by J Santiago
“Of course, Your Highness,” he said. His tone belied nothing—not anger, not annoyance, not familiarity.
Tristan jumped to his feet like the athlete he was. He bowed before his princess and stalked to the door.
When it shut behind him, Eleanor held her hand out to Millie. “I need my clothes, and you’ll have to fix my hair. Make sure Juliana is ready. It’s time to go.”
Fifteen minutes later, Princess Eleanor and Princess Juliana, surrounded by their security detail, departed St. Peter’s Training Ground to the cacophony of clicks from the press corps cameras. With the rain beating down upon them and the gray mist following them through the gates, the morning already seemed like a dream to Ele.
4
3 June
Welston House
A light knock preceded the opening of the door, but Ele still fumbled with the iPad she held in her hand. It bounced against the arm of the chair before she could wrangle it behind her back just as Millie slipped into the room. Ele primly placed her hands over her knee as she crossed her ankles, like she was posing for a state portrait. All she needed was a jewel-encrusted tiara to complete the picture.
“I thought we had a couple of minutes before it was time to leave.”
Millie fidgeted, her weight shifting from side to side, proclaiming her nervousness. Ele braced.
“The queen has requested your presence.”
“Now?”
There was nothing wrong with what Ele was doing, but a summons from the queen always had the effect of making her feel like the kid who had been caught stealing the proverbial cookie from the cookie jar. It wasn’t as if there was no love between them. She knew the queen loved her very much—maybe.
She started to stand but remembered the evidence of her moment of weakness and remained poised in the chair. “Is Jamie being summoned too?”
Millie glanced away. “I wouldn’t know.”
Ele let the evasion stand. Millie, much like Charlotte, knew everything. The undercurrent of gossip among the staff members was legendary. The unplugged leak from the queen’s council trickled out to all the royal residences like tributaries of a flooded river.
“Is he in his office?”
“He is.”
“Can you see if he has a moment for me?”
Millie bit her lip and shifted her feet again. “I know you have the iPad. And I know what I’ll see later when I go to wipe the history. You can stop pretending.”
Ele’s spine stiffened briefly before she unfolded her hands and pulled the device from behind her back. She stood and deposited it into Millie’s waiting hands.
“You won’t see much. He’s been especially quiet the last few days.”
“Maybe Sir Nico put out a gag order.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Of course.”
“I’m going to see Jamie.”
Ele left the room, Millie, and the way-too-tempting iPad behind.
Long ago, this estate had been planned as the ducal home for the next in line to the throne. The tradition still stood. Jamie and Ele had grown up in the house, and after their university stints and Jamie’s time in the Royal Navy, they had found themselves back here. It was not one of the familial homes open to the public, but its proximity to Shuffington Palace meant they had regular access to the seat of government and a bustling city life around them. She both loved and hated the house. The portraits and gilded fixtures, the furniture and sprawling staircases, the endless rooms and glorious ceiling meant it was both a castle—housing the royal family in elegant casings—and a home—trapping them with frightening memories.
Ele’s heels clicked on the parquet floor, announcing her arrival before she rounded the corner into Jamie’s office.
“None of the etiquette training quite paid off for the elephant feet,” Jamie teased.
Despite herself, Ele smiled. “I blame walking with a book on my head. It weighed me down, and I had to work harder to get anywhere.”
“Quite a believable theory actually,” he said with a smirk.
Jamie came out from behind his desk, unrolling his sleeves and fastening the buttons. When he reached Ele, he pulled her into a brief hug. “It’s lucky we’re here at the same time. I feel like our schedules have been opposite each other.”
Ele smoothed her skirt for something to do with her hands, refusing to address the deliberate avoidance she’d engaged in over the past two months. “We see each other.”
Jamie turned away and walked to the sitting area. “Sit,” he invited as he lowered himself into the brown leather club chair.
Once Ele was settled, she got straight to the point. “I’ve been summoned to the palace.” When no reaction was forthcoming, she continued, “Do you know what for?”
