Prince of my Panties (Royal Package)

by Lili Valente

  “If Sabrina and Andrew marry, I’m sure Sabrina will send money home,” Jeffrey says, ignoring my question. “That was always understood in our family. That your family would need financial assistance to rebuild and maintain your estate.”

  I frown up at him. “I know. It always made me wonder why your family agreed to the betrothal in the first place. Not to be crass, but…what’s in it for you?”

  “Your grandfather saved my grandfather’s life.”

  “My grandfather probably put it in danger in the first place. He was always taking his boat out when it wasn’t safe to sail. That’s how he became king.”

  “What?” he asks with a soft laugh. “You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not,” I say. “He was on holiday in Capri, and Grandfather insisted on going fishing during a storm. His older brother was swept overboard.” I cross my arms tighter at my chest. “His body washed up on shore a few days later.”

  Jeffrey’s brow furrows. “That’s not the historical version of events.”

  “It’s a family secret. My great grandfather paid off the Campanian authorities to say his older son drowned in a swimming accident. He didn’t want a criminal investigation or for Grandfather’s name to be dragged through the mud. He was positive it was an accident. The brothers were so close, and my grandfather was devastated. He’d never wanted to be king, especially not enough to murder his brother. He was only nineteen and way more interested in fishing and girls than ruling a country.”

  “Nineteen,” Jeffrey murmurs. “How old was the brother?”

  “Twenty-six.” I watch Jeffrey’s eyes flicker as he makes the connection. “They were on holiday to celebrate his birthday. Something similar happened to my great-grandfather. He and his older brother were spending the summer in Rome when the brother fell down a flight of stairs after drinking too much wine. Also twenty-six. And there are so many others.”

  “Really?” Jeffrey frowns harder.

  “Yes, really.” I smooth a frustrated hand over the top of my wig. “I told you to take a look at my family tree, Jeffrey. I can’t help but think that would have been a better use of your time on the web last night instead of…whatever this is.”

  A bird croaks behind me. I turn to see three giant crows watching us from their perch on the roof of the home closest to the boy.

  The boy who is no longer pedaling in circles.

  Now, he’s parked in the street, staring at us with eyes nearly as dark as the crows’. But he doesn’t look afraid.

  I’m the only one who’s afraid, and I’m starting to realize why.

  15

  Jeffrey

  When Elizabeth turns back to me, her face is so pale I’m afraid she’s going to faint. I step closer, but she backs away with a shake of her head, suspicion bright in her gaze.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she whispers. “There’s no tea shop.”

  “There is.” I nod toward the boy watching us with an unnerving steadiness. “At the end of the lane, inside a center for traditional Romani medicine and cultural preservation.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes go wide. “What on earth were you thinking, bringing me here?”

  “We have to start somewhere, and communities like these tend to be close-knit. If we describe the woman who took you, we might—”

  “We might get beaten to within an inch of our lives and thrown out into the street,” she cuts in with an outraged laugh. “And rightly so. Do you know how long these people have been painted as thieves and criminals? How many governments have used those prejudices as an excuse to hurt them, persecute them?”

  “I do know,” I assure her. “And it’s terrible and unfair, but—”

  “And my family are among the worst of the worst,” she says in a harsh whisper. “In the seventeenth century, Queen Gertrude the First made it illegal for Romani women to have children. Which they inevitably did, of course, because it was the seventeenth century and women didn’t have any kind of reliable birth control, not that a queen should have the authority to outlaw having children, of course. But anyway, when they did have babies, Gertrude sent troops to steal them right after they were born. No one knows what happened to those children, but I can’t imagine it was anything good or even humane.”

  I clench my jaw. Have I made a mistake, springing this on her without warning? But my gut still insists this was the only way to get her to talk to members of this community. “I know. But you aren’t Queen Gertrude, and you aren’t accusing anyone of a crime. The opposite, in fact. You said the woman who took you was trying to help you, to warn you about the curse so you could guard against it.”

