A Nordic King

by Halle, Karina

  “She’s known for her diplomacy.”

  “You and I haven’t been on the same page since the start. That’s disagreeable. But you’re just outright hostile to me sometimes. I’ve only now figured out how to deal with it, but still, I never really know what you’re going to do or say next. Hell, I’m still in shock that we’re here right now.”

  She certainly has a way of making me feel bad.

  Which you deserve.

  “But,” she goes on, “I know that you’re trying to make an effort to be nicer to me. And I appreciate it.” She finishes the rest of her drink like she’s a pro and then pours herself another glass.

  “And yet I’m still driving you to drink,” I remark. I finish my glass and stick it out for her as she pours it to the rim.

  She shrugs. “No. I just feel like letting my hair down, you know? I deal with your daughters all day long, it’s a nice change to talk to an adult. Even if it’s you.”

  “Hey,” I say, giving her a mocking glare. “I’ll have you know I’m excellent company.”

  A wide grin breaks across her face, showing off her perfect white teeth. If she could bottle that smile and sell it, she’d make a million dollars.

  “You haven’t proved anything yet,” she teases. Then her expression grows wistful. “It’s just nice to get out of the palace for once. Doesn’t it feel … lonely, sometimes? It’s so big and drafty and cold and … haunted.”

  “Haunted?” I wonder if she’s talking about Johan and his sleepwalking. The man can look like a ghost sometimes.

  “Not in the literal sense,” she says, licking her lips in thought. “Just … Helena.”

  I stiffen.

  “I feel the memories of her, or something,” she goes on. She sighs, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I know I must sound daft. I swear I’m not normally this kooky.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “I think the walls just hold so much sadness, you know? And everyone inside is doing their best to pretend it’s not there.”

  Fucking hell. She may even be right about that.

  And I’m the biggest liar of them all.

  “Since we’re getting all personal,” she says, coming to the edge of the bed and swinging her legs around. She leans on her thighs, her face closer to me now, her eyes searching my face. “There’s something I’ve been wondering.”

  I hear her words but they don’t sink in. There’s something about the warmth and depth of her eyes that makes it impossible to think. It’s like slipping into a warm bath until you’re so enthralled you wouldn’t even notice if you drowned.

  “What?” I finally ask, and the word comes out in a rough whisper.

  “Nicklas,” she says, and it’s like she’s thrown ice water in my face. “Your secretary. He was…” She lowers her voice, looking briefly toward the girls’ room. “He was Helena’s butler.”

  “I know.”

  “But he was the one driving the car that killed her. Almost killed you, too.”

  I swallow thickly, my gaze dropping to the glass in my hands. “It wasn’t his fault.”

  “I know. They said the roads were slippery.”

  “I said the roads were slippery,” I tell her, looking at her sharply. “I was there, Aurora. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “But why keep him working for you, after all that?”

  Guilt. It’s guilt.

  It’s the lie.

  It’s the fact that Nicklas was never driving at all. That it was me behind the wheel. That it was me who drove off the road. That it was me that killed my wife.

  It was never him.

  And yet his own guilt over his affair with Helena, his guilt over the fact that his actions caused me to lose control, and the fact that no one would ever believe him over me, made him take the blame.

  So my guilt is two-fold.

  One, for killing my wife.

  Two, for making Nicklas a villain in the public eye.

  And he was a villain. Perhaps he still is. He’s threatened many times to ruin me, to write a book, to tell the truth. But he also knows that in order to protect my family, I will lie until the bitter end, and my lies are stronger than his truth ever will be.

  Because in order to tell his truth, he has to tell all of it.

  He’ll have to throw Helena under the bus.

  It’s not something I’m willing to do.

  And I can only hope the same stays true for him.

  So I keep Nicklas employed because if I didn’t, he would have nothing. He would have no job, no future. It’s all part of the bargain. He’s universally hated as the man who killed Helena, and it’s true, it doesn’t matter how many times I tell the world that it was an accident, they still blame him. Just as they would blame me, if they knew the truth.

  I glance up from my glass at Aurora’s searching face. There’s nothing but curiosity and concern in her eyes. Something tells me that of all the people in the world, my secret would be safe with her.

  But I can never test that theory.

  I clear my throat and give her a tight smile. “Let’s just say I believe in second chances.”

  For anyone else but me.

  She frowns at that. “It’s just weird.”

  “Why?”

  Her eyes roam around the room as she thinks. “I guess … because I see him with you and it’s apparent that he despises you.”

  “Despises me?”

  “A lot. And it’s also apparent you don’t care for him either. That, I totally understand. I don’t like him either. He’s rude. Ruder than you are, I should say. I don’t know, it’s just a bizarre relationship to me but obviously none of my business, so...”

  I sit back in the chair and tap my fingers along the glass. “I’m sure it looks that way. I’m sure a lot of things look a certain way when you have no idea what’s happening underneath.”

  “Kind of like you,” she remarks, taking a large swallow of her drink.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” She gives me a steady look. “This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to you like this. To get even a hint of the man you are inside. Who you really are.”

