But somehow I couldn’t be angry with myself when I saw the smile on Cara’s face. That was more like it. “I’m going to hold you to that, Mr. Porpington.”
For a moment, the dancing light in her eyes distracted me from what she’d said. But as it sank in, I couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“Your son told me your full name.”
“I see. And do you remember the whole thing?” What exactly had Derrick told her?
“Yes,” she said, looking pleased. “Nickolaus de Mimsy-Porpington.”
I kept a straight face, but it was hard. “Not a Harry Potter fan, are you?”
She looked at me quizzically. “I read the books a long time ago. Why?”
I fought back a grin, something that seemed to be happening more than expected around her. “Because that’s the full name of Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor House ghost.”
She was silent for a moment and then burst into laughter, shaking her head. “Oh my god, I feel like such a Muggle. I knew I’d heard it before, but it sounded so long and weird that I believed—” She stopped, her face flushing.
“So you think Falkenberg customs are weird?” I teased, altogether pleased with Derrick’s prank. Sometimes my boy was just like me—or just like I used to be.
“No, no, not Falkenberg. Just… well, you have to admit that some royal families sometimes…”
“I assure you, we’re one of the least weird royal families in Europe.”
“There’s a guillotine on the second floor,” she protested. “I saw it one time when I was lost.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, and then I realized she was right. One of the rooms on the tour had a collection of medieval weapons. “Yeah, but it’s in a glass case.”
“That makes it less weird? Growing up, the most lethal thing in our house was my sister’s knitting needles.”
“All right, you’ve got me, the guillotine is weird.” Shit, how had I gone from quiet and contemplative—and let’s face it, pretty damn lonely—to laughing and joking with the new nanny? That wasn’t supposed to happen. But Cara was just so easy to talk to. For me, at least. And my son, too. That gave me an idea.
“If you ask, I’m sure Derrick will give you a more thorough tour of the castle. Maybe you can also get an idea of where he disappears to.”
She nodded, but her face grew concerned again. “Do you know where he goes?”
I thought about all the places I used to play as a boy. Did Derrick go to any of them? The library? The cellar? The top of the towers? It was a little disturbing that I didn’t know. When we’d lived in the US, I’d known where the twins were every second of the day. Of course, they were younger then.
“I know where you can all go tomorrow,” I said, making a quick decision. “Into town for the market. It’s held every Wednesday and Saturday. The kids love it.”
Cara looked torn. “I would like to see it. But they’re both known flight risks. I’m not sure I could keep track of them in public.”
“The driver will be with you. And for that kind of situation, you can be pretty firm about demanding they stay with you.”
Cara’s forehead wrinkled. “Am I… am I allowed to, you know, reprimand them if I have to? I wasn’t sure if maybe doing so was a deportable offense.”
“No, no, we just break out the old guillotine for that.” I grinned at the shocked look on her face. Was she always so charmingly gullible or just when it came to royal families? “Kidding, of course. But yes, do whatever you need to do to keep them in line. Within reason.”
“It’s different here; it’s their home. But at the market, who knows where they could end up.”
“True, but I doubt they’ll make a run for it, and even if they did, they likely wouldn’t get very far. The driver will be there too, you know. Besides, people tend to… stare when our family is out in public.”
A smile pulled at the corner of her lips, one I couldn’t quite interpret. “I bet they do.” Her voice was high-pitched and lyrical. For a moment, it reminded me of Lisette’s.
“I need to get back to work.” My words were abrupt and sounded harsher than I’d intended. It wasn’t Cara’s fault that I’d never hear that voice again. Only one person was to blame for that, and it wasn’t the young woman before me. “Good night, Cara.”
“Good night, Nico.”
In spite of the guilty thoughts in my head, it felt good. As if there was at least one person in this vast palace who knew that I was not just a prince. Not just an employer. Not just a dad.
Cara made me remember that I was a man, too. Not the kind of man I once was, but a man nonetheless.
8
Cara
“Ugh, this isn’t right.” Frustration bubbled up inside me as I wrapped yarn around a long needle.
“It’s easy once you catch on,” Autumn said.
It was good to hear my sister’s voice even though our current knitting lesson over Skype wasn’t going very well. “How long did it take you to learn?”
“Not long,” she assured me, her smile lighting up the screen of my laptop. “I think your needles are too big for your hands. That’s part of the problem.”
“They were the only ones they had at the market.”
The trip to the town square had been a success yesterday. The children were excited enough about leaving the castle that they’d stuck around until the driver was ready to take us. Once there, they’d had fun examining the booths. Some had food including local cheese and fresh bread that smelled heavenly. Some had local crafts—pottery, jewelry, paintings, and more.
While the twins were sharing a pretzel bigger than either of their heads, I’d browsed through a stack of heavy woolen sweaters. But then I’d come across a woman selling knitting supplies, and I thought: how hard could it be? The answer was very. Very hard.
“That yarn looks amazing, though. Nice and thick and such a pretty color of blue.”
