by Leslie North
She blinked as the words sunk in. “What do you mean?” she asked hesitantly, dreading his answer.
“Parliament found out you still own it. They also found out about all the toy patents.”
“But I got those under a pseudonym! How could they even find them?” she protested, and then flushed. She’d used an assumed name because it made her feel less vulnerable if the toy designs didn’t sell or had some flaw she hadn’t discovered, but when Parliament found out it must’ve made it seem like she was trying to go behind everyone’s backs to make secret profits.
Simon saw her thoughts play out across her expression and nodded. “They’re discussing now whether you broke any ethics codes, but to be honest, whether or not they find any grounds to accuse you of formal violations—which they probably won’t—it still casts more doubt on your loyalty to your position as Queen and your stance on education reform.”
Everything in her wilted. “But… we were going to make it so I didn’t profit from the sales anymore, so that everything would go to charity,” she whispered.
Simon put an arm around her shoulders. After days of minimal contact with him, the gesture made her feel a little warmer, but even that couldn’t calm the storm of sick anxiety in her stomach. “I started the process, but it takes time,” he said, “especially with everything else that’s been demanding my time this last week.” He finally spotted her hand, still fisted around his ring. “What do you have there?”
All the joy of the moment drained, she opened her hand and offered it to him. “I found your ring,” she told him, her tone lifeless. As soon as he took it, she turned and started toward the treehouse’s ladder. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m going to be good company this evening,” she told him. “I need some alone time to process all this. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
15
Simon stared up after Penelope, his signet ring clutched in his hand. She’d given him back a piece of himself while she was in her darkest hour. That smile on her face, the way she’d seemed to shine when he’d first approached her earlier—that had been because she’d found this, because she’d been excited for him despite the storm going on in her own personal life. And now she was climbing into their treehouse alone, to spend the night out in the freezing cold because she was worried she’d be “bad company.”
He put his ring back on, stepped to the ladder, and climbed up after her.
This was all his fault. Well, not all of it—he wasn’t the one responsible for a potential surprise heir, after all—but if he’d just realized what she was going through and supported her when she needed him instead of burying himself in his research the way he always did when things went wrong, she might not be so despondent. He’d been hoping to find some sort of loophole in the law, some way to prove that the baby couldn’t be the heir or to give Penelope more security in her place as Queen, but while he’d been closeted away in the royal library she’d been on her own.
He couldn’t change the past week, but he had to let her know she didn’t have to be on her own anymore.
He popped his head through the entrance and found her already huddled under one of the giant quilts they’d brought up here. “I’d like to be alone too,” he announced, pulling himself up. “Maybe we could be alone together?”
She smiled softly and raised an arm, pulling the quilt up in invitation. He went to her and settled down behind her. Her warmth pressed up against him after having gone for a week with so little physical contact—it felt like going home at the end of a long day. When she shivered in the cool air of the Esconian evening, he tucked her into his arms and curled himself around her. Sunset bled into dark as he wordlessly held her, and after an hour, Penelope finally spoke.
“I want this life,” she admitted in a whisper. “And I’m so scared it’s all going to be taken from us.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and he kissed it away. “Me too,” he told her.
She turned her head to kiss his cheek, her breath soft on his ear. She hesitated a moment, then kissed him on the mouth. He deepened the kiss, caressing her, wiping her tears gently with the pads of his thumbs, trying to comfort her with his body the way he couldn’t with his words. They undressed each other slowly, carefully, their movements highlighted by the moon’s silver cast. He held her tight against him as they lay on their sides. He reached around to her chest and slid his fingers across her pebbled nipples, then reached further down, stroking and caressing until her breath came in deep sighs and quiet moans. She slung a leg back over his hip, opening herself to him, and he eased into her inch by inch until he filled her.
This, this, was what he’d been missing the past week. By closeting himself away from her, he’d deprived them both of the comfort of intimacy during a time when they needed it more than ever. He made it up to her now, with his slow, deep thrusts, with the way he whispered her name in the starlight as he came inside her, with the way he let his body tell her how much he loved her.
Love. He hadn’t thought it could happen this quickly, but there could be no other word for what he was starting to feel for her. He loved Penelope Alcott, and he would fight for her right to be Queen with every breath he took. He wanted to make love to her just like this for the rest of his life. He wanted to support her, to be the one she turned to when she needed help. He wanted her, just her, forever.
They lay under the quilt and recovered until it was too cold to stay outside. Then they cleaned up, gathered their things, and headed for the castle. Simon held Penelope’s hand as they walked and she clung to it like it was a lifeline.
At the edge of the gardens, they nearly ran into a woman out walking with a little boy. He was two or three, and when he caught sight of the treehouse around the side of Simon’s leg, he gasped and stared at it in rapture.
“Treehouse! Go see? Please, please?” he begged his mother.
The harried-looking woman sighed and turned to Simon. “I’m sorry, he’s had way too much sugar today, I’m trying to get all his energy out so he can sleep but—” her words tapered off as she seemed to recognize the King. She flushed and bowed shallowly, with an uncertain look on her face.
