by Pippa Grant
It’s halfway around the world, and it has internet, which satisfies my basic requirements.
Outside, the jagged mountain landscape changes with each curve we take. And there are curves everywhere, because mountain roads follow the path of least resistance. We’re high enough that the tops of the deep gray mountain peaks rising around us are bare and craggly, some still snow-capped despite August approaching, though we’re still surrounded at this elevation by a forest of pine and oak trees.
Or whatever the European equivalent to pine and oak trees are. Gardening has never been my strong suit, even if I like the theory of gardens.
We come out of a curve, and a valley drops off to our right. A town at the edge of a lake emerges below, red roofs nestled among green fields. Across the town, another mountain peak shoots high in the air, and built into the side of that rockface—
Meemaw gasps.
Papaya gasps.
I gasp.
And then I groan and consider what kind of itching powder I’m going to put in Viktor’s sheets.
A fairy tale castle with turrets and stained glass windows and stone archways stretches toward the sky from atop a smaller peak in front of the larger mountain. And floating off the side of the castle are three red, heart-shaped hot air balloons.
Viktor makes a strangled noise, but when I turn to glare at him, his face is impassive as ever.
Sometimes I really want to ruffle that man’s feathers.
“Holy shi—”
I clear my throat, and Papaya rushes to finish with shiitake mushrooms. “Dibs on the biggest bedroom,” she says.
Leonie shifts uncomfortably. “That’s the Abbey of Saint Valentine,” she says. “Quite a common mistake among foreigners. If you peer closely at the hot air balloons—” she glances at me and quickly drops her eyes away— “you’ll most likely notice a Just Married banner on one. The abbey has been among the world’s most popular wedding spots at various points in history. Amoria is the original country of love.” She smiles at me. “I’m sure you’ll find it inspiring, Your Majesty.”
“Leonie, if you Your Majesty me one more time, I’m fixin’ to have Fred leave you a present in your office.”
“House training a llama,” Viktor muses. “Excellent choice of your first hobby, Your Majesty.”
My eye twitches.
His lips twitch.
Damn man got the better end of that twitch. “And I know where you sleep, Viktor,” I add. With as sweet of a smile as I can work up.
“I daresay none of us know where we’ll sleep yet, though I am looking forward to finding out.”
My belly drops at the innuendo. “Me too,” I force out.
“Your bedroom has a lovely view of the abbey,” Leonie informs us.
Your bedroom.
Our bedroom.
We’re getting an air mattress. Or I’m developing an allergy to snoring.
Hell, I’ll own being the one who snores if it gets me a bed of my own.
Something. Anything.
The car suddenly makes a sharp turn onto a bumpy road, and I’m flung sideways into Meemaw, who’s still gaping at the abbey.
We’re a long way from the trailer she raised me in.
The car slows to a stop. A horrific screech outside makes me whip my head around front. Two massive, rusted gates are opening at the speed of a snail. Beyond them is a small fortress of stone, maybe four stories high, twelve or fourteen windows wide, with turrets at each of the four corners. Weeds are growing through the crumbling façade. As the gates creep wider, I can make out algae-infested ponds on either side of the brick road that’s also been overrun with weeds.
Viktor’s face is impassive as ever, but there’s something harder in his eyes.
Which is pretty impressive, given that I’ve seen him smile maybe twice in the entire year since he came into Gracie’s life, so hard is basically his status quo. As far as royal bodyguards went, he ranked pretty high up there with tolerating no baloney and taking his job seriously. The only thing I’ve seen rankle him at all is having Leonie call him “Your Majesty,” which makes it more annoying when he does it to me too.
“Oh, look!” Meemaw exclaims. “Royal chickens!”
A rooster chases four hens across the roadway, feathers flying everywhere, and though I want to work up a smile—Meemaw has always wanted chickens, so maybe this will encourage her to stay—I can’t quite make my smile muscles move.
“This isn’t the castle,” Papaya declares. “I want to live in the abbey.”
“King Roland was ill the last several years, and parts of the estate have fallen into disrepair, but I expect His Majesty will put everything to rights soon,” Leonie replies.
Viktor still isn’t speaking. He’s peering out the window, his eyes shifting rapidly as though he’s taking inventory of everything and silently calculating the hit the royal coffers will take to patch this place back up.
Or possibly like he’s looking for all the security loopholes.
“The gardens in the back are quite lovely,” Leonie tells us. “They, erm, could use a bit of pruning though.”
“We’re moving into the trailer park of European castles,” Papaya mutters.
She might be right, but the most surprising thing is happening.
I’m smiling.
Not because the castle is broken and Viktor’s royal palace is shabby, but because it has character.
It has history.
I’m moving into a new home that’s just as battered and bruised on the outside as I feel on the inside.
But we’re both still standing. And neither one of us has to pretend to be something we’re not. Not with each other.
We just need a little love.
Not that I’m looking for love in Amoria. But if I can give some to my temporary home, I will.
“The coronation will eventually be held at the abbey, of course,” Leonie goes on. “We would be happy to arrange for you and Her Majesty to renew your wedding vows as well, as you hadn’t—”
“Oh, no,” I interrupt the same time Viktor tears his gaze from the castle to frown at her.