“It’s real wool,” I said, as I tried to keep the row of loops from sliding off the end of the needle.
“Lucky you found that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m closer to fields of sheep than you are.” Even as my sister chuckled in response, I flung the needles and the few rows I’d bungled my way through down onto the desk. “This isn’t working.”
“Well, it’s hard to show you. What you should do is watch some YouTube videos—they’ll be able to show the process up close. And when I send your next care package, I’ll include some different-sized needles.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Maybe I just didn’t have the patience for knitting the way Autumn did. But I’d definitely try again. Even after less than a week, I’d discovered that nights were quiet around here. The children went to sleep early, and a lot of the staff went home or retired to their quarters. Until the prince found me on that balcony last night, I’d spent several evenings without talking to anyone after putting the twins to bed.
“The package I sent should arrive soon, and it’s full of lots of things to keep you warm.” Autumn’s words made me think of the prince standing next to me last night. Even in the cold night air, I’d felt the heat from his body next to mine. At the time, I’d felt a strong desire to take a step closer, to press closer to him.
It was a stupid, pointless wish considering he was my employer let alone a prince. Yet his presence spoke of strength, and not just the physical kind. Sure, his tall, well-muscled body was part of the appeal. I’d yet to come across an exercise room in the castle, but I had no doubt there was one. No way he looked like that sitting behind a computer all day.
Behind that strength, though, there was sadness. I saw it sometimes when his mood switched in an instant. And I saw it in the way he’d stared at the stars last night. Had he been remembering his wife? I’d never know, but it seemed likely. There were thousands of pictures online of the smiling prince and his graceful young wife.
You didn’t get over a loss like that easily.
“Cara?�
�� My sister’s voice brought me back to the present.
“Sorry. How are things going at work?”
“Wonderful. I have a great boss.”
I had to smile at that. Her boss was her husband, Ford. She’d started working for him years ago after they first met, but then she’d left the company while she got her undergraduate degree—something she hadn’t been able to do when she’d been working two jobs and supporting me. She’d gotten her degree shortly before I graduated and was a big part of the PR department at Ford’s corporation. “What’s he up to?”
“He’s the same as always,” Autumn said, and her cheeks turned a soft pink. I tried not to think too hard about why she was blushing. Though Ford was filthy rich and we’d always been dirt poor, Autumn and my brother-in-law had always seemed like the perfect couple to me. The smile on her face told me they still were.
“What about—”
“No,” she interrupted. “Nothing’s changed here. I want to hear about you. You’re the one living in a freaking castle with a royal family. Tell me absolutely everything.”
I couldn’t help grinning at my sister’s enthusiasm. We’d talked on the phone my second night here, but mostly about how my trip went. But she’d asked all kinds of questions in her texts—questions about things that were decidedly difficult to answer in short messages. Truthfully, I did want to talk to someone about my new life here, but I didn’t know where to begin.
However, Autumn appeared ready to dive right in. “What are the children like?”
“Well… to be honest, I can’t really get a handle on them. In some ways, they’re normal. Elyse likes dolls and Disney princesses. She reads a lot. But she’s so quiet. Most days she won’t even look directly at me, let alone talk to me.”
“I’m sure you’ll win her over. You’re so good with kids.”
“I used to think I was.”
Autumn’s face was sympathetic. “It was one bad semester. You can’t let one experience keep you from your lifelong dream of teach—”
“It was one horrible semester,” I corrected. And it definitely wasn’t something I wanted to discuss right now. “Derrick’s a little easier to read. He mostly seems like any other little boy. He reads, too, and he loves Legos and building things.”
“Seems weird how heirs to the throne can seem like regular children.” Autumn’s voice was a bit too casual, but I was grateful she’d dropped the subject of my disastrous teaching assignment. We’d discussed it endlessly, both when it was happening and after.
“Regular, yes, but also sad. They’ve been through a lot.”
“But you’ll reach them. I know you will. You’ve been in their situation. You know what it’s like to lose a parent.” I was eleven when mom passed, so a little older than them.
“Yes,” I sighed. I definitely knew what it was like to lose a parent young. But then I realized something. Autumn had also been in my situation. “How’d you do it? Help me get through it, I mean?”
“I don’t know… I was pretty messed up back then myself. But I tried, to whatever extent I could, to be there when you needed me and give you space when you didn’t.”
Hmm… space. I was certainly giving the twins plenty of that. Or more like they were taking it by disappearing for hours. “I’d love to be there for them, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get to that point.”
“You will. It takes time.” Autumn’s blue eyes, so similar to mine, went from sympathetic to eager in a matter of seconds. “Now tell me about the prince.”
Reluctantly, I grinned. I should’ve known she’d been dying to ask that. Perhaps that was subconsciously why I’d ambushed her with a request for a knitting lesson. “He’s nice.”
“Nice? The mailman is nice. He’s a prince. Tell me everything.”