Simon smiled, though it was a bit strained. He really didn’t have the energy to do anything but go to bed right now, preferably with Pen cuddled up at his side. “I’m sorry, the treehouse hasn’t been cleared quite yet,” he told the pair. “The structural engineer said she needs to double-check a few more things before it’s ready for people to go inside.”
The little boy promptly flopped down on the grass, tilted his head back, and bawled like his heart had been broken. The mother, obviously exhausted herself, tried to scoop him up but he squirmed away. When he skinned his knee upon landing back on the sidewalk, she looked nearly ready to cry herself.
Simon held up his hands and knelt down so he was at eye-level with the boy. “Hey,” he said quietly, and the boy stopped crying to hear him better. “I loved treehouses as a kid too. I can’t take you up, but how about I take you out to get a closer look at it from the bottom of the tree? Maybe give your mom a few minutes to just sit and rest?”
His mother looked tempted, but shook her head. “Oh, no, I really couldn’t trouble you—”
The boy started sniffling again.
“No trouble at all,” Simon said quickly.
The boy got up and trotted toward the treehouse, and Simon hurried after him, smiling a bit despite himself. He’d always liked kids, even though they made life more unpredictable than he usually preferred. Their sheer energy and enthusiasm, the way they felt everything so deeply and purely—it was contagious. Behind him, the grateful mother sat on a bench to wait as he escorted the boy to the treehouse.
“I’m Simon,” he introduced himself to the child once he caught up.
“My name Ricky!” the kid said.
“So, Ricky, do you live near here?” Simon asked. “Visiting relatives in the palace?”
Ricky shook his head, his chubby cheeks jiggling.
“Momma says this our home! Maybe.”
Simon frowned. No one except the Esconian royal family lived at the palace, and Simon had long since memorized all their faces and titles. The only people who were staying here who weren’t Penelope’s relatives were…
Oh.
“You’re… um, you’re Richard?” he asked, remembering that that was the potential heir’s name.
The boy paused, narrowing his eyes. “Ricky,” he insisted.
“Right. Ricky. And this… is your home. Maybe.” If the DNA test proved positive. If Simon couldn’t find some loophole to keep him from inheriting. He felt dirty for thinking the thought—he couldn’t villainize a toddler, or even the mother who seemed more like an exhausted single parent than an evil mastermind plotting to steal the throne. But no one could rule as well as Penelope could. She was born to be a Queen, and he would prove it if it was the last thing he did.
But in the meantime, showing a kid a treehouse couldn’t hurt anything, right? “So, this is it,” he said, sweeping his hand upward as they stopped under the tree. Ricky gaped up at it in a satisfying way, and Simon swelled a bit with pride at having built it.
Then the kid pointed a stubby finger up at it. “Mine?” he asked.
Simon stared at him, suddenly struck dumb. The fact was, the treehouse could be Ricky’s. If a miracle didn’t occur, everything here would be his—including the prototype he and Penelope had built with their bare hands, a labor of love that Simon had thought would last a lifetime. And including the castle, the place where he’d thought he might finally be able to make a true home.
Ricky ran off, squealing, to inspect the ladder. Which was good, because Simon was helpless to answer his question as the realization suddenly struck him:
He’d done it again. He’d built a home on borrowed ground again. And just like when he was seven, it could all be taken from him by the whim of a royal, by a twist of fate.
And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
16
A week later, Simon was surrounded by stacks of books when the lawyer knocked on the door. “Come in,” he called, his voice muffled by the dusty pages of the tome cracked open in front of him. He had to practically stick his nose in the thing’s spine to be able to read any of the old, tiny print, and he didn’t want to lose his place, so he didn’t look up when the other man entered the room.
The lawyer didn’t waste any time. “Nathaniel has been found.”
Simon sighed. “I know.” He’d learned that the prior king had finally been located on a remote island off the coast of Bali a few hours ago, which was why he was in here extra early today. Or it was one of the reasons, anyway. The other was to avoid the fallout of everyone discovering Pen was still in charge at the toy company.
They’d turned their ire on him this morning. It had only been a matter of time, he’d known it—you didn’t practice politics for a decade without being able to predict when a group of your peers were likely to turn on you—but it still hurt. Social climber, they were calling him. Disloyal for giving up his titles and connections to do it. Even worse, they’d branded his constant moves to serve the Crown as the mark of an unstable political maneuverer.
He’d done his best to be gracious about it. He’d avoided the frivolous arguments, the snide looks, the superior comments, and retreated to the library the way he always did in times of trouble. Pen had been feeling ill the last few days—and who could blame her?—which made it easier to hide out in here until the storm passed.
He hadn’t wanted to distance himself from her. He’d wanted to keep on holding her the way he had that night a week ago in the treehouse, being there for her, showing her how much she meant to him. But the tides they were caught in were so strong he was afraid they wouldn’t withstand it—and the fact that he was in love with her only made it harder to stay so close to her, knowing she and his dream of ruling at her side could be ripped away at any moment. He was already starting to feel like an outsider, already being forced to withdraw. At least maybe it would hurt less this way.