  “I don’t know if that’s why she told me,” Lizzy says, growing still more agitated. “I can’t speak to her motivations. Maybe she just wanted to warn me not to put off living my best life. Or not to have any babies I didn’t want to leave orphaned when I died in my mid-twenties. I don’t know what was—”

  “But if you explain to the healers here that she seemed to have good intentions,” I cut in, not wanting to let this spiral any further, “they won’t feel threatened or attacked. And they might want to help you, too.”

  “How,” she demands, “by telling me the woman was crazy? That’s what you think will happen, right? That they’ll tell me the woman was mentally ill and there’s no such thing as curses?”

  My lips part on a denial, but I think better of it. “Isn’t that the best possible outcome?”

  She frowns harder.

  “But we’ll never know anything about this woman if we don’t ask questions,” I say. “Not about her trustworthiness, or her state of mind when she took you. All questions that, quite honestly, should have been asked a long time ago.”

  Elizabeth shakes her head. “I can’t.”

  “You’ve been hiding long enough, Lizzy. The Romani have been living in this area for decades, and you knew it. Why haven’t you made inquiries here before?”

  “Because I was a child,” she says. “A confused child. I thought something had happened, but my sisters and nanny said it hadn’t. How was I supposed to—”

  “But you haven’t been a child for a long time. You could have followed up on this at any point in the past few years. You could have gone to the police and had them help you. There isn’t a statute of limitations on kidnapping in Rinderland.”

  She blinks up at me. “Seriously? Do you have any idea the scandal that would have caused? The division? There are plenty of Rindish people who don’t care for my family, but there are far more who hate the Romani. It would have brought even more pain to these people, and how can I even think about doing something like that? Especially when my family has already caused them so much suffering.” She gestures to our left. “My ancestor tried to annihilate that little boy’s people. If Queen Gertrude were alive today, she would have ripped him away from his family when he was a baby. He would never have had the chance to grow up, let alone ride a bike.”

  “They didn’t have bicycles in the seventeenth century.”

  She scowls. “That isn’t the point, and you know it. And if I had gone to the police, I have no evidence that the abduction even happened. My sisters were both there on the playground that day. They didn’t see anyone take me and insisted I was only gone for a few minutes. People around here can be superstitious, but they don’t believe in magic. The Romani are the only ones who even sort of buy into that kind of thing.”

  I hold her gaze, waiting for her to make the next logical step on her own.

  It only takes a moment before she sighs, and her shoulders sink away from her ears. “Fine, I see your point. But not all Romani people do. I’m sure plenty of them would think my story sounds crazy, too.”

  “Maybe,” I agree, “but women running a traditional healing and cultural preservation center will likely know the folklore, whether they believe in it or not. They might also be more likely to know about a woman who believed in magic so intensely she felt compelled to kidnap a little girl to warn her about
a curse.”

  Elizabeth digs a knuckle into her chin, her brows pinched tight. “But it’s such a stereotype, Jeffrey. Curses and fortune-telling. They’re going to think I’m making a mean joke.”

  I curl my fingers around her upper arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “No, they won’t. You’re a good person, and you mean no harm. They’ll see that.”

  She glances back toward the boy and goes stiff.

  She stands up straighter, rolling her shoulders back as she nods subtly toward the end of the road.

  I turn to see a solid older woman in a black dress with one brightly colored shawl around her shoulders and another wrapped around her head, standing beside the boy’s now-abandoned tricycle. The little boy is gone, but the crows squawking on the roof have multiplied. There are half a dozen there now, pacing back and forth, clacking and gurgling low in their throats as the woman lifts a hand, motioning us forward before she shuffles toward the last cottage in the lane, the one with a van as brightly colored as her scarves parked in front of it.

  “Well?” I ask, shifting my attention back to Elizabeth.

  She nibbles the edge of her thumb.

  “We were invited,” I press, sensing that if we leave now, we’re never coming back.