I looked around the room, trying to figure out how to put it. “Sometimes he just seems like an ordinary man, and other times… I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“Come on, you’ve got to give something,” Autumn said, begging for details.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Well, a few times a week he gives the twins a history lesson. I saw them the other day when they were in the classroom—there’s a window in the door, and I watched them from the hall.”
“And?”
“He seemed really engaged with them. They were definitely paying attention, and I could see all three of them, with their heads bowed over a book. That made me feel like…” I didn’t quite know how to describe how it had affected me, but Autumn did.
She nodded. “It made you feel like you’d been hit right in the hormones.”
I gasped. “Yeah… I guess that’s exactly it.”
“It happens sometimes when you see a man being a good father. Last month I saw Ford holding the neighbor’s baby and my ovaries melted.”
“Really? How come it never happened to me before?”
“I don’t know, but in school, you seemed too busy for men. You always had an overload of classes and all those extracurricular activities. Maybe being around the prince is showing you what you’ve been missing. Tell me more about him.”
“He, um… he definitely looks the part.” One corner of my mouth twitched upward and heat flooded my face.
Autumn made a noise that could only be described as a squeal. “I knew it! In all those pictures online, he looks downright hot but also somehow kind of… noble, if that makes any sense.”
I nodded. I felt the same way. “The way he stands, the way he carries himself… it’s not too hard to imagine him in a suit of armor, yielding a sword to save a village from a warlord. But he’s also modern, too. I could picture him in a tuxedo mingling in Monte Carlo with the European elite.”
“Like James Bond? But I saw a picture of the prince in a tux… very nice.” Autumn winked at me. “Of course, there was a lot of other things online. Sounds like he used to be a hell-raiser when he went to school here.”
That was true, but I didn’t want to dwell on it. That was definitely not the man whom I knew. “He’s definitely more reserved now.”
“What’s he like?”
She was curious, and I didn’t blame her, but still, I hesitated. Partly because I wanted to respect the prince’s privacy, but also because I didn’t really know. So far, he’d seemed like two different people. One was a charming, easygoing, good-humored man. And the other was a closed-off ruler who seemed to disapprove of fun—and me. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“Everyone likes you,” Autumn responded.
“Unfortunately, that’s not true.” Yet even as I said the words, I hesitated. The thing was… usually, even if someone took an initial disliking to me, I’d win them over eventually. Well… at least until last Fall. Not that things were looking very promising here. The prince seemed ambivalent at best, and the kids and I weren’t off to the great start. The queen definitely didn’t approve. Come to think of it, the only person in the whole castle I could count as a fan was Gretchen. That made me want to go find her and give her a hug.
But Autumn had asked about the prince. “I just… I never know how he’ll be when I talk to him. His mood can change on a dime.”
“You only just got there. Give yourself a bit longer to get to know him. Who knows, there might be a Prince Charming under that sometimes-gruff exterior.”
I scoffed. “I’m afraid there’s only going to be one Cinderella story in this family.”
“You don’t know that,” Autumn teased. “Maybe some mice and birds will come along and sew you a ballgown.”
I couldn’t help smiling at that image. “If that’s going to happen to anyone, it’ll be you. You’re the one who lost her glass slipper.”
“That was a silver sandal! And you’re the one living in a castle with a prince. That makes you Cinderella.”
“Then I guess you’re my evil non-stepsister.”
“And don’t you ever forget it,” Autumn replied.
We chatted for a
bit more, and it lightened my mood. But she got serious and big-sistery again at the end of the conversation. “Don’t be down, Cara. You’ll win those kids over. The prince, too. I know you—you can do anything you set your mind to.”
I thanked her and said goodbye, but in my heart, I knew she was wrong. Up until this past year, I’d believed that, too. Hard work had gotten me a scholarship and admission to the university of my choice. Hard work had gotten me roles in small theater productions.
But hard work couldn’t overcome anything. I’d learned that from the high school I’d taught at last year. If “taught” was even the right word.
Try as I had, I’d never managed to get through to most of my students. The deck was too stacked against them. And then the one student I thought I’d truly reached would’ve been better off if she’d never met me.
I hoped that in the future, Derrick and Elyse wouldn’t feel the same way.
9
Cara
“Please hold still, Your Majesty,” Gretchen said, her hands full of Princess Elyse’s dark, glossy hair. Despite Gretchen’s words, I hadn’t seen Elyse move a muscle in at least ten minutes. Was it normal for a seven-year-old to be so motionless? I didn’t have much experience with children at this age, but it didn’t seem like it.
As I watched in amazement, the braids that Gretchen had pinned between her fingers turned into an elaborate updo. If this were my first day, I might ask what the special occasion was, but now—two weeks in—I knew better. Gretchen spent this long on Elyse’s hair every morning, and Elyse never said a word while she did it.
But that didn’t stop Gretchen from talking. “Your hair is so much like your mother’s, Princess. I used to do this for her, too. She had a beautiful head of hair just as you do.”
Dashing: A Royal Cinderella Billionaire Story Page 6