  I bristle at that. One moment I’m being blinded by her smile, the next she’s pissing me off by prying and overstepping her boundaries. “I think you’re assuming too much. Again. And anyway, what about you? At this point you know more about me than I do about you. I have a resume to go on, but that’s it. I can’t find any other information on one Miss Aurora James.”

  I’m watching her carefully so I notice that the spark in her eyes falters just a little and that she’s calculating something, trying to figure out what to say. It’s curious, considering how regularly she just blurts out what she’s feeling.

  “Not everyone can be found on social media,” she says, looking down at the ridiculously pink bedspread.

  “I can see that. So then tell me. Where did you grow up?”

  “A town you’ve never heard of.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s barely even a town.”

  “Just tell me the name. You have something to hide?”

  She glances up at me, her eyes sharp. “No.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Fine. It’s Windorah. In Queensland.” And her accent magically becomes extra Australian. She snarls. “Hey. Don’t make fun of my accent.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” I say in protest, raising my palm.

  “You’re smiling.”

  “Am I?”

  “Figures the only time I make you smile is when I’m talking full-on Aussie,” she says, shaking her head.

  “Back to the questions. You never went to school. Or if you did, it’s not on your resume.”

  She shrugs. “I didn’t think school was for me.”

  “But you’re terribly bright.”

  She bites her tongue. The pink sliver of it peeking through her teeth makes a hot chill run over my skin. “I guess I
should take whatever compliment I can get, huh?”

  “I just think you would have been a natural teacher. Or at least a history major or archeologist with your love of Greek gods. You’re always teaching the girls something, your brain is like a library.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” she says with a twitch of her shoulder.

  She’s being purposely obtuse. “And your mother? Your father? What did they do? Did you have any siblings?”

  The corner of her mouth quirks like she’s just eaten something sour. “Well, my mother was a whore and my father was a drunk. That’s who they were, that’s what they did. And thank god I had no siblings because I barely survived myself, just by the skin of my teeth. I’d hate to think what would have happened if I had a sibling to take care of.”

  I’m stunned. Sure, Aurora is a little rough around the edges when it comes to decorum and she definitely lacks a filter. But she seems so worldly. Put together.

  Happy.

  Are we both wearing masks?

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly, feeling horrible that she had to admit that to me.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she says with a sigh, picking at the lint on her tights. “It is what it is. Life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, yadda yadda, right? My father did love me, so I knew that much. I had that much. But he died when I was ten. Then my mother was left to raise me and I rarely saw her because she honestly wanted nothing to do with me. So it was just me in that shanty with the leaking tin roof, in the middle of the fucking outback. Thank god it hardly ever rained.”

  She glances up at me, raising her chin, as if I’m pitying her. “To answer your question more fully, I didn’t go to school because I dropped out of the last year of high school. I didn’t have any fucking money for university anyway. But it’s fine. There are books and online classes. I learn what I can when I can. Just for fun. And when I did save up enough money, it was to get the fuck out of dodge.”

  “Dodge? Is that a town?”

  “It’s a saying. I was in Brisbane for a while, which yes, is a town, and I was waitressing and after that I came straight to Paris.”

  I stare at her. I stare at her because I can. I stare at her because I’m putting puzzle pieces together in my head.

  I stare at her because she’s beautiful.

  “Anyway,” she says, finishing her glass and placing it on the bedside table beside the unicorn clock. “I think it’s best I go to bed before I really start telling you my life story.”

  She gets to her feet and instinctively I reach out to grab her hand. She stares down at it but I can’t tell if she’s disturbed or not. But I don’t let go. I should. I really should. But I don’t.

  “I’d like to hear your life story one day,” I say, my voice coming out in a harsh murmur, as if part of me wished I didn’t say it.

  She stares at me a moment, her gaze lingering on mine. Warm and melancholy at the same time.

  “I’d like to hear yours, too,” she says.

  Then she gives my hand a squeeze and walks out of the room.

  The room grows cold without her in it.

  Chapter 11

  Aurora

  December

  December has always been a curious time for me.

  That lead-up towards Christmas and the holidays that you can’t ignore, even if you try. And, god, how you try.

  For the last seven years I’ve spent it with families that aren’t my own.

  Before then, I said fuck you to the holiday. I said fuck you to a lot of things.

  And then before that, I was just hoping my father would be sober enough to come home. I’d hoped my mother would be kind enough to wish me a Merry Christmas. In the end, I was often alone, staring out the window at the baking desert and listening to Christmas songs on the crackly radio, dreaming of snow and trees and presents and places that seemed so impossible.

  I should be happy that I have a job that I love, with kids that I love (because, let’s face it, it’s impossible not to), in a charming country that’s slowly growing on me.

  And I am happy, don’t get me wrong.

  But there’s something about the holiday season that creeps in like the cold through cracks in the floor. It turns you inward until you’re lost in your own introspection. It unearths the past before it buries it again in snow. It makes you feel things you don’t want to feel, like all your nerve endings are exposed.

