A Royal Shade of Blue (Modern Royals Series Book 1)

by Aven Ellis

  “Because my mother was different once!” Christian yells, his voice echoing down the halls as his truth finally comes out.

  “What?”

  Christian shuts down. Just as he’s on the verge of revealing what his past was, he slams the door shut.

  “It doesn’t matter. You are standing before me dressed like my mum,” Christian snaps angrily. “You drank tea. You ate salmon. You lied. Congratulations, you are one of them now.”

  I feel my heart snap in half, one side anguished, the other side furious.

  The fury inside of me takes control.

  “I do think congratulations are in order,” I say, tears dripping down my face. “I was invited to a function, and I dressed accordingly. It’s no different than you putting on a suit for a luncheon, Christian. But for some reason, your brain refuses to believe I’m doing these things to assimilate for a role. I’m still the same person. The woman who loves you made a mistake trying to protect you.”

  Christian blinks. I know that got to him, and I continue.

  “The tragedy tonight is that I never became one of them, Christian. I’m still me, but by doing your math tonight, you finally got the answer you’ve been so desperate to find. Congratulations are in order, but for you. You finally found a way to shove me into your self-fulfilling prophecy. But there’s one twist: You lost me because of you, not because of them.”

  And then I stride past him to the elevator, angrily punching the down button.

  “Clementine, don’t go,” Christian yells after me.

  The doors open. Christian is running to catch me. I leap inside and jam the button for the doors to close. Christian tries to stick his hand in, but he’s not fast enough.

  The last thing I see is his eyes, the eyes of the man I love, filled with tears, as the doors shut.

  In that moment, I know I’ve made a huge mistake by walking away.

  We can never come back from this.

  And with that thought, I burst into heavy sobs and cry like I will never stop.

  Chapter 33

  The Marble Hall

  I make it as far as the Marble Hall before I can’t go any farther. I collapse onto a settee, sobbing uncontrollably. How are we over? Did that actually happen? Did I walk away from Christian in a fit of anger?

  Yes, you did, my heart whispers to me. You made your choice.

  And it wasn’t to fight for Christian.

  I try to catch my breath, but I’m crying so hard I can’t. I half expect palace security to escort me out and tell me Christian wishes for me to never return, but they are probably going to wait until I get over the hysterical stage before daring to approach me. A woman walks by, dressed as a maid, and keeps her eyes straight ahead as if she’s trained out of discretion to not see me falling apart.

  I start sorting through our fight, the accusations we threw back and forth at each other. I close my eyes as I see the devastated look in Christian’s eyes when he realized I had lied to him. I hurt him trying to protect him and oh, the irony, it’s the one thing I’ve argued with him about before. Now I see exactly what he meant.

  Sometimes you do want to protect the people you love, I think, wiping the tears from my face with my fingertips. Christian was never trying to suffocate me when he tried to protect me. He was doing something I needed out of love. Accepting his help didn’t make me weak, nor did it change my freedom.

  I was so terrified of losing my new life I couldn’t see that having someone help you when you need it is okay.

  The sobs start to subside as I continue to sort through our fight, picking up the pieces and examining the wreckage of my shattered heart.

  My fear was having my normal taken away. I thought Christian would somehow become like my parents and fear for my every step, my every wince and every pain, and I would become fragile in his eyes. That, I couldn’t bear. I projected those fears onto him, but he’s the one person who has never viewed me in that way.

  It dawns on me that Christian’s fear was similar. He was terrified of his normal with me being ripped away from him. By wearing this dress and pretending to like tea, he thought I was beginning to change on him, and I would assimilate to the monarchy and no longer be the woman he had fallen in love with.

  We were both terrified of losing the normal we had found with each other, I think.

  I still don’t understand what drove his fear. It will forever remain a mystery to me because I chose to walk out. I chose to end things in a fit of upset instead of taking a step back to calm down and to let Christian calm down. He didn’t want me to leave, and by the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late.