He slammed the book in front of him shut, disgusted with himself. It wouldn’t hurt less. Nothing could make it hurt less. But here he was anyway, hiding out like a coward, grasping at anything that might have the slightest chance of saving him instead of going out there and facing down his fate like a man. Or like his wife, for that matter.
Someone cleared their throat, and Simon realized the lawyer was still there. “Sir,” the man said, and dread stirred within Simon. He hadn’t said Your Majesty.
“Yes?” Simon asked, turning in his seat, forcing himself to keep his spine straight and his chin up even though he suspected the news the man was about to deliver.
“They’ve done the paternity test. The heir is legitimate.” He shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “I tried to tell… ah, Miss Penelope… first, but she wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t seeing visitors.”
“Of course. Thank you for letting me know,” Simon said, his voice sounding distant and dreamlike in his own ears.
Legitimate. It meant Simon was no longer the King. His dream, his home, gone just like that. It was everything he’d feared, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
An hour later, after taking the longest possible route, he found himself outside the door to his and Penelope’s apartments. He reached for the doorknob but hesitated and knocked instead for the first time ever. The wood felt all wrong against his knuckles: hard, abrasive, alien. Soon, this would no longer be their apartments. Had it ever truly been his home?
“Come in,” called Pen’s voice, and he opened the door. She eyed him, surprised but smiling. “What are you doing knocking, silly?”
He shrugged, miserable, unable to put his feelings into words. She would understand soon enough. He closed the door. “Could we talk for a second?”
She sat on a couch and motioned at him, still grinning. She had a sort of glow to her this morning. It was wonderful to see her so happy, but in this attitude she had to be so unprepared for what he was about to tell her. How could he break it to her gently?
While he was searching for words, she leaned forward and spoke first. “I actually wanted to speak to you too.”
He exhaled. Maybe whatever she had to say would give him enough time or an opening to let her down gently. “Okay, you first.”
She looked down and twisted her ring, but only once before she met him eye-to-eye again, her smile widening. “Simon, I’m pregnant.”
The words hit him and bounced off. He blinked at her while he called them back, tried to comprehend them. She couldn’t be pregnant. A week ago it would’ve been amazing news, but now it was impossible. So he said the first thing he could think of, the only thing that had been on his mind for the last hour. “Nathaniel’s been found. The heir is legitimate.”
Her smile dissipated. At first he thought it was because she realized the weight of his words and why her news had hit him so hard, but then he recognized the spark of fire in her expression. She was furious.
She leaned away. “I tell you I’m pregnant, and that’s your first response?”
He spread his hands, helpless. “Penelope…” Couldn’t she see how mixed-up everything was? If he was going to be a father, the child would be homeless, title-less. How would he provide for it? Where would they go? What kind of unfulfilling, purposeless life would he be stuck leading because of all of today’s developments?
He wanted to hit himself the second he thought it. His child was not a development, and regardless of what kind of life he’d be living now, he wanted nothing more than to live it with his and Pen’s baby in his arms. He was just so shell-shocked—everything was happening so quickly, and his brain was reacting by analyzing and predicting and trying to reason out the problem to a logical conclusion, which was the most unhelpful thing possible at the moment.
Pen saw his thoughts play out across his face and stood up with a sharp movement. “Heir apparent or not, our baby is legitimate right
now too,” she said. The hurt in her voice mingled with fury. “Is the Crown all you wanted me for?”
Simon stood up too. “What? No, of course not, it’s just that—”
She whirled around, retreating into a sitting room. “Go spend the night in your damn treehouse,” she growled, and slammed the door.
17
Penelope sat on the couch as far from possible from her husband while the lawyer explained what would happen now that she was no longer about to be Queen.
“You’re lucky,” said the droll little man, and Pen restrained her urge to slap him. Lucky? Nothing about this was lucky. She was losing everything she’d never realized she’d always wanted. “You won’t have to abdicate,” the lawyer went on, “since the coronation never had the chance to happen. You’ll still be in line for the throne, though your baby won’t be.”
She put a hand on her stomach. It was still flat, for now. But soon it would round out with new life, and her baby—her and Simon’s baby—would be common knowledge. Just in time for the divorce.
She refused to look at Simon and she could feel him doing the same from the opposite end of the couch. He’d been polite throughout the last few days as the shitstorm swirled around them, and she hated him for that. How could he stay so distant? Was it so easy for him to part ways with her, as if they’d never been lovers? She’d been angry when she’d hurled that accusation about him only wanting her for her crown the other day, but he hadn’t defended himself, and he’d barely talked to her since then. She couldn’t help but start to believe that maybe she’d hit on something. Maybe that really was what he’d wanted. He was a good guy, sure, always doing the right thing—but at his core, he needed to feel important. And since Penelope was no longer important to Escona, she was no longer important to him. Or at least, that was all she could assume, judging by his willingness to go along with the divorce without so much as a single complaint.