Jamie didn’t say anything for a bit. His gaze was focused just beyond Ele, into a distant thought only Jamie could see.
“James?” Ele said finally when the silence threatened to drive her mad.
He blinked, returning his gaze to her. “Do you want me to go with you? I’m sure Charlotte can make my excuses if you need me.”
Ele startled. “Do I need you?”
Before, as children, Jamie and Ele had been inseparable. Mischievous, often indulged, and adventurous, they enjoyed their share of scrapes. When Jamie was diagnosed with Leukemia, their dependence on each other only increased. And when he went into remission, the bond was so cemented, no wrecking ball or chisel could come between them. They bore their studies, their troubles, their triumphs, and their punishments together, as one. As the official duties had increased over the last couple of years, they’d found less and less time together. And they’d learned to fight for themselves rather than for each other. Jamie’s offer, therefore, indicated a summons more serious than Ele had imagined.
Jamie didn’t look away. “Perhaps,” he answered cryptically.
Ele instinctively shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine.”
“If it’s any consolation—”
“Your Highness,” Robert said from the door, “we need to leave for the palace.”
Ele stood.
Jamie grabbed her hand as she walked by. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
With that ominous promise ringing in her ears, Ele followed Robert to the car.
“Her Royal Highness, Princess Eleanor, Your Majesty.”
Ele dropped into a deep curtsy at the entrance to the royal chambers. She waited, head bowed, for the command of her queen.
“Eleanor,” the queen intoned, “come in.” The words were delivered, a jovial package wrapped in maternal ribbons, but nevertheless, Ele had waited for them. Because while the words were infused with a warm fondness, protocol must be observed at all times in her presence. She might sound like a doting parent, but you dared not cross her.
Eleanor straightened and walked as regally as she could to the Louis XIV chair awaiting her in front of the queen’s antique desk. In her mind, she replayed Jamie teasingly referring to her as Ele the Elephant, so the smile remained cemented on her face. Before she could sit, she rounded the desk and placed two dry kisses on her grandmother’s cheeks before kissing the royal ring on the hand held out for her.
Ceremony completed and settled in the seat, Ele found herself studying the woman before her. The youthfulness of her grandmother never failed to impress Ele. Of course, she had wrinkles—what seventy-year-old person didn’t carry the passage of time written on their body? But a few wrinkles, a head of mostly chestnut-brown hair streaked liberally with silver, and a blazing intelligence made her grandmother appear half her age.
Lilian’s reign spanned thirty-nine years. She had weathered an economic depression, a number of prime ministers, the death of her only son, a few sordid family scandals, and now, a dull rumble of the masses crying for independence. Her kingdom had been born from the aftermath of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. A former British colony, the three regions of her country—Nava, Armenta, and Toledo—had lived sy
mbiotically for the past one hundred years. But the aftermath of the depression left one region, Nava, in a more prosperous state. Nava’s trade was tourism, and nothing, not even economic woes, kept people away. Weary of the heavy burden of Toledo and Armenta, Nava’s call for an independent state had grown louder in the last decade. As the strife mounted, Lilian remained steadfast in her refusal to part with Nava.
“You’re looking well.”
“Thank you, Grandmama.”
Queen Lilian Charlotte Eleanor Altamirano studied Ele, her penetrating perusal cutting the space between them so much that Ele couldn’t help but feel like a cell trapped underneath the most powerful microscope on Earth.
“Are you well, Grandmama?”
Queen Lil actually cackled. “The health of a woman one-third of my age.”
Ele offered a jaunty smile and let the comment pass. She could calculate quite rapidly and knew her grandmother’s aim to be true. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
The queen stood and walked to the window, seemingly lost in thought. It was a power play Ele knew intimately. If it were a hundred years ago, the queen would have put Ele in a straw house and stood outside with torches, setting little bonfires all around so Ele could feel the heat.
Thank God for the Geneva convention.
“You are nearing your thirtieth year,” Lilian began.