  My lower lip quivers, and a single tear rolls off my face, dropping onto the pink damask of the settee. I silently apologize to Queen Victoria for crying on her furniture, for breaking the heart of her great-great-great-I-don’t-know-how-far-back-great-grandson.

  I wonder if she and Albert fought in these same halls. Their love story seems like a grand one. I was writing my own wonderful fairy tale with Christian, not because he was a prince who lives in a palace, or because he’s part of one of the most incredible legacies the world has ever known.

  It was a fairy tale because he was Christian Chadwick to me.

  I fell in love with him before I knew who he was. I loved him after I knew who he was. I loved him for his beautiful heart, his incredible mind, and the way he saw the world. He’s coming into his own now, and he’s going to do amazing things in this life.

  With someone else by his side.

  My world goes black with that thought. The idea of never seeing him again, except to say goodbye, is more than I can bear. I can’t imagine him not being a part of my life. I can’t imagine never seeing him again, except on TV or online. I can’t imagine not hearing his voice or his ideas or that chuckle when he’s amused. I can’t imagine never feeling his touch or kiss ever again.

  I begin to shake. Fresh tears fall.

  There will always be a place in my heart for him.

  Always.

  I know I need to go. I don’t belong here. Yet I know as soon as I walk out these gilded doors, I’ll never return.

  I’ll never again be a part of Christian’s life.

  I close my eyes. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but it feels like an eternity.

  I have to leave now, I will myself. I have to find a way to leave Christian behind.

  I slowly rise from the settee, staring at the walk ahead. I’m about to take a step toward the Grand Staircase when I see Christian turn the corner, freezing in his tracks the second he spots me.

  Oh, God. I want to run to him and beg him to forgive me and make our world whole again.

  Christian runs toward me, and he blurs in my vision.

  “Don’t go,” he calls out with urgency. “Please, God, please, Clementine, don’t leave, not yet. Not until you hear what I have to say.”

  Christian stops in front of me, his eyes rimmed with red as if he’s been crying.

  “I want to talk to you, too,” I say, my voice breaking.

  Christian takes my hand in his and leads me back to the pink settee. He sits me down and drops to his knee in front of me, clasping my hands in his.

  “I love you,” he says, his voice thick with unshed tears. “I know you might not forgive me for what happened up there, and I don’t blame you if you didn’t, but I can’t let you leave here not hearing what is in my heart.”

  Christian takes one hand to wipe my tears away.

  “I love you, Christian, and I’m so sorry for what happened,” I say, somehow forcing the words out. “Please forgive me for lying. It was wrong, even if I thought it was for the right reason.”

  “I wanted to come after you the second those doors closed,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “Before you left, I knew I couldn’t let you go. But I had to get myself together before I came to find you. I had to sort out my thoughts. If you weren’t still here, in the Marble Hall, I would have found you.”

&nb
sp; “I was afraid I had destroyed what we had,” I admit. “As soon as I left, I regretted it. I want to work through our problems, Christian, not run from them. I swear I’ll never do that again.”

  “What we have,” Christian says, his voice firm, “can’t be destroyed. I believe this now more than ever. We had an awful row, but the first thing we did was think of each other and how we wanted to fix it, reconcile, and be stronger for it. That is another way this love is different. It’s strong. It’s forever.”

  “Forever,” I repeat.

  Christian draws a breath of air before speaking.

  “There’s something you don’t know,” he says softly, his fingertips stroking my cheekbone. “My mum, she used to be different.”

  He reaches into his coat pocket and retrieves his phone. Christian swipes something and turns the screen toward me. With shock, I see a young Antonia from thirty years ago. She had long, jet black hair that tumbled past her shoulders and a natural smile that lit up her face. There are pictures of her watching a young King Arthur play polo, where she’s in jeans. Another where she’s going out to a nightclub in a short skirt. She looks young and carefree and happy in all of them.

