monday morning, Gus met with Dalholm’s mayor and police commissioner to discuss the influx of visitors and tourists for the ball and thank them on behalf of the queen for all their hard work.

  In the afternoon, he visited one of the hamlet’s new tech companies, Smart Life, where their young CEO, Callie Porter, outlined a way to turn Hadsby into a smart castle. One day the staff at Perrigwynn would be able to manage security, lighting, even some cleaning aspects of Hadsby from Port Fressa.

  In the evening, he ate a solitary dinner with a footman waiting on him. On the credenza, silver tureens warmed salmon, roasted potatoes, asparagus, and an apple tart pudding.

  “And what is your name?” Gus reached for his wine.

  “Miles, sir.”

  “Is everyone else in the servants’ hall? The staff? The members of the Royal Trust?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I’ll join them there tomorrow. Let Cranston and Chef Charles know.” It seemed he had a bit of Pete George left in him.

  Hadsby ran a lean staff, especially in the winter months. No more than thirty lived in and maintained the house. When it reopened in the spring and summer for tours, the staff tripled.

  “Yes, sir. They warned me, sir, that you—” The footman, all of twenty, clipped his words.

  “That I what?” Gus carried his plate to his seat.

  “That you weren’t so pleasant, sir. On account of being left at the altar.”

  “They warned you I wasn’t nice?”

  “More like sad…and maybe impatient.” His pale expression implied he’d said too much.

  “Then I’ll have to watch myself,” Gus said, taking a bit of his salmon. “Do you have a girlfriend, Miles?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. Getting married in June, sir. I’m sorry if I said too much.”

  “I appreciate the honesty. And congratulations.” Gus stood to shake the man’s hand, breaking all the rules dividing staff and family.

  Do not discuss your personal life.

  Do not discuss their personal life.

  Never mind Gus’s personal life was all over the media.

  From then on Miles tended Gus with an easy smile though the conversation faded into the silence of eating alone. The loneliness seemed to echo through him. He ate breakfast alone in Florida after a run. Dinner was at the pub, usually with Helene in her office. On weekends, he explored the Florida coast, grabbing a bite here and there on the run.

  But he’d not eat alone when thirty or so people dined one floor below, laughing and talking.

  In truth, he wanted to see Daffy. Talking to her last night was easy. Like it’d always been. Since she was an engaged woman and he a confirmed bachelor, a friendship with her was perfectly safe. Just what the doctor ordered.

  When Miles cleared away his dishes, Gus retreated to his apartment. There was nothing on the telly. And though there were thousands of books at Hadsby, he didn’t feel like reading.

  He stared out his lounge window toward the lights of the Old Hamlet. What he needed was a night with his old mate Ernst at the Belly of the Beast.

  Collecting his wallet and keys, Gus exited his apartment, down the hall to a small, hidden door that led him down a winding staircase to a narrow door. Cutting through covering ivy and a couple of hedges, he escaped over the grounds toward the woods and the gate leading to Centre Street.

  He could’ve just gone down the Grand Stairs and out the front door, but why be normal when he could be clandestine? Besides, he wanted to sneak off without Hemstead.

  Centre Street, the heart of the Old Hamlet side of town, with its ancient shops and cottages, was sleeping and quiet. The only sound in the cold night air were his footsteps.

  However, on the other side of a low row of buildings and the Centre Park was the New Hamlet, loud, bright, modern with tall edifices, flashing lights, revving motors, and car horns.

  Gus was in his element in the Old Hamlet. So peaceful and enveloping, full of his childhood memories. Being fifteen seemed like eons ago.

  Down the old cobblestone, past the thatched roof shops and flickering Victorian lamps, he turned down Wells Line and aimed for the Belly of the Beast, one of the region’s oldest pubs that overlooked the quay.

