by Renna Peak
I suck in a painful breath. I’ve tried very hard in the past two years to not think about what happened at the hands of my father. I haven’t so much as allowed myself to think about it outside of my writing.
Tears well in my eyes. Perhaps my mind hasn’t healed as well as I’d thought. “Father, I can assure you, I have no intention—”
“Right.” My brother interrupts. “Like you had no intention when you whored yourself for that professor of yours. We all know how that turned out. And you’ve fallen right back into the same ways. Spreading your legs for any man who looks in your direction—”
“Enough.” I shake my head. “That’s enough. I’m…I’m married to William. And I’ll admit it—I’m in love with him. And he loves me, too. And I’m a grown woman. I’ll do as I please. If I want to have children with him—”
“We’ve had this discussion more times than I care to remember.”
“Then we’ll not have it again.” I stand, backing myself toward the door. “I’ll abdicate my claim to the throne. I’ll—”
“There’s no need, Justine. You’ll never rule Rosvalia as long as I have anything to say about it.”
I nod. “Then allow me to abdicate now—”
“And have Rosvalia the laughing stock of the European monarchs? I think not.”
I don’t want to be the one to tell him that Rosvalia is already the laughing stock of the world. “Then allow me to live with my husband. Allow me to—”
“Your…husband…has designs on ruling our country. We all know that.” He motions toward Reginald. “And I’ll not have anyone but my son taking my country when I’m gone.”
“But—”
“You’ve become a liability, Daughter. Your marriage was supposed to be a distraction—to get Montovia to look the other way while other plans were being finalized. There were never to be actual feelings between you and the Montovian filth.” He pauses, glaring at me. “How do I say this to you so that you’ll understand, Justine? After today—after I finish negotiating with that bastard King Edmund—your annulment will be granted. And you’ll never see Prince William again.”
William
Andrew is staring at me, waiting.
“I want the whole truth, William,” he says.
“I don’t know the whole truth,” I say honestly. “And even if I did, this isn’t the most appropriate place to discuss it.” I glance up the steps in the direction Reginald has gone. “Any bastard could walk into the middle of it.”
“Then we’ll go somewhere more appropriate,” Andrew says. “Have you spoken with Father about this yet?”
“I haven’t managed to catch Father alone since I arrived,” I say. “But either way, he probably knows far more than I do about anything.”
Andrew’s frown deepens. I don’t know how to get it through to him that I know very little about what King Maximilian has planned—but when my brother gets like this, there’s no reasoning with him.
Finally, he nods, as if deciding something. “We’ll go speak with him now.”
“But our excursion—”
“We can go into the city later. This is clearly of far more importance.” Andrew reaches out and grabs Victoria’s hand. “Forgive me for postponing our outing—”
“No, I understand.” She smiles at him, then looks at me. There’s worry in her face, and I reach up, swiping at the line of blood dribbling down my chin. I should probably clean up before visiting Father—but God knows how I’ll cover up the black eye I can feel forming. I imagine I’ll be getting quite the lecture about proper behavior towards guests.
The three of us head back inside. As we turn down the corridor toward my father’s study, Victoria pauses.
“I should probably leave you here,” she says.
But Andrew shakes his head. “You’re going to be part of this family soon, and you’ll be queen someday—this concerns you as much as anyone else.”
With that, the matter seems to be settled. A moment later, we’re knocking on our father’s door, and we hear his firm voice bid us to enter.
Father is bent over some papers at his desk when we enter, but after a moment, he looks up—and his eyes immediately widen when he sees my face. He rises abruptly, the surprise turning quickly to anger and disappointment.
“What have you done now?” he demands.
“He started it,” I say lightly. “That bastard had it coming.”
My father exhales sharply, and if he were the sort of person who rolled his eyes, I have the feeling he would be doing so right now. With a shake of his head, he lowers himself onto his seat again.
“How many times have I had to tell you boys that such behavior isn’t acceptable? I don’t care what the Rosvalians say or do—we’re above that here. I won’t have my sons stooping to their level. It’s beneath us.”
Andrew steps forward. “Father, we have something important to discuss.” He turns and gestures for me to step forward beside him.
With a sigh, I obey. This wasn’t exactly the way I intended to do this, with half my family here. I simply wanted to express my concerns to Father and learn if he’d discovered anything during his own interactions with the Rosvalians. Father watches me expectantly, his dark eyebrows drawn together. There’s a lot more gray in his hair since his heart attack, but his brows are still quite dark.
“I’ve been speaking with my wife,” I say after a moment. “And she’s brought it to my attention that her father might be plotting something.”
Father leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “This is hardly news—King Maximilian is always plotting something.”
“But whatever he’s planning is happening soon,” I say. “Justine told me that she had an agreement with her father, that he intended to annul our marriage a hundred days after our wedding. All of this was just a distraction. He never intended for this union to last—and he must know there will be consequences for that. If he’s willing to take such a risk, he must have something bigger planned.”
As I’m speaking, out of the corner of my eye, I see Andrew’s head snap around toward me in surprise, and I hear Victoria suck in a breath.
