by Renna Peak
“You are the most beautiful woman I know.” He takes another step toward the bed. “You’re more beautiful today than I’ve ever seen you.”
Damn it, why does he have to say stuff like that? It makes it impossible to not cry. All I can do is bite my lip and shake my head. I know what he’s saying isn’t true, but it’s nice to hear all the same.
“I’ll only be gone a few days, I promise. Maybe not even that long. I…I just have something I need to do. And I promise you, it has nothing to do with sleeping with another woman. Believe me, I’ll wait until you’re ready. Even if I have to wait until Matthew graduates college, I’ll wait for you.”
“God, I hope it isn’t that long.” I can’t help but laugh through my sniffles.
He walks to the edge of the bed and leans down to kiss me for a moment. “Neither do I.”
Andrew
ONE WEEK UNTIL THE WEDDING
We’re down to one week until the wedding, and there’s not nearly enough time to get everything done. I wasn’t expecting adding a second couple to the ceremony would mean so much extra work—but true to my word, I haven’t asked Leopold or Elle to raise a hand to do any of it. In fact, my brother appears to have taken off for a few days to God knows where.
I spent all morning with our press secretary, going over everything for the big day—which media outlets would be allowed, when we’d be posing for official pictures, and all those endless details. Victoria spent the morning with my mother, previewing the flower arrangements. She’s seemed a little better since our talk last week, but I suspect it’s just for show. Every once in a while she’ll let her guard down, and I’ll see the flicker of something in her eyes that makes me feel terrible.
After everything we’ve been through, does she still believe she’s not enough for me? That I can’t be happy and fulfilled with her by my side? I thought we’d settled the matter, but it still feels like there’s something simmering beneath the surface, something unresolved. Everything was fine before we actually started planning the big day—is this what weddings do to people? Bring out the issues you didn’t even know you had?
I return to our suite, and I find Victoria in the closet, staring down at a beautiful carved wooden box.
“What’s that?” I ask her.
She jumps—apparently she didn’t hear me come in behind her.
“Your mother gave it to me for the wedding,” she says. “She told me it could be my something borrowed.”
I reach around her, lifting the lid on the box. Inside, a small tiara rests on a bed of dark blue velvet. It isn’t particularly large or ostentatious, but the diamonds twinkle brilliantly in the light.
“She said she wore it at her wedding to your father,” she says. “It was passed to her by your grandmother, who wore it at her own wedding. Apparently it’s now a tradition for the future queen to wear it when she marries the future king.”
“I don’t know much about these things, but it looks lovely. Have you tried it on yet?”
She shrugs. “I’d feel silly wearing something like that. But maybe once I’m in my dress…”
There’s something uncertain in her voice again, and I’m immediately concerned. She knew when she accepted my proposal that she’d one day be queen—is she getting cold feet now?
I reach down and carefully pick up the tiara. It’s a delicate thing, and I know it would look lovely against Victoria’s dark hair.
“Would you try it on?” I ask softly. “For me?” Maybe once it’s on her head, she’ll realize there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s simply a tiara.
She hesitates.
“Please, Victoria,” I say. I smile, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s not like I’m asking to see you in your dress—though I’ll admit I was tempted to sneak down to your last fitting and get a preview.”
That earns me a smile, albeit a small one.
“Only for a second,” she says, taking the tiara from me.
“Who knows—maybe you’ll realize you like tiaras and decide to wear one all the time,” I say. “It would be well within your rights, you know.”
“I doubt that’ll happen,” she says, but she’s still smiling as she places the tiara on top of her head. I help her tuck the ends of it into her hair.
When it’s securely in place, I take her by the shoulders and turn her to face me, looking down at her. As I suspected, the sparkling, crystalline diamonds look stunning against her hair, twinkling like stars in a midnight sky. And their glistening only seems to emphasize the brightness of her eyes. In short, she looks even more breathtaking than I imagined she would. Rather than overpowering her natural beauty, the tiara only emphasizes it.
“What?” she says. “Why are you looking at me like that? It looks ridiculous, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all,” I say, and I startle myself with how deep and ragged my voice suddenly sounds. “You look…” I’m not even sure I could put it into words.
She pulls away from me and strides over to the mirror. As she studies herself, I come up behind her, standing just behind her shoulder.
“You look beautiful,” I say, finding my tongue again. “It suits you.”
I always knew she would make a splendid queen, but seeing her like this makes it suddenly very real—in my mind I see her by my side as Montovia grows and flourishes, see her growing old with me as we rule over this country I love. It’s the most wondrous thing I’ve ever imagined.
And for a moment, I see the same wonder in her eyes—she stares at her reflection as if she seeing the same intoxicating vision of the future. Her cheeks color slightly as she reaches up and gently touches the side of the tiara with her finger, as if she can’t quite believe how well it suits her.
But suddenly that wonder is gone from her eyes. She looks away from her reflection, turning abruptly from the mirror.
“I was right,” she says. “It looks silly on me.”