  “Mum used to be like that,” Christian says, his voice so quiet I can barely hear him. “When she met Father, that is who she was. She was happy. All of that changed after Father proposed.”

  “What happened?” I ask, stunned by the pictures I’m looking at. It’s like two completely different lives.

  “The monarchy,” Christian says. “Once they became engaged, Father said everything changed.”

  I gasp. “Arthur told you that?”

  Christian shakes his head. “No. A fight erupted during dinner when I was a child, not unlike the one that just happened. Father was yelling that she was not the same woman he fell in love with. She was consumed with privilege and power and keeping up her image. Mum yelled back that he had no idea what was expected of her in her role and she felt a responsibility to the monarchy. For the first time in her life, she was respected, and that was everything to her. In the end, she chose to be Arthur’s queen, not his wife.”

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper, as now I see everything clearly. “You saw my tiny changes as the beginning of the end.”

  Christian shifts his gaze away from me, staring down at the pink damask I’m sitting on, and he swallows hard. Finally, he lifts his gaze to meet mine, and I see nothing but heartbreak in his eyes.

  “Yes,” he admits. “It pains me to admit that, but my childhood reared up and made you sipping a damn cup of tea a sign when it was nothing more than that—a cup of tea.”

  “I promise you, with everything that I am, that I am not going to change,” I say. “I might sip a tea here or there if it’s expected, or wear a hat if protocol calls for it, but at the end of the day, I’m the woman who is going to put on your Arsenal T-shirt and ripped up jeans and ask if we can take our dogs for a walk. I’m that woman now. I will be that woman if I become your wife, too.”

  “After watching what my mother did—that’s not you. It will never be you. I was so terrified of losing you, I couldn’t think straight. You are the most important thing in the world to me. I love you, and I promise I have my head on right about that now.”

  “I was wrong to lie to you,” I say, my face growing hot in shame. “You were right. I should have told you everything and let you process it. I’m sorry. Please forgive me for that, Christian.”

  “I do,” he whispers, “as long as you forgive me.”

  “I do. And after protecting you, I understand that sometimes you are going to protect me because you love me, not because you want to stifle me. You’ll never treat me as fragile. You never have. That’s my childhood messing me up.”

  A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “So we’re both messed up.”

  I smile back. “Completely. But we know how we’re messed up, so we can work on it. Together.”

  “I’m going to marry you someday,” Christian says, cradling my face in his strong hands. “But first, I have to ask you something. You witnessed that dysfunction upstairs firsthand. It’s your last chance to back out, Ace. Speak now, or you are forever locked into the House of Chadwick.”

  Happiness fills my heart. “Not a chance. I love you, Christian. As wheels off as your family is, that doesn’t change what I want. And that is you. All of you, for the rest of my life.”

  “I love you,” Christian whispers.

  “I love you more,” I whisper back.

  As his lips find mine, I know this is my forever. What started as an Instagram exchange between two strangers ended up as a love story with a promise of a future at Buckingham Palace. Our love is one of friendship, of passion, of respect. We’ll work together for our causes, in our own way, for things we value and believe in.

  We’re a team, and we always will be.

  I smile against his lips as I kiss him back.

  Somehow, I think Queen Victoria would approve.

  Epilogue

  Photocall

  The following December

  I close my eyes as the makeup artist sprays my face with a setting mist.

  “This will give you a dewy look,” Hannah says as the mist settles on my skin.

  “Does it have a calming effect?” I ask, half-joking.

  “That is what a cup of tea would do,” Princess Helene says knowingly. “But so would an extra dirty martini, and that’s what I’d choose if I were you.”

  I open my eyes as laughter echoes in the dressing room in Princess Helene’s apartment at Kensington Palace. I’m surrounded by all the women in my life this first week of December: all of Christian’s princess cousins, Jillian, Felicity, Emma, Bryn, Chelsea, my mom, and Paisley.

  “An extra dirty martini would leave me a mess for the TV interview,” I say.

  “I love the dress you’ve chosen,” Liz says, beaming at me. “It’s so you.”