  “She can’t know what we’re here for,” Lizzy says. “She probably thinks we’re a couple looking for a love spell. Or something for fertility. A lot of women around here do that when they have trouble getting pregnant. They use Romani herbs to conceive, and then after, they grab their children’s hands and cross the street when they see Roma people in the square. It’s horrible.”

  “We’re not looking for a spell,” I remind her. “Just information. And we’re willing to pay for it. I have two thousand in cash, but if we need more, I can get it. There’s an ATM at the marina. I checked last night.”

  She glances sharply up at me. “That’s more than some of these people make in a month, Jeffrey. Maybe two.”

  “My peace of mind is worth a couple thousand euros. Isn’t yours?”

  “It is,” she says slowly, “but if you go in with an offer like that, there’s a chance they’ll tell us whatever they think you want to hear. These people live on the edge. I’m sure they’re as inclined toward honesty as anyone, but when money is tight and you have children and grandchildren to feed…” She sighs. “If it were me, I’d be inclined to lie and worry about the consequences later.”

  “Agreed.” I take her hand, starting down the road toward the crows now watching us silently from the rooftop. “We’ll ask questions first and only bring up the money if it seems like the only way. And I’ll start with a smaller sum. I just wanted you to know that I have that part covered.”

  Her fingers tighten around mine. “Thank you. I’m still upset with you for tricking me, but…thank you.”

  “I’ll make it up to you later. I promise.”

  “You don’t have to make anything up to me.” Her head swivels as we pass the house with the birds, keeping them in sight as we go around the abandoned tricycle. “But promise me something before we go inside. If things get violent or scary in any way, I want you to run for help. Don’t wait for me—I won’t be able to keep up with you.”

  I start to insist that we’re in no danger from an old woman, but then Elizabeth looks my way. The fear in her eyes is so real I know better than to dismiss it out of hand. “All right,” I promise her. “I’ll run for help, but don’t underestimate yourself. You were pretty fast last night.”

  “I was angry last night, not afraid.” She grips my hand so tight my knuckles grind together. “I don’t know why I’m so afraid,” she says, before answering her own question in the next breath. “Because they might know her. She might even be inside that house. She might have been in Rue all along, right under my nose.” She exhales. “I don’t know what scares me more—the possibility that she’s real or that I hallucinated the entire thing. What if I’m crazy? What if I’m not? Then what?”

  “My mother says anticipation is always worse than execution.”

  “Do you think she’s right?”

  “I do.” We pass the van and, proving Lizzy’s dread is catching, I discreetly check to make sure no one is lurking inside. But it’s empty, the yard in front of the home is dotted with concrete planters filled with wildflowers, and a brightly colored sign on the front door reads “All Who Seek Are Welcome” in Rindish, French, and German. “It’s easy to imagine the worst-case scenario. Reality is usually more of a mixed bag.”

  “Except when it’s not,” she says before adding softly, “Remember your promise. Don’t break it.”

  “I won’t,” I lie.

  There’s about as much chance of me leaving Elizabeth behind to save my own skin as there is of me falling out of love with her between here and the cottage’s front stoop.

  16

  Elizabeth

  Bells tinkle as we push through the door into a tiny entryway sectioned off from the rest of the house by a thick green curtain. The air smells of sweet clove incense with a hint of lemony cleaning fluid beneath.

  It is dim and shadowy, lit only by a small lamp on the table against the wall. Next to it, a hand-painted wooden sign reads, “Please remove your shoes and wipe your hands with the cloths provided before entering our sacred space. Welcome!” There is a vase of freshly cut wildflowers on the table, too, a box of wet wipes, and a bowl of individually wrapped pale green candies. The wallpaper is a floral motif—cheery daisies and bluebonnets that wind their way up to the wood-beamed ceiling.

  It is not a scary room, and the faint classical music drifting from deeper in the cottage isn’t scary music, but my heart is still pounding, and when I swipe a hand across my upper lip, it’s damp with sweat.