“Far from it.”
“You don’t have to say that,” she says, pulling it off her head. “I’m sure it’ll look fine when I have that giant dress on, but when I’m wearing normal clothes it’s kind of ridiculous. I feel like a little girl playing dress up.”
“You’re not a little girl. And it doesn’t look like a costume. It looks…right.”
She places the tiara back on its bed of velvet and glances back up at me. “Looking right and being right are two different things. For the record, though, I still think it looks strange on me.”
“Victoria—”
“I appreciate what you’re doing, but I’m allowed to think it looks strange,” she says sharply. “I love that your mother respects me enough to pass on the tradition, and I’m happy to wear it at the wedding, but I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t look or feel ridiculous. A tiara just isn’t me. It’ll never be me. Just because we’re getting married doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to morph into an elegant, perfect little princess, and if that’s how you see me, we’re both setting ourselves up for a lot of heartache.”
She closes the box, shutting the tiara away.
“I…I’m not expecting you to change into a ‘perfect little princess,’” I insist. “But I think you’re selling yourself short, Victoria. You’re perfect as you are—I love you as you are—and you’re more suited to the life ahead of you than you seem to believe.”
“I think I would know that better than you, don’t you?” she says.
I frown, stepping closer to her. I don’t know what’s come over her, but she’s worrying me more and more with every word that comes out of her mouth.
“What’s really going on, Victoria?” I ask her gently. “I thought we’d settled all of this long ago.” First concerns about not being able to have a baby, now concerns about whether or not she’d make a suitable queen… Why are all of these fears resurfacing now?
“I…” Her voice trails off as she looks up at me. “I love you, Andrew. I love you so, so much. But all of this… Sometimes it feels like too much.”
“Too much for what? Victoria, what are you saying? You told me you weren’t having second thoughts—”
“I’m not. I still want to marry you. I just…” She shakes her head again. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know if I can.”
Victoria
Andrew takes a step back, eyeing me up and down for a moment. “You’re afraid.”
“It isn’t that. I—”
“I need to take a walk.” He straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin. “I…I’ll see you later.” He turns on his heel and walks out of my suite.
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. I suppose it’s ridiculous to want him to understand what’s going on in my head when I’m not sure I do myself.
But I’m not going to sit here alone and feel sorry for myself. I’m sure Andrew is running off to his mother now, and she’ll likely call me in for a chat over tea this afternoon to try to talk me out of whatever it is Andrew thinks I’m going to do.
There’s only one way to avoid that. I pull on my coat and leave my suite, too.
It’s snowing when I finally make it outside—much harder than it was last week. I’d always thought of Montovia as a kind of winter wonderland, but it hasn’t been that way this year. There’s barely been a dusting of snow, and that melts off all too quickly.
I draw in a long breath of the icy air as I make my way to the gym. I should do this more often—come outside and take a breath. There’s something almost freeing about being outside the palace walls.
As soon as I get to the gym, I pull off my coat and trade it for a set of practice fencing gear. Before I came with Andrew to Montovia, I hadn’t fenced since college. And I don’t come out here nearly enough anymore—there really isn’t anyone to spar with any longer.
I pull out a practice dummy instead before I choose my weapon. I take a larger épée than I normally would—there’s something about swinging a heavier sword than I normally would that instantly takes the edge off my stress.
Something takes over inside me—some rage I didn’t realize I’d let build up as I have. I stab at the dummy, and an almost primal scream comes from my gut. I hit it once, twice, three times, finding a new bubble of anger each time.
It isn’t until I take my fourth swing that I notice anyone else is there.
William has only put on his chest protector—he isn’t wearing his mask yet. “What did poor Albert ever do to you?”
I laugh for a second—probably more from surprise than from his joke—before tears fill my eyes again.
Andrew’s brother steps toward me. “What is it, Victoria?”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing. Do you care to fence?”
He lifts a brow. “After what you just did to Albert? I think I’d better pass for today.”
“Albert, huh?”
William grins. “You should ask Andrew about it. The real Albert was one of our fencing instructors. Horrible man. Made us run laps around the grounds if we so much as missed a point. We took to calling the dummy Albert so we could…” His grin widens. “Well, I suppose so we could abuse him the way you were just doing.”
“Everyone needs an Albert.”
“Indeed.” He smiles at me for a moment. “Something is troubling you. Wedding issues?”
I glance out the window before I turn back to him. “The snow is really coming down.”
He chuckles. “Way to change the subject.” He rubs his jaw as he looks out the window for a moment, too. “I’d heard we might get a few meters out of this system. But you never know. It could be more.”
“A few meters?” I blink at him a few times. “We’re supposed to have the grounds open for the townspeople—”
“And we will.” He shrugs. “It would have to snow several meters before anything would close down. This country is used to getting a little snow.”
I nod, finally setting my épée aside. “How is Justine?”
His smile changes from a grin to one of genuine happiness. “She’s amazing. She’ll be along in a few more days. Lots of queen work to do and all.”