  “Ah, look who.” Ernst, the owner, greeted Gus with a bow and hearty backslap. Royal protocol took an unusual form in the Beast. “Your Royalness, come. Too long, too long. Betsy, love, prince pint. Lads, your prince. Shape up, sail right.” Ernst motioned to the table by the fireplace. “Food? Stella! Fish chips.”

  “No, thank you, Ernst. I’ve had my dinner. Just a pint. One.” Gus thanked the smiling and curtsying Betsy, Ernst’s daughter—or was it his niece?—and drifted easily into the welcoming and familiar atmosphere of the stone floor and rough beam pub. As well as the humorous and curtailed dialect of County Northton natives.

  Maybe it was because of the extreme winters in seaside Dalholm or the sloppy, rainy summers, maybe it all started with the hardworking, seafaring founders, but Northtonians shorthanded their speech. Complete sentences not required. Only the words that mattered.

  One year the queen allowed the mayor to give a national speech. She thought he’d be prepared to address the entire nation. Instead one would’ve thought he stood on a hamlet corner, speaking to his neighbor. He delivered the whole thing in Dalholm-speak as news presenters frantically called for translators.

  “How’s doing? Florida?” Ernst pulled up a chair.

  “Florida was good. But I’m home now. The queen sends her regards.”

  “Ah, what love. My regards.” Ernst twirled his hand and bowed his head. “Sure? No eats?”

  If he didn’t say yes, Ernst would offer all night. “Thank you, yes, I think I’ll have a very small serving of chips.”

  “Chips. Northton grown. Can’t beat.” Ernst shoved away from the table and called to his wife. “Stella, chips.”

  “You prince?” The man at the table next to Gus leaned toward him.

  “So it says on my birth certificate.”

  “Sorry. Women.” He shook his head. “Can’t figure. Those lasses. Running. You a good man.” He clapped Gus’s arm. “Don’t give up. Right one.” He patted his heart. “Love is worth it.”

  “T-thank you.” Gus buried his face in his pint, his eyes stinging from the man’s sincere encouragement. But was it true that love was worth…what? Everything he’d been through? All the grief? The mortification? The nights he wondered who he was—if all the headlines were true? Pudgy? Pathetic? That there was something wrong with him that caused women to leave?

  Maybe love was for everyone else, just not him. Never mind. He was in no mood for a pity party, but two broken engagements in less than two years? One had to work to shrug it off.

  Gus’s phone pinged. Hemstead.

  Where are you?

  In town. Perfectly fine. Be home soon.

  Please, sir, do not leave the castle without me.

  Ernst burst from the kitchen with a large plate of fries and set them in front of Gus. “Stella. No small. Only large.” He reached into his apron for a bottle of ketchup. “America.” His big laugh tickled Gus. “Betsy, more pint.”

  Ernst returned to his chair and rested his thick, muscled arm on the table. “Now, tell Ernst about it.”

  “About what?”

  “The lass. The love.” He twirled his finger in front of Gus’s eyes. “I see.
”

  Gus batted the man’s hand away. “You see nothing. There’s no love. Why don’t you tell about the Belly of the Beast and life in Dalholm?”

  Ernst’s rapid, broken speech was its own kind of poetry, and Gus’s mind automatically filled in the vacant parts of the story with proper grammar. Nevertheless, he understood life for Ernst was “supersplendous.”

  The tech companies caused the hamlet to prosper with a surge of young career folks who then met, fell in love, ah, only in Dalholm, and married. Ernst stressed married with a narrowed gaze at Gus.

  “You. Marry.”

  “Not for me, my friend. Not for a long, long time.”

  Ernst huffed at the answer but carried on with his update. After they married, the youngsters bought the older homes on the east side, in the Old Hamlet, and began restoring them.

  “New? Pffbbt.” Ernst swiped the air with his broad hand. “Restore old. Better. You?” He clapped his hands. “Dalholm is love. Catch you, prince, will catch you.”

  “Noooo…” Gus shoved the plate of chips away—he couldn’t eat one more bite—and spoke in shorthand. “Wrong. Miss by long shot. Big.”