  I almost turn to make a run for it, but Jeffrey places a hand at the small of my back and bends down to whisper, “Do you want me to help you with your shoes?”

  I blink at him, my mouth suddenly so dry it’s hard to speak. “My shoes?”

  He doesn’t answer, he simply crouches beside me and reaches for the zipper on the inside of my boot. As if from a distance, I watch him drag it down and peel the soft leather away from my leg, only coming back into my body when his fingers wrap around my ankle, gently urging me to lift my foot so he can remove the shoe.

  “Sorry.” I let him guide my foot out, warmth rushing through my chest as he sets the boot in one of the cubbies beneath the entry table and reaches for the other zipper. “You’re good at that. Very gentle.”

  “Thank you,” he says, a smile curving his lips as he attends to my other boot.

  “You’ll be a good dad someday, I bet.” The thought sends a flash of pain through my chest. Before I can sort out why, a husky female voice calls from the other side of the curtain. “We’re closing early to prepare for the new moon ritual tonight, but there’s still time for a reading or for shopping. If you’re here for a medical consultation, you’ll need to make an appointment for next week. Drabarni Barbara is out of town on a spiritual retreat.”

  Pulse speeding again, I accept the wipe Jeffrey presses into my hands, cleaning my fingers as I answer, “We just had a f-few qu-questions. If that’s all right?”

  I bite my lip and roll my eyes. This is why I’ve spent most of my life at home. Communication with non-family members is so…fraught.

  “Of course.” The voice warms. “Av akai! Come in. We’re always happy to teach.”

  I turn back to Jeffrey, who’s already removed his shoes and cleaned his hands, drawing strength from his steady gaze. He takes my wipe and tosses it into a small trashcan beside the table with a nod. I pull in a deeper breath, holding it as I draw the curtain aside, surprised to find a large open space filled with overstuffed couches and potted plants and flooded with natural light. I look up to find skylights set into the cottage roof.

  “We break the rules sometimes.” The older woman from the street shuffles out from behind the checkout desk on the left side of the room, pointing a crooked finger at
the ceiling. “I hope you won’t report us to the preservation society.”

  I realize she means the skylights and exhale in a rush. “Oh, n-no, of course not. It’s lovely. Like you’ve b-brought the outside in.”

  “Exactly.” She smiles. “The closer to nature, the healthier the people.” She motions toward a pair of faded yellow couches in the corner of the room. “Shall we sit? Would you like some tea? Water?”

  “We’re f-fine, thank you. Right?” I glance back at Jeffrey, who nods and murmurs, “Fine,” in agreement. He’s letting me take the lead, even though it’s going to be harder for me to speak than it would be for him.

  But he’s right.

  This is my story. I have to be the one to tell it.

  “Then sit, sit,” the woman encourages, leading the way to the couches, the hitch in her step more noticeable as she weaves around barrels filled with handsewn dolls, shawls, and child-sized musical instruments. “I’m Baba Dika. My specialty is the music, mysticism, and rituals of the Roma people, but I work with herbs and natural remedies, too.” She sinks into the couch against the wall with a sigh. “But I’m not a healer like our Barbara. She’s the jewel of our center. You’ll have to come back to visit her. You’re local, yes?”

  “Yes. I c-can’t believe I’ve n-never been here before.” I wince as the words leave my mouth, then give a little shake of my head as I perch on the edge of the couch next to Jeffrey. I’m not here to exchange pleasantries, I’m here to get answers, and to do that, I need to be honest with this woman. “Actually, I c-can believe it. I had a st-st-st…” My tongue darts out to moisten my lips as I change course. “A weird experience with a Romani woman as a child. That’s why I’m here. To hopefully g-get some perspective.”

  The woman’s forehead furrows, and her gaze cools, but her voice is still gentle. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I’ll help if I can, but I’ve only lived in the village for a few years. I came to help with my first great-grandchild and ended up staying for the birth of the next two.” Her lips curve slightly. “Do you have children?”