The Princess and the Peer

by Warren, Tracy Anne

  Emma studied each of them this time. “Happy as I am to see you both—and believe me, I truly am—why are you here? Isn’t term still going on at school?”

  “It is,” Ariadne said. “But we spoke with Countess Hortensia and she agreed that we could conclude our autumn lessons early so that we might spend time with you. We asked Prince Rupert not to say anything about our plans in case we were delayed. I am pleased to see he kept his word.”

  “You wrote to Rupert?”

  “Indeed,” Ariadne stated.

  “He arranged our travel and saw to our comfort each step of the way.” Mercedes smiled. “It was most considerate of him.”

  “It was no more than anyone else would have done,” Ariadne countered. “But his preparations were adequate, I agree.”

  Emma made no comment, aware that nothing Rupert did ever seemed to please her friend.

  Getting abruptly to her feet, Ariadne crossed the room and closed the door. Just as quickly, she was back and in her place on the sofa. She leaned forward, lines of concern on her forehead. “After we had your letter, Mercedes and I agreed that it was imperative for us to come.”

  Mercedes nodded. “We could tell something was greatly amiss.”

  “So tell us everything and don’t leave out a single detail,” Ariadne urged. “We can’t have you being blue-deviled, you know. After all, you’re closer to us than a sister.”

  Emma stared at the two girls, then entirely without warning, she burst into tears.

  Mercedes raised a hand to her throat, looking stricken, while Ariadne silently extended a handkerchief.

  Emma took the silk square and buried her face in the material, letting all the pent-up misery and sorrow of the past weeks wash over her.

  A few moments later, Mercedes got up and hurried around to sit at her side. Soothingly, she curved an arm around Emma’s back and rubbed her shoulder. “There now, everything will be all right.”

  But Emma knew nothing would ever be right again. Leaning against the other girl’s shoulder, she cried harder.

  Ariadne saw to it that the tea arrived without any interruption from the servants or Baroness Zimmer. With the door closed tightly behind her once again, Ariