The car slowed to a stop in front of her, and the driver hopped out, but Victoria stepped forward, intercepting him and opening Emma’s door herself. “Good afternoon.”
“Hello,” Emma said, a wave of bashfulness washing over her as Victoria kissed her quickly on each cheek.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come and pick you up myself,” Victoria said. “I’d intended to drive my own car down, but a meeting with the land development board went on entirely too long.”
“Sounds serious.”
“No. I mean, maybe, in that they are all serious, and they all go on entirely too long,” she said, with a slight grimace, “but it comes with the job.”
“Does it?” Emma asked, as the town car pulled away. “I have to admit, I have no idea what goes into being a lady, in any sense of the word, really.”
Victoria laughed. “I hate to disappoint, but day to day it’s not a glamorous existence. Of course, I get to attend some formal events like the arts reception, or ceremonial outings like presenting the book awards at the school, but most of the time I wake up and go to work in an office like everyone else. I spend my days analyzing the real estate market, trying to balance budgets and pay the rent like anyone else.”
Emma looked around the castle courtyard, from the high turrets to the wrought-iron torch stands jutting out below gargoyles and a lion-emblazoned crest. “Must be a lot of rent.”
“We actually own this, but no, it’s not cheap to maintain, which is why everyone in the family bears the responsibility of working to earn our keep.”
Emma eyed her skeptically. Even after meeting Victoria twice, she hadn’t given any real consideration to how the daughter of a duke would spend her time. If pressed, she would’ve guessed at a life of leisure. She wasn’t sure she believed the hardworking, middle-management picture Victoria was trying to paint.
As if reading her mind, Victoria said, “It’s true. Google my family if you have to, but I’ll give you all the inside information. My dad was a barrister until he inherited the title. My mother was in international banking. I also have a younger sister who lives here with her husband at least part-time, and they are both in pharmaceuticals.”
Emma relented. “Okay, that’s surprising.”
“I don’t want to overstate our situation. None of us are struggling financially, but we don’t ever take for granted that all this”— she gestured around the courtyard— “will even be ours in twenty years.”
“Wow,” Emma said, a little saddened by the thought. “Nobility ain’t what it used to be.”
Victoria burst out laughing, the sound unexpectedly rich in its lack of restraint. “Don’t feel too sorry for me. There are a few perks to the position.” She pointed to a nearby four-wheeler with muddy wheels and a large picnic basket at the back. “Want to go see them?”
Emma smiled, her nervousness gone. “I do.”
They rode slowly out of the courtyard and around the back of the main castle residence. Then, passing several large cannons atop an earthen battlement, they drove down a ramp over a rough, stone embankment. Emma held a little tighter to Victoria’s waist, feeling the warmth of her body even through the canvas jacket, until they reached another stone wall. She released her grip as Victoria hopped off to swing open another heavy metal gate and called, “Pull on through.”
Emma’s shoulders tightened at the suggestion. “I’ve never driven one of these.”
“It’s on. Just twist the throttle on the handlebar.”
She scooted forward on the black leather seat, and holding her breath, gave the handle a gentle turn. The engine noise flared, but she didn’t move.”
“More revs,” Victoria called.
She nodded, and with more gusto spun the throttle open. The ATV shot forward, and she lurched back across the seat. Victoria jumped out of the way as Emma buzzed through the opening, then threw up her hand, shouting, “Brake, where’s the brake?”
Thankfully she didn’t really need one as a slight incline past the gate slowed her progress gently enough, and with her hand off the throttle, she stopped in a short enough space that Victoria was able to swing the gate shut and jog to catch up.
“Are you okay?”
Emma nodded uncertainly, her chest rising and falling with each deep breath. Her heart beat rapidly and pumped the excess blood right to her head.
“Are you sure?” Victoria sounded genuinely concerned, and her deep blue eyes filled with worry.
“Yes,” Emma finally managed, “are you?”
“Quite.”
“I thought I was going to hit you.”
“It would serve me right,” Victoria chastised herself. “I can see the headline now, ‘Heiress attempts to impress American literary genius and gets flattened, literally.’”
Emma opened her mouth to respond, but as the words sunk in, she closed it again.
“Did my compliment fall flat, too?” Victoria shifted from side to side, her boots sinking slightly into the damp earth. She then shrugged and wiped her dirty palms across the front of her jeans.
The move was so unabashedly unladylike that Emma’s smile sprang back to life.
“What?”
“You don’t need to impress me. I’m no one special.”
“Are you kidding?” Victoria stepped forward. “After we met at the school, I read all of your books—”
“All of them? That’s, like, almost a book a week.”
“I couldn’t put them down. You create the most amazing worlds filled with women I can’t even imagine meeting, much less being.”
“Says the woman with a castle.”
Victoria laughed, but it wasn’t the same sound that had vanquished Emma’s nerves earlier. “The only thing interesting about me was completed about eight hundred years before my birth.”
“Not at all,” Emma said. “I find plenty interesting about you. You juggle nobility with a day job. You’re equally engaging to sculptors and schoolchildren. You were an attendant to a countess on her wedding day, but you wipe dirt on your jeans.”
Victoria glanced down at the faint streaks of mud across her light denim and rolled her eyes. “My mother would be appalled.”
“So am I,” Emma admitted, “in the best possible way.”
The tension slipped from Victoria’s shoulders. “I like the sound of that.”
“Good. Shall we continue this tour you promised me?”
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?” Emma asked.
“I drive.”
Emma laughed. “Yes, please, and slowly.”
Victoria sighed contentedly. “I’m good with slow.”
They rolled at a moderate pace along the castle’s outermost wall, then down to a winding brook. Following the path of the water, they went past elaborate flower beds terraced up a sharp slope back toward the battlements. Serene garden paths wove amid flowering bushes Emma wished she knew the names of, before dipping under ivy-laden arches.
“Those are my mother’s doing. She loves a proper garden,” Victoria explained. “Hers have become a major tourist attraction in the area.”
“I can see why,” Emma said.
They hugged the bank of the babbling stream as it fell over smooth stones until they came to an old, arched bridge.
“This is Lion Bridge,” Victoria said. “My great-great-great-grandfather built it so my great-great-great-grandmother could ride out and inspect her orchards without getting her skirts wet.”
“How chivalrous,” Emma said, as they crossed the stream safe and dry, then climbed steeply upward.
“Don’t get any ideas. The chivalry faded from the gene pool about the time we started needing day jobs.”
Emma laughed, but the sound died as they crested the hill. Verdant pastureland rollicked and rolled out in three directions, a sea of green blanketing hill and dale until, off in the distance, a tall forest rose majestically to create a natural wall of oak and Scots pine.
“Is this the land you were
managing at your meeting today?” Emma asked, when she found her voice.
“No. This is still family land. Well, technically it’s all family land, but in other places it comes with zoning and estate details and grants and trusts. This is one of the few places I don’t have to worry about regulations or etiquette or responsibilities.”
The explanation sounded wistful, almost mournful. Emma had never considered that someone who lived in a fortress might need to escape to someplace safer, but it was clear that’s what Victoria saw here.
“Is it lonely?”
“The forest?”
“No, the title.”
The air left Victoria’s lungs. Emma wouldn’t have heard it over the low drone of the ATV, but she felt it in the places their bodies connected. The intimacy of realizing something she’d said had taken someone’s breath away made her feel an incredible weight of protectiveness.
Victoria finally said, “Yes.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I understand.”
“I know you do,” Victoria said. “I saw it in your eyes the first time we met. The way you looked at those kids with such a mix of interest and fear. You know what it’s like to be looked up to, you know how it feels to fall short of people’s expectations, and you keep putting yourself out there because you care.”
“I’m afraid you’ve misjudged me. I don’t put myself out there. I’m actually quite the hermit. I only went to the school because the event meant so much to Reggie.”
“Exactly.” They were nearing the tree line now, and Victoria lifted her hand off the throttle completely. “You didn’t want to be there, you didn’t want them to put their unabashed faith in you, and yet you tried to be honest and open with them all the same.”
Emma shook her head. “You make me sound much more valiant than I felt.”
“I know the feeling,” Victoria said, climbing off the ATV and unlatching the large basket. “Shall we sit awhile in the shade of an ancient forest once filled with knights and ladies?”
“I’d like to sit for a while in the shade with a friend, regardless of titles.”
Victoria’s cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink, but she carried on unlatching the picnic basket and removing a large plaid blanket from inside. Unfurling it and setting it on the ground, she motioned for Emma to make herself comfortable. “That’s my family tartan.”
Emma glanced down as she stepped on the emerald and navy wool. “Are we allowed to put something like that on the ground?”
Victoria shrugged. “It’s not the national flag or a family standard.”
Emma squinted at the towers of the castle rising in the distance, where both of those things flew high in the baby-blue Northland sky.
Victoria followed her gaze and smiled sadly. “There’s no escaping them around here.”
“That must carry a tremendous weight of responsibility.”
“No one feels sorry for the poor little rich heiress,” Victoria said, in a self-deprecating tone, as she dropped down next to Emma with a sack of fruits and cheese. “But yes, there are days when I’ve entertained fantasies of burning the whole place down. Or, at the very least, voted with the republicans in the hopes they’d make good on their promise to abolish the monarchy.”
“Really?”
Victoria smiled in a way that didn’t make Emma any more certain about the seriousness of her claims. “Would you like some Stilton?”
Emma blinked at her and then down at the block of blue cheese on the small cutting board in front of them. “Um, sure, but is that whole ‘abolish the monarchy’ thing a possibility?”
“A girl can hope,” Victoria said, then frowned down at her hands as they clutched tightly to the cheese knife. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. Please don’t tell anyone I even joked about it.”
“Of course not,” Emma said, “and you were right earlier when you said I understood those feelings. There have been plenty of times I cursed the day I ever wrote that first book.”
“But they are so good.”
“And you are, too,” Emma said, gently prying the dull knife from Victoria’s hands. “You’re a natural with people. I’m sure you’re adored by everyone in your . . . What do you call it, kingdom?”
“Dukedom,” Victoria mumbled, “but it’s not mine, and probably won’t ever be, and I didn’t want to make today about the complexities of my family line. I wanted you to think I was normal.”
“I do,” Emma said quickly. “You’re by far the most normal member of the aristocracy I’ve ever met.”
“Those other aristocrats you hang out with must be real numpties, then.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Emma said, as she arranged a few Stilton crumbs on tea crackers. “You’re funny and self-effacing.”
“And you like that?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“No,” Victoria said flatly. “None of my advisors find it amusing. The local press is split down the middle between finding me comic relief or a complete example of why the British have lost prestige in the world. I somehow manage to be both out of touch with my average countrymen and too irreverent for the duties inherent in my station.”
“Americans love that sort of character. You’d play very well there.”
“I’ll never forgive my great-, great-, great-, however many times, grandfather for failing to jump on the great American land grab when he had the chance. Alas, I am fated to live in limbo here. Not quite part of the past, but not quite part of the future, either.”
Limbo.
Emma understood the feeling, and for some reason it made her think of Brogan. She couldn’t quite say where she fit, either. Was that why Emma hadn’t found the courage to go speak to her all week?
“I envy the freedom that comes with being self-made,” Victoria continued, relaxing back and staring up at the few wisps of white clouds overhead. “It must feel good to know you’re responsible for getting to where you are. You don’t have to worry if you can succeed, because you already have.”
Emma shook her head. “No, it’s terrifying. There’s no direction. There are so many ways to go wrong, and so few ways to go right. And everyone’s watching you and waiting and dying to know what comes next, and what comes after, and what about after that, and it’s never a yes-or-no question.”
“But at least you get to chart your own path. No one else is standing over you with rules and protocol to remind you that whatever you want to do isn’t the way your great-times-fourteen-grandfather did it, and he was Percival the Great. You’re just Victoria the Placeholder.”
Emma could hear the strangled quality of Victoria’s voice as she choked out the last word. “Hey, you’re not a placeholder. You’re a person. You’re the rightful heir of Percival the Great.”
“I’m not,” Victoria said, then jammed a whole cracker into her mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not male.”
“But your father doesn’t have a son. You said you’ve got only a sister, and she’s younger. The powers that be might not like it, but you will inherit your father’s title.”
“Actually, I probably won’t. I mean, I almost certainly won’t. The rules for passing down titles are still very much based on a male heir.”
“I thought the rules had changed. I remember a big to-do over the last royal baby.”
“The rule changes to the line of succession apply only to the monarch.”
“So, wait. Who becomes duke when your dad dies?”
“Hopefully that won’t happen for a long time, but there’s no clear answer. They might find a male cousin, but, more likely, the title will cease to exist.”
Emma looked across the fields, over the river, back toward the stone castle that felt so much farther away. “What happens to all of this? What happens to you?”
Victoria smiled sadly. “All excellent questions.”
“There has to be a way. This is not Downton Abbey. You have t
o have rights as a woman. You have to have some recourse.”
“I might have, once upon a time. There are plenty of cases throughout history of Parliament allowing a title to pass to the husband of a duke’s daughter.”
Emma let those words sink in. “But you don’t have a husband.”
Victoria shook her head. “Not anymore. What’s the phrase you Americans use? Strike two.”
“And strike three.” Emma did the mental math. “The fact that you don’t want a husband?”
“Maybe I should let go. My sister might make a legitimate claim if I stepped out of the way, but it’s an awful thing to ask of her, the weight of an entire region. The castle is the biggest tourist attraction in Northland, sustaining almost every family within a fifteen-mile radius in some way or another. What if everything crumbles on my watch?”
“It won’t,” Emma whispered. “There has to be a way. We’re living in a new millennium. The laws have to change sometime. You can fight them.”
Victoria sat forward, her blue eyes dark and intense. Emma couldn’t tell if the storm clouds swirling there were born of inner turmoil or inner strength, but the ferocity stirred something that made her heart beat faster. “There might be a way, but it won’t be easy, and I can’t do it alone. And I didn’t mean to bring all of this up today, but since I’ve failed miserably at normalcy, I can at least offer honesty. I need a partner, someone who understands, someone I connect with, and can rely on, and trust.”
The two of them stared at each other for a long, heavy second, Victoria’s blue eyes intensely focused, almost pleading. Then with a soft exhale, she leaned in and kissed Emma. The move wasn’t aggressive so much as hopeful, a silent request. Emma registered the emotions every bit as acutely as the physical sensations, though those were not unpleasant. Victoria’s lips were as soft as Brogan’s, and the caress of her hand as gentle as Brogan’s. The yearning behind the kiss was every bit as compelling as the woman who’d delivered it, and yet Emma felt nothing.
Full English Page 22