“As is Jamie,” Ele couldn’t resist saying.
Lilian sliced a look at Ele, surely leaving little bloody scratches in her wake. “James has time yet.”
An uncomfortable tingle began in the back of Ele’s neck, one of those sixth-sense feelings that made people duck to avoid a direct hit.
Lilian turned from her view through the bulletproof glass. “I’ve given you time to adjust and deal with the trauma you suffered. Far too much time, if you ask me, and against my better judgment. It’s been twelve years, and still, you adhere to these ridiculous rituals as if they would save you if someone really wanted you dead.”
The starkness of the delivery, the truth of the statement, prompted the heat to rise in Ele’s belly. Not now. She kept her gaze trained on the woman in front of her, the queen who had been both mother and grandmother to three orphans. The woman who viewed all emotions as a weakness to be utilized. She remembered Tristan’s hands on her face, and she calmed.
“Had that day never happened, you would be married by now.” The harsh light in Lilian’s face softened as she transformed right in front of Ele’s eyes, like a reverse Superman. Lilian came to Ele—as a grandmother, not a queen—and sat in the identical Louis XIV chair. She pulled Ele’s lifeless hands onto her own. “It’s time for you to move on, Eleanor. You won’t do it on your own, Jamie won’t force you to, and your staff initiates all sorts of contortions for you.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Don’t try that with me, Eleanor. We’ve coddled you for too long.” Lilian brought her hand up to Ele’s cheek and smoothed her thumb along her cheekbone. Then, as if a switch had been flicked, she stood, regal queen. “We’ve arranged an engagement.”
Ele swallowed hard, trying to keep the emotion off her face. She couldn’t have dreamed this scenario in a million nightmares. She couldn’t even talk, for fear she would open her mouth and she would speak in tongues. No thought could coalesce.
“At the Christmas gala, we will announce your betrothal.”
Finally, Ele strung a thought together. “Do I get to know who I am to marry?”
“Lord Matthew Parker Bennington—”
“Of Nava, I presume?” Ele interrupted.
The queen pinned her with a sharp stare, the point of which made a sheen of sweat break out on Ele’s face and beneath her arms.
“He is currently at sea with our Royal Navy. When he returns from his tour in December, you will officially be engaged. And of course, from Nava. We are in a battle for the future of the kingdom. The independence of Nava would cause a ripple effect not only in our country, but in global politics and economies as well.”
“And there are no stipulations for me to get out of this? Some mandated counseling or secret jewel buried somewhere in South Africa, which I have to find to release me from an ill-fated marriage?” Sarcasm dripped from every word. Now that she’d released her tongue, words spewed from her mouth in a torrent of indignation, disbelief, and desperation.
Ele had expected something like this for years. And the need for a political alliance had grown steadily over the last five. It made perfect sense. And she would have accepted it for what it was. A political alliance, a part she was chosen to play. But some unfulfilled part of her rebelled while she worried about her future husband’s reaction to her “condition.”
“This isn’t some fairy tale, Eleanor.”
“What if I schedule every appearance from now on at 12:17 p.m.? Would that earn me an out?”
“If it were that easy, I would have insisted on it eleven and a half years ago,” Lilian droned in a tone one hairbreadth away from a call to her security detail to lock Ele in the dungeon.
Ele thrust her shoulders back, refusing to give in to the desire to ooze into a puddle of despair right in front of one of the most powerful women in the world. “Am I free to go?”
“No.” Lilian perched against the side of her desk, her tailored wool suit as unflappable as her icy glare. “James is going to America for the World Championship Cup as part of the delegation of support for our national team. Their success can draw visitors here in droves. Seeing the crown prince supporting the team is excellent press.”
Ele stared straight ahead, barely listening to the queen.
“You will join him there for the first game of pool play.”
Ele’s spine snapped straighter as she dropped her gaze to the floor. America. World Championship Cup. National Team. Tristan.