If my father is as surprised as them, though, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps staring at me over his fingers.
“Princess Justine told you this?” he says finally.
“Yes. She says she doesn’t know what her father intends, only that it doesn’t involve us remaining married. He just wanted us to think everything was fine between our two countries while he carried out his true plan.”
“And you said she had an agreement with her father over this?”
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “Originally, yes. She had no interest in marrying a stranger, and her father promised her she could go to graduate school if she agreed to a union for a hundred days. I’ll admit I was surprised to learn of it—and more than a little upset—but I understand why she’d want such a thing. Or why she did want such a thing, before we were married.” I square my shoulders. “But she’s no longer interested in annulling the marriage. My wife and I intend to stay married. The only problem is her father.”
“Who you believe has something larger planned.”
It’s not a question, but I nod. “Why else would he be here? What exactly have you two been discussing since his arrival?”
“The official terms of peace, for one thing,” my father says. “We’ve been drawing up a proper set of terms regarding the Amhurst Valley, among other things, and solidifying what was decided between our countries upon your marriage.” His eyes shift to Andrew, then back to me. “I’ll admit I’ve found him a tad more…agreeable than I expected. What you’ve told me has only confirmed my suspicions. I find it highly likely that he has no intention of keeping to the agreed-upon terms after all.” He gives a heavy sigh. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but I was hoping this marriage would afford us a few years of peaceful diplomatic relations, at the very least. But I guess there’s nothing else to be done.
If Maximilian wants the marriage annulled, then we’ll do it on our terms, not his. It doesn’t give us much of an advantage, but it will keep him off-balance in the short term.”
“Wait, what?” I say. “I don’t want the marriage annulled—and neither does Justine.”
My father’s eyes narrow as he studies me. “Were you not listening to your own words? Your wife admitted to you that this marriage was never anything more than a temporary sham.”
“But she’s changed her mind,” I insist. “She was the one who told me about the agreement in the first place.”
“And conveniently knows nothing beyond that about her father’s plans,” my father says. “If these last few months have taught us anything, Son, it’s that the Rosvalian royal family can’t be trusted.”
I can feel my blood rising. “Justine can be trusted.”
“Can she? Did she tell you all of this before she promised herself to you in front of God and country? And tell me this—when she finally admitted the truth, was it willingly and without any prompting from you? Did she volunteer this information easily?”
I hesitate—it’s true that Justine didn’t initially tell me willingly about her arrangement with her father. She let details slip during an argument—and I’m still not sure she would have told me the truth when she did if I hadn’t found her acceptance letter from Yale. But it doesn’t matter how I initially found out—I know that her mind has changed now.
“Even if she confessed the truth readily,” my father continues, “who’s to say it isn’t some sort of trick? That entire family is full of fools and liars. They’re as proud and arrogant as peacocks but as sly as snakes.”
“Justine isn’t—”
“Do you truly believe her to be different than the rest? She was raised within the same walls, by the same people as her brother Reginald. And I know what you think of him. Perhaps Justine is just smarter and better at hiding her true intentions.” His gaze sharpens. “It’s not the first time in history a man has let himself be deceived by a pretty face, Son. There’s no shame in it, not if we remedy it quickly. I am as much at fault as you are, agreeing to this union.”
I stride toward him, slamming my hands on the edge of the desk and leaning forward.
“You’re wrong about Justine,” I say. “I know you have no reason to trust her, but I think I know her better than you do. And I do trust her. If you saw the way she was treated by those monsters, you’d believe her, too. She has no loyalty to them. She wants to escape them. In fact, she’s currently trying to learn everything she can from her father so she can help us. It’s why she and I were pretending to fight—so she can convince him she still hates me and wants to help take us down. But she doesn’t hate me, Father. She loves me. And I love her.”
My father’s eyes close for a long moment, and I don’t know whether he’s trying to control his temper or simply thinking—it’s hard to tell with my father sometimes.
“We love each other, Father,” I repeat. “We can trust her.”
My father opens his eyes. “She’s playing you, Son. You’re still young—you’ve yet to learn the truth about politics. It’s my own fault—I shouldn’t have let you marry into that family in the first place.”
I slam my hands on the desk again. “You’re not listening to me! Justine and I love each other, and neither of us has any intention of annulling this marriage.”
Rage flashes in my father’s eyes, and he suddenly stands. “I will not see my own son made a fool by those snakes! And I will not condemn our country and our people because you’re behaving like a lust-blinded buffoon and refusing to see the truth.”
Hot anger surges through me, but before I can do or say anything, I hear Andrew’s voice behind me. “Father, perhaps if we—”
“My decision is final,” Father says. “The marriage will be annulled without delay.”
Royal Arrangement
Royal Arrangement unfolds over the course of six novels. Each follows the continuing story of Prince William of Montovia and Princes Justine of Rosvalia. Royal Arrangement is the third of the Royal Heartbreakers Series.
Royal Heartbreaker (Leopold) is available here.
Royal Mistake (Andrew) is available here.
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