  Ernst laughed. “Me wrong? You wrong. Very wrong.”

  Well, that started a debate as Betsy angled a pitcher over his glass. Love? What did Ernst know about Gus’s love life? Past, present, or future?

  “Listen up, Ernst,” he said, reaching for the frothy pint and speaking in the queen’s dialect. “Let me tell you what you didn’t read in the press. Let me set the record straight.”

  Chapter Nine

  Queen Catherine II

  Today was one of those Mondays that stretched the limits of her royal demeanor.

  She woke up early, agitated instead of refreshed. Regrets from years gone by crept from behind long-ago closed doors and haunted her dreams.

  She wanted to cancel her appointments, but calling in sick was not a luxury for a queen. Not unless she was truly, actually ill. Poor sleep and bad dreams did not qualify.

  She snapped at her secretary twice before nine and had to apologize. After a lunch meeting with the Prime Minister, she spent the afternoon reviewing the case of the child left in a hot motor, followed by a review of the Finance Minister’s lengthy, laborious economic report. He was new to the post and seemed to think if one word would suffice, why not use ten?

  She’d been reading ministry reports for twenty-five years, and this was the first time she wanted to toss her computer through the window.

  That would make for a nice headline, wouldn’t it?

  Queen causes damage to palace window and computer amounting to several thousand pounds.

  But she mustn’t complain. She was so blessed, healthy with a living parent, a sister who’d become a friend, an adoring husband, and two stellar, handsome sons. One was about to marry the exceptional Lady Holland and the other, her broken, wounded baby boy, Gus, had returned home calmer, more resolved, more healed than when he’d left.

  She’d contemplated ringing him while he was away and telling him her story. The one of her own hard-earned lesson in love. How she’d endured, overcome, and risen above. How the painful lessons of the past had made her a better wife, mother, and queen. Above all, how she’d forgiven herself.

  But she was not free to speak. And some lessons had to be learned for oneself. Besides, if she confessed her story, which to this day Edric, her beloved King Consort, did not know in detail, she might suddenly appear less in her husband and sons’ eyes, and that she could not bear.

  With a glance at her watch, she closed her laptop and made her way to apartment 1A where she’d lived since her father’s passing twenty-five years ago.

  She wasn’t hungry after all that dull reading, but the palace’s Chef George always prepared a delicious dinner. The aroma might awaken her appetite.

  “Dinner is served, Your Majesty.” Pablo, Perrigwynn’s butler, greeted her in the dining room holding out her chair. He’d replaced her long-time butler, Greenly, three years ago, and she and Edric were still getting used to him. Handsome, kind, even-keeled, exceptional at his post, she could find no fault. Perhaps there was the rub. Ole Greenly had a bit of mischief about him. Pablo was so perfectly perfect. As if he could go rogue at any moment and belt out a show tune in the middle of a state dinner.

  “I’ll wait for His Royal Highness.” She nodded as she passed the table. “Let me put my computer away.”

  Down the hallway to her bedroom, she set the laptop on her desk and settled into the worn reading chair, turning on the table lamp. The winter days were growing a bit longer as spring approached, and the golden hue of sunset still rested on the horizon beyond her window.

  With a glance toward her dressing room, Catherine stepped inside. She’d rearranged it a dozen times over the years, updated it once, but through it all, she still carried the memory of Daffy staring up at her, wearing the blue gown. How she regretted her response. So harsh. She’d never made it right. Never. She was too afraid.

  In the moment, she’d seemed so exposed. As if the girl had discovered all the secrets hidden in that dress.

  But Daffy didn’t know. She’d been playing with the boys. And how many times had Catherine invited her into her room to try on a scarf or a splash of perfume?

  She also didn’t know that five minutes before Catherine walked in the dressing room she’d been on a call that brought up those memories.