I can’t help but return his smile—he really is in love with her. After everything that happened between the two of them, it’s nice to see. “How is that going?”
He shrugs. “I can’t complain. She’s taken to it like a duck to water, of course. She was born to be queen. I…” His voice trails off, and he looks out the window again. “I still haven’t quite found my place. I imagine once the babies are born, she’ll allow me more responsibility. But as for now, I’m mostly in the way.”
“Right.” The babies—I’d almost forgotten that Justine is pregnant, too. Something new winds up in my chest, and I have to grit my teeth. “I don’t think I’ve been able to offer you my congratulations.”
His brow arches, and his smile falls. “It isn’t fair, is it?”
“No.” I grab the épée again. “It isn’t.”
“Well, don’t harm the messenger.” He glances at my weapon. “I thought you’d gotten past all this.”
“I had.” Fresh tears fill my eyes, and I do all I can to blink them back. “I’m an idiot.”
“I thought that title was reserved for me.” He grins. “What is it, Victoria? It can’t be that bad. And truly, you could grow a second head and my brother would still think you were sent to him from heaven.”
I wish his words made me feel the least bit better, but all I can do is try to keep blinking back the tears. “I did something stupid.”
“As stupid as Andrew did in Prague?”
“No.” A small laugh escapes me. “I don’t think I could do anything that stupid.”
“Then tell me. As long as whatever it was doesn’t get me in trouble with Justine, I promise I’ll keep your secret.”
“It’s nothing like that…” I can’t even believe how dumb I am—how stupid I was to think I could change anything. “I just…I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. I’d talk to Elle, but—”
“She’s preoccupied. I understand that. And Sophia?”
“Too young to get it.” I love their younger sister like she’s my own, but she’s still pretty immature about a lot of things. “I just…” I sigh. “I probably shouldn’t say anything.”
He steps toward me, taking the épée out of my hand and setting it back on the stand. He takes my elbow and guides me over to one of the benches on the side of the gym, motioning for me to take a seat.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me.” He looks over at me. “And I promise not to judge. Or to tell Andrew, if that’s what you want.”
I nod, looking down at my hands. “I thought…I thought I’d see what I could do about my…situation. As a wedding gift to him.”
“And by situation, you mean…?”
“My infertility.” I look up at him for a second before dropping my gaze back to the ground. “I thought I’d just go talk to a few doctors. And I did. I told him I was going to Berlin to look at some wedding things, but really I went to a doctor in London. Then another in Paris.” I sit upright, looking back over at him. “I was so stupid.”
“You should have told him. He would have gone with you.” He reaches over to squeeze my hand. “He could have at least been there when they gave you the news—”
“That’s just it, though. The doctor in London told me my case was hopeless—he said I should look into adoption. But the doctor in Paris…” I have to bite back my tears. “He said there was a chance. A small one, but a chance. He proposed a series of four surgeries…” My voice chokes, and I can’t finish my sentence.
“God, Victoria. That would…that would change everything. Andrew will be so, so overjoyed.” He shakes his head. “The fact that you would be willing to go through with that…” He squeezes my hand again. “He’ll want to be there with you. When you do them.”
“I already did. The first one, anyway.” I have to close my eyes—the memory of the incredible pain—both
physical and mental—is still too fresh in my mind. “He tried to do the procedure and things were worse than he’d thought. He couldn’t do it. It failed.” I look up at William as tears spill down my cheeks again. “I failed.”
“Oh, Victoria.” He pulls my hand into his, clasping it with the other. “You need to tell Andrew. He’d want to know.”
Andrew’s voice booms over my shoulder. “I’d want to know what?”
Leopold
This might be the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done. And given my personal history, that’s saying something.
It feels like forever since the last time I set foot here, but in reality it’s only been a few months. Elle and I escaped here to Rio de Campo for a short vacation not too long ago, returning to the place where we first met. Now, as I stare at the medical clinic where I first laid eyes on her, I find it hard to believe how much has happened in the time between.
I always forget how wet and thick the air, here on the edges of the Amazon rainforest. My shirt already clings to my damp skin, and I swat absently at a mosquito buzzing around my ear.
“It’s changed a lot,” says Matthias, nodding at the building in front of us. “I almost don’t recognize it.”
I smile, glad that my friend could come along at such short notice. “Elle’s done a great job, even from afar. She makes sure they have everything they need.” Before we leave, I plan to stop in and get a full update—talk to the new doctor and other staff members, take pictures of the updates to the facility, look at the latest records. I know she’ll appreciate it, and it’s the least I could do.
Right now, though, there’s something more important on my list.
I turn and start down the road, Matthias beside me. A short way into the village, we come to La Playa, the hostel run by Elle’s brother Owen. Like the clinic, the hostel has had a bit of a facelift in the past year. Despite—or because of—some of his less-than-savory hobbies, Owen seems to have a knack for attracting young adventure travelers to this bit of rainforest. La Playa is doing quite well—even the sign above the door is no longer crooked.