“From there, Jamie will make some goodwill visits, using the United States as his base of sorts. Of course, you know your twin. He hopes to make every game. But in case he can’t, you will go in his stead. We will adhere to protocol. If he is at the game, you will not be there.” She waved her hand, as if the protocol established after the assassination of her parents were merely an item on a grocery list—common. “I suspect I will not be able to keep Juliana here. Thus, she will be your responsibility. If she gets herself in trouble, I will hold you accountable.”
Ele kept her gaze trained on the floor, afraid if she lifted her head, the queen would read every emotion in her eerily similar eyes. Ele couldn’t afford that, as the price for treason was still death.
“Eleanor!”
Ele’s head snapped up. “Yes?”
“You may go now.”
Ele stood and walked to Lilian. She leaned down and kissed her grandmother’s cheeks. When Lilian held out the crown jewel on her hand for Ele to kiss, Ele resisted the urge to spit on it.
She walked to the door, turned, curtsied, and left. She hurried down the hallway, concentrating on the clip-clop of her heels on the floor. She ducked around the corner and leaned against the wall, safe from prying eyes. Robert followed, maybe three steps behind. He warily eyed her, trying to judge her mood.
“Your Highness?” he inquired quietly.
She scooted over and nodded to the space beside her. When he settled against the wall, she sighed.
“What do you know about Matthew Bennington?” she asked in a hushed tone.
Robert’s eyes slanted in her direction, but he kept his body rigid. “Nothing—yet.”
Ele nodded, confident he would find out whatever she needed to know. “Seems we’re going to America.”
“Yes.”
“I owe someone an apology.”
“Yes.”
“Set it up, please.”
5
7 June
Willis Tower, Chicago
“I need an us-ie,” Tristan proclaimed.
“What the bloody hell is an us-ie?”
“More than a selfie. You know, me plus my bros. Us”—Tristan waved
his hand between himself and Rowan and Caleb—“ie.”
Rowan shook his head in chagrin, but he squatted down a bit, allowing Tristan to capture him in the photo. “The caption had better not be stupid,” Rowan grumbled.
Caleb cackled beside him. “But you love the caption this segment.”
Tristan snickered as he grabbed his junk and stuck his tongue out. “Caption this, Ro.”
“Why do I subject myself to you?” Rowan said with a shake of his head. “Wankers at Willis Tower.”
“Good one, Skipper,” Caleb said on a howl.
Tristan squatted down, his phone clutched in his hand, laughing.
“If only your princess could see you now,” Rowan teased.
“Ooh, low blow,” Caleb narrated.
“Not my princess,” Tristan jabbed, but the smile fell away from his face. Straightening, he focused his attention on his phone. He loaded the picture of Rowan, Caleb, and himself with the city of Chicago as a backdrop. “Still want me to say Wankers at Willis Tower?”
He tried to hide the hard feelings behind his happy-go-lucky persona. But every once in a while, something reminded him of his encounter with Ele—her picture on the cover of a magazine, the mention of the royal family on the news—and he would get mad all over again. It was stupid really. Yes, they’d shared some incredibly hot kisses. But he’d shared hundreds of kisses since his fifteenth birthday. His memory of it shouldn’t be more poignant than every other sexual encounter in his life. He could chalk it up to her celebrity or the disparity between her public persona and the reality of who she’d appeared to be on their visit. Something about her intrigued him.
Not that it mattered. He’d never see her in person again. Which was good because if he did, he would either berate her for the shitty way she’d treated him or kiss her until her lips were swollen and sore. As much as he hated to admit it, he wondered if she was thinking about him or if she watched any of his games or if she was sorry for what had happened. But worse, he worried about her. The panic attack or anxiety or asthma—whatever—was one of the scariest things he’d experienced. Seeing her gasping for air, watching the fear in her eyes, had torn him up. He hated thinking about her experiencing it often, but he knew, based on the way her staff had reacted, that it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Even as he felt a bit sorry for her, it was hard not to pass judgment. Really, what could be so bad for her?