“That will be unnecessary,” he says as we pull through the finally-open gate. “We’ve much to do without adding time for ceremonial frivolities.”
Fred the alpaca snorts, spraying llama snot all over Viktor’s crisp blue collar.
“That’s right, Fred,” Papaya says, “we didn’t get to see the wedding either. I should’ve been a bridesmaid, but nooo, they had to go elope at the courthouse. If I ever elope with a king, it’ll be somewhere better than the Goat’s Tit courthouse.”
And there I go, twitching at the idea of Papaya eloping.
With a king.
Viktor purses his lips while Leonie produces a silk handkerchief. “Here, Your Majesty, if I may—oh, yes, of course, you’ve got it.” She flutters her hands to her side, eyes diverted while Viktor nods his thanks and wipes the hard angles of his face.
My eyes flare wide.
Leonie has a crush on Viktor.
Oh, shitballs.
He could have a wife from his country, and here I am, saddling him with three rednecks who will most likely damage his reputation before he’s even formally taken the throne. There was already apparently some hoop-de-doo over the picture Leonie leaked of us kissing in Viktor’s apartment, though for a country that supposedly loves love, you’d think they would’ve been thrilled.
Maybe they were, but I guess kings aren’t supposed to grab women’s asses and have their pictures taken while women they aren’t yet married to are dry-humping them on a counter.
And now I’m imagining the picture, but with Leonie in it instead of me, and something sour rises in my stomach.
Probably I just need some sleep. It’s been a long, busy week. Tomorrow, I won’t care.
When is tomorrow?
I don’t even know what time it is here.
“Well, stitch my knickers and call me Prudence, who is that fine gentleman?
” Meemaw demands.
I twist around front again in time to see a portly man in a royal blue uniform step out of the listing door beneath the portico on the side of the castle. He has silver hair, a slight limp, and a monocle.
A monocle.
“Meemaw,” I warn softly.
“I’m asking for a friend,” she says. Primly.
“You know the only time you ever look me in the eye is when you’re lying?”
She smiles back serenely, and I realize her silver hair is glittering. “Did you—” I start, before looking back at my sister.
Because this is the same child who snuck into Georgia’s beauty salon in Goat’s Tit and replaced the labels on all the hair dye so Misty Worley ended up with purple hair the day before she was supposed to film a commercial for the county’s largest car dealership.
Papaya ignores me and turns to Leonie. “Can you take me shopping for a bridesmaid gown?”
When Leonie doesn’t blink and instead outlines all the shops in town, in addition to some of Amoria’s better designers in other towns, I decide I’m getting delirious and making up stories about her having a crush on Viktor.
Who would be crushworthy if he never opened his mouth. He has that rock-hard protector look about him, and even without the height and the muscles, there’s that way he has of watching a person that never fails to make you wonder if he’s imagining you naked, chained up, or locked behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.
I kinda suspect naked and jailed are about the same for making him happy, though jailed is probably happier.
The car stops, four more people in royal blue uniforms trip out the super tall door, which seems to be hanging crooked despite its height, and I accidentally make eye contact with Viktor again.
My belly quivers, my nipples tighten, and there’s something about that dark gaze that makes hot liquid pool in my panties.
“Welcome home, my lady,” he murmurs.
The sentiment isn’t comforting.
Which is most likely exactly how he intended it to be.
10
Viktor
I’ve never wished to live in a palace. Perhaps because I’ve served in a palace, or perhaps because I was raised with the stories of my grandfather being banished from this palace, I’ve always preferred simple lodgings. I require a bed, a comfortable chair for reading, and access to a toilet and a basic kitchen. No more, no less.
I’ve suddenly inherited much, much more.
All of it in need of attention.
And if this is the state of the palace, what, exactly, is the state of the country? Alexander expressed belief it was in need of help, but I daresay even he was unaware of how much work might be required.
“Are you sure there are men who would go to war over this? Or did you trick me?” Peach murmurs as I assist her from the car.
“Never underestimate a man’s desire to outrank another.” I rather suspect she’s correct. It seems unlikely there would be any duels fought over the palace, and I’ve seen enough of the country’s finances to know it would take a madman to want to fight for this.
Although, if I’m saving my grandfather’s country from madmen, then I’ve already done more than I thought I might. And setting foot on the ground that he once walked and ruled has an odd nostalgia rising in my bones.
Would that my father could be here instead. He missed his own opportunity by mere months.
“Good thing you don’t have to worry about Manning having palace envy if you ever need his help,” Peach adds softly, grounding me firmly back in reality.
Something is clearly amiss, because she’s just referred to Prince Manning with nary a smirk or lip curl. “Are you quite all right, my lady?”
“Jet lag,” she replies shortly.
“Jet lag assumes your body is on a normal rhythm to begin with,” Papaya counters, bordering again on sullen. “Since you haven’t slept in a week, it’s biologically impossible for you to have it.”
“Leonie, Papaya would like her room decorated in pink with bunnies and lambs painted on the wall,” Peach says.
“Leonie, I want my walls painted black and skulls lining my shelves.”