  “And perfect for your engagement photocall,” Jillian adds, winking at me.

  I glance down at my bare left hand. I’ve been engaged since November, but we’ve kept it a secret until we were ready to announce it.

  Which is today.

  Happiness radiates through every inch of me. Today is the day we step forward and tell the world that we are getting married.

  We’ve grown so much this past year. Christian has flourished in his new role as a champion for caregivers, science education for children, and wildlife conservation. He has banded with his brothers and cousins to create a foundation for their causes, called the House of Chadwick Charities. Christian and Liz have taken the lead as the two working royals, and they have put a new shine on the monarchy. They are the next generation of royals, ones who are working hard to do good for others. Christian used to hate his public position, but now that he’s made it his, and understands how much he means to people, he relishes going to events and doing walkabouts to bring attention to causes that need his help.

  I have quietly resigned my position at Cheltham House, which had to be done. I was so sad to leave my work, but I also know I have a new career ahead of me. I will join Christian and Liz and be an active working royal. One of my causes will be historical preservation and education, along with illness survivor support groups, and I’m excited that I will have my own work along with championing Christian’s causes.

  Additionally, all of my social media accounts have been wiped, so that was the first tip-off to the media that an engagement was coming. The tabloids have been running with stories for months, either guessing we were engaged or a proposal was imminent. One even ran with the story of “Prince Christian’s Secret Proposal!” which was so wrong we died laughing when we read it.

  Queen Antonia still hates me, and of course, sent her regrets that she couldn’t be here this morning to send her “regards.” The Dowager Queen also is absent and has taken to her bed with a severe chest cold. Princess Helene snorted at that and called bollocks, which made her new best friend Jillian nearly spi
t out her champagne.

  King Arthur is over the moon for us, and says we are the beginning of a whole new future for the monarchy. Xander and James already told me I was like the sister they never had, and they were thrilled when we told them we were engaged. Xander will be the best man for his Curry Takeaway, and James will stand beside him. Paisley is my matron of honor, and I’ve asked Liz to stand with her, as she has become my best friend in London, and I couldn’t have navigated these royal waters alone.

  “I think we’ll leave you for a few minutes before Christian comes,” my mom says, affectionately squeezing my shoulder. “I love you, and I’m so happy for both of you.”

  She places a loving kiss on my head, and happy tears fill my eyes. Mom and Dad have completely come around on Christian after they came to visit us here in London last August. And it wasn’t having dinner with King Arthur at Balmoral in Scotland that sealed the deal, but Christian himself. He had all of us over at his cottage, grilled steaks for dinner, and had us all take a walk with Bear and Lucy around the private grounds. I know these actions proved to my parents he was simply a man who loves their daughter. Everything changed after that, and my parents trusted our love and what we were building together.

  I’ve also learned how to set boundaries, too. Whenever my mom goes into one of her obsessing-about-my-health modes, I shut it down. I’ve also set the same boundaries with Queen Antonia and the Dowager Queen. If anything snide is said to me, I end the conversation. There’s no fighting. No argument. I simply draw the line and move on.

  As my family and friends hug me goodbye, saying they’ll see me at Buckingham Palace for a luncheon as soon as our TV interview is done, I’m finally left alone. I take a look at myself in the large mirror. I’m radiant. I’m confident.

  And I’m madly in love with the man I’m going to spend forever with.

  I’m wearing a red wrap dress today, no pantyhose. In fact, I only wear pantyhose if I’m attending a service in a church with Christian. My hair is down and loose, lightly curled by the hairstylist, and I have a beautiful matte red lip that matches my ruby dress. I see my coat draped across the sofa, one that is a black and red plaid, adding the pattern to my outfit that “Captivating Clemmie” has become known for. The designer is the same one I selected for Ascot—Emilia Wentworth-Hay—and we’ve become good friends, too. In fact, nobody except the inner circle knows she is already sketching bridal gowns for a spring wedding.