  Loss. If you’ve lost anyone or anything, then you’ll feel that loss most of all.

  I feel the absence of so much that it’s hard not to fall deeper into the void that’s growing inside me.

  There’s loss.

  And then there’s love.

  Love that I don’t have, that I’ve never had.

  Why do I feel this loss inside me will always be solved with love?

  “Aurora?” Clara says to me, and by the way she says it I think she may have been calling me for a while.

  “Yes?” I look at her, blinking. The smile goes up on my face. I must have looked like a miserable Grinch sitting here with glittering Christmas ornaments at my feet.

  “Can you pass me the reindeer?” She holds her hand out. “Please.”

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of the living room, sorting through the piles of ornaments that have been stored at this palace year after year. Clara is putting the ornaments up on what I think is the world’s largest Christmas tree while Freja is in charge of the tinsel. So far, they’ve done a pretty good job in decorating—but only the first four feet of it since that’s all they can reach.

  I find an old gold reindeer with a chipped nose and hand it to her. She considers me for a second. “You look sad.”

  I shrug. “We all get the blues sometimes.”

  “But you have nothing to be sad about,” she says matter-of-factly.

  Knowing that the girls do have plenty to be sad about, I have to tread carefully. “It can be a difficult, sad time of the year for a lot of people. Everything is so happy on the outside but…”

  “Do you miss your family and Australia?” Freja asks.

  “I do,” I tell her. And I’m lying.

  Because there’s absolutely nothing about that place that I miss.

  They’re both looking at me to go on so I scrounge for some truth.

  “I miss my father. You would have liked him.” When he was sober.

  “Is he … dead?” Clara asks.

  I nod. “Yeah. He died when I was ten.”

  “How?”

  I rub my lips together. “Hmmm. He had a disease.”

  “Like cancer?” Freja asks in a hush, as if she said a bad word.

  “Yeah. Like that.” Like a cancer of the soul and a disease of the mind as you medicate yourself from your demons.

  “Maybe your father and our mother know each other in heaven,” Clara says softly, turning the gold reindeer over in her hands.

  “Maybe,” I say, giving them a soft smile.

  “Varm kakao,” Karla announces cheerfully as she enters the room holding a tray of piping hot cocoa. “Oh, the tree looks so wonderful, girls,” she says, putting the tray down on the ornate coffee table behind us.

  “Thank you, Karla,” Clara says. “This year it will be the best tree ever. Especially since Aurora is helping us.”

  “Hey!” Freja yells excitedly from the window. “Det sne!”

  I know enough Danish words by now to know that sne means snow, because they’ve warned of a lot of sner come February.

  Clara gasps and immediately runs over to the window. I get up, and Karla and I join them.

  The room faces out onto the square, which even at eight at night in the dark, has people still milling about. Faintly falling snow is illuminated by the lampposts.

  “Oh, it’s so pretty,” Clara gushes. “Maybe we’ll have a white Christmas. Oh, maybe I won’t have to go to school tomorrow!”

  Now, I don’t know this for a fact but I’m pretty sure that schools in Denmark don’t close becau
se of a little bit of snow.

  “Wishful thinking,” I tell her. “Actually, it’s getting late. Both of you need to go to bed.”

  “But the tree isn’t finished,” Freja says.

  “You can finish it tomorrow.”

  “Can we say goodnight to Snarf Snarf?” Clara asks.

  “Okay, but be quick about it.” They scamper off.

  Snarf Snarf has taken up nightly residence in the palace’s “mud room” on the first floor. That was another one of Aksel’s conditions—that he not sleep with the girls—and frankly I couldn’t blame him. I thought for sure Snarf Snarf would have been history but the girls really went after their father with their guilt trip, totally tag-teaming him. I was impressed and it never fails to amuse me when they twist him around their pinkies.

  The thing is, Aksel is learning. He’s learning his role all over again just as I’m learning mine. Whatever father he was when he was with Helena isn’t the father he needs to be now. He has to take on both roles and I can see he’s struggling. He’ll do anything for them, I know that much. But there’s still a steep learning curve as he figures out how to do it all.

  We’ve grown closer over the last month, ever since our trip to Legoland. Something changed for us then. Changed in such a way that I’m thinking in terms of us. In terms of having a relationship with him.

  Of course, we’re not in any kind of relationship, and on the surface everything is the same. I’m sure to him everything is the same. He’s the King. I’m the nanny. But sometimes I wonder if I am still just the nanny. While he’s still annoyed at half the shit that comes out of my mouth, I also know that he looks at me differently. That glacial gaze of his has started to melt, just a bit. From time to time I see warmth in his eyes. I’m starting to make him smile more. I haven’t really made him laugh yet, but there’s still time.

  Now he seeks me out to talk to me, and I’m no longer afraid to talk to him. Not that I ever was afraid, per se. I still spoke my mind, I just always expected him to bite my head off (which he usually did). But now it’s like I can approach him and he’s not going to recoil at my presence. He actually looks happy to see me, even if his disparaging remarks say otherwise.