“Peach always wanted black walls and skulls too,” Meemaw says.
Papaya frowns at her sister. “No, she didn’t.”
“She did. And we had a hell of a time covering it up when she decided red was more her style.”
“The color of blood,” Peach says with a smile.
Papaya frowns. She’s in a black dress with red trim. “Can we go jet skiing on that lake in town?”
No one answers, because the rotund gentlemen I recognize as the king’s—as my senior butler steps forward with a bow. “Your Majesties. My ladies. Welcome home.”
Fred the alpaca emerges from the back of the SUV with the help of one of the guards, and he makes a mooing sort of hum.
Thomas blinks twice. “And you’ve brought your own farm animals. That’s…excellent, Your Majesty.”
“Just Fred,” Papaya says. “He’ll need a bed in my room. And I need a book on alpacas since I’m not allowed to touch electronics under penalty of being hung up by my ankles in the dungeon.”
While Thomas and Leonie share a look and mutter to each other in Italian, their tones suggesting alpacas in the castle would be irregular, even for this castle, Meemaw pulls out her phone, pretends she’s being discreet, and snaps a picture of Thomas.
Peach squeezes her eyes shut.
I’d tell her she’s lovely in her ivory pantsuit, but I suspect she’d view the compliment with suspicion, as would I if she were to tell me this bloody tie makes me look extra tall.
And it would hardly aid our ruse of newlywed lovers were I to tell her the bags beneath her eyes make them appear extra blue, though she would most likely appreciate the honesty.
And I am rather captivated by that shade of blue, regardless of its cause.
“My lady, perhaps you should see your accommodations before we decide the best location for your…Fred,” Leonie suggests to Papaya.
“Leave the alpaca outside,” I tell her.
She opens her mouth to argue, but Peach wobbles and sways into me at that moment, as though jet lag and pure exhaustion truly are catching up with her, and I seize the opportunity whilst tucking Peach’s arm into my elbow. “The longer we discuss this, the greater chance of your sister fainting at all our feet.”
I’m reasonably certain Peach will attempt to shave the shape of someone’s genitals into my hair for that, but Papaya’s stubborn mask drops long enough for genuine concern to shine through. She bites her lips and glances between her new pet and her sister.
“If anyone absconds with your alpaca, I’ll order his head off,” I tell her.
She fights a smile and wins, but she also nods. Leonie clears her throat, and Thomas’s eyes have swollen nearly out of their sockets.
Peach squeezes my arm.
It’s a subtle gesture, one that she would undoubtedly deny or blame on being overcome at the events of the past several days, but it warms my skin and causes an irregular bump in my chest, not to mention what it does to my knob.
“To our chambers, please.” I nudge Meemaw, who jumps as though she’s unaware that I’m aware of how many pictures she’s taken of the royal butler. “And if that ends up on Instabook or Twittergram or whichever social media site you prefer, I’ll have your telephone privileges revoked as well,” I say softly.
Peach narrows her eyes at me as we’re led through a door in need of a carpenter and into a hallway in need of a flamethrower.
“Would you like palace staff posting pictures of your sister on the internet?” I inquire.
She grimaces and stays quiet.
And she doesn’t pull her arm back.
Quite fascinating. One might actually mistake us for a normal, functioning couple.
Which is the point. But she’s already acquired what she wanted from this union—guardianship of Papaya.
I quite wonder whe
n she’ll disappear from the castle in the dead of night, leaving me to play the role of broken-hearted king. Despite the final paperwork being left to do, she’s been allowed to leave the country with Papaya. What need has she of me now?
Leonie and Thomas guide us through the side wing of the castle and out to the center courtyard, which is desperately in need of a pruning. “You can access your apartments through the castle proper, of course,” Leonie tells me, “but there’s a tad bit of work going on in both wings, and we thought you’d like to see the flowers and shrubberies.”
There’s a large fountain being choked by the aforementioned flowers and shrubberies, though the water isn’t working and one of the cherubs is missing an arm. And possibly a bucket or a bowl.
But the two men standing behind it, one gesturing animatedly, the other standing still and pensive, are such a welcome sight that I smile my first honest smile in days.
Alexander smiles back at me. “Ah, Your Majesty.” He sweeps a low, exaggerated bow. “We were just discussing having your face sculpted onto this fountain so that you could spit water at birds for all of eternity. That will be all, Thomas. We’ll take it from here.”
“Your Majesty—” Thomas begins.
“Thank you, Thomas. That will be all,” I repeat.
“Your three o’clock—” Leonie starts.
“Is still an hour away.”
“And you’re in need of food and a change of clothing, Your Majesty.”
Alexander’s smile is half-grimace, half amusement. “’Twould be my honor to escort the queen and her family to their new home whilst you’re occupied with your kingly duties,” he tells me. He gives me a hearty slap on the shoulder. “Good to see you, old man.”
“You too, you pain in the arse.”
He’s laughing as he bends to press a kiss to Peach’s cheek. “Welcome to the family, you poor thing. I’m Alexander, but you’re welcome to call me your favorite brother-in-law.”
“Trying to outcharm your brother already, are you?” Peach replies with a smile.
“I do that merely by breathing, my lady.”