  Catherine caught her reflection in the mirror. She looked matronly, wise and queenly, with her trim suit and neat, coiffed hair, colored a dark brown.

  Her eye flitted to her dresses. She half expected a brilliant blue sheen to leap out at her, but the gown was gone. She’d disposed of it years ago, never been seen again.

  So what brought all this on? Why think about it now? Catherine closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her bowed forehead. She wished the drift down memory lane was due to the minister’s wordy report, but it was the dream. Well, she’d get over this like she did in years past. But if time healed all wounds, it was taking its sweet time with her.

  On top of it all, she still tangled with postmenopausal symptoms. Combined with John’s wedding and Gus’s return, her feminine sensibilities drove in their own lane.

  “Kate, are you here?” Edric’s voice called from their bedroom. “Shall we eat? Pablo looks on edge. I think he’s counting the seconds the food is warming in the tureens. I’m starved. How was your day?”

  “Both awful and boring.”

  “The child case?” He joined her at her dressing room door. “What are we doing? Staring at your shoes?”

  She smiled and patted his chest. “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Nothing really.”

  He bent to see her face. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

  She squeezed his arm. “I’m glad Gus is home, aren’t you?”

  “Very much. I was worried since he’d stayed away too long. Sending him to Hadsby was a good move.”

  “Dalholm and Hadsby are his places.”

  If she could tell Edric what crept past her in the night, then maybe she’d find her way clear to tell her sons. But in thirty years of marriage, this particular secret was one she could not bring herself to tell. Even to the man she loved with every fiber of her being. The man who’d rescued her.

  “Come, let’s eat.” She linked her arm through his, thankful for how he always anchored her. “Edric, could you look over the Finance Minister’s report? I need someone to boil it down. His lengthy sentences with economic terms I’ve never heard of are giving me a headache.”

  “Anything for you, love.”

  Edric, her sweet Edric. So kind and giving. Her wise rock. One of these days she must unburden herself to him. One of these days. But that day was not today.

  * * *

  Daffy

  Crates lined the gallery and debris littered the royal red carpet. By Monday evening, Daffy and Lucy had assembled the dress forms, stationed them according
to their design plan, and unboxed the first gown—the oldest, from the fifteenth century—of burgundy velvet, cream silk, and lined with white fur.

  It was well preserved, but under inspection, they found it needed some delicate repairs.

  The hall clock struck ten as Daffy stretched, her low back aching, and surveyed the gallery.

  “I’m starting to think we don’t have enough room.”

  Lucy looked up from stitching a layer of silk. “It’s a big gallery, Daff. We’ve not yet used half the space.”

  “I know, but we have at least six dresses with cathedral trains. They’ll run the width of the gallery, through the rails, and over the sides if we’re not careful.”

  “True. The Arabella train is twenty feet.” Lucy stood and stepped around the unboxed crate. “I’m off to get some silk remnants to finish this.”

  “It’s late. Wait until morning.”

  “I just want to tend it while I’m thinking of it.” Lucy leaned in for a hug goodnight. “I’ll see you at breakfast. Seven-thirty.”

  “You’re making me feel guilty.” Daffy lifted the lid from the next box. Inside was another beautiful, but heavy, gown from a House of Blue bride. Worn by Princess Georgianna in 1588, the dress required some careful assembling. Many of the embellishments had fallen off or loosened, and some of the tapestry threads on the bodice needed repair. Tedious work. Any modern touches must appear the way the original dressmaker intended.

  “Don’t,” Lucy said. “I’ll bug out early on you one night. Sleep well.”

  Collecting her tablet, Daffy started for her suite, the Princess Charlotte, but when she passed the stairs, she saw a light in the foyer spilling out from what could only be the Queen’s Library.

  At lunch Cranston announced he was bringing down the King Titus chair in the afternoon. While he wasn’t officially a member of the Royal Trust, he had jurisdiction since the ancient piece was stored at Hadsby. And the less handling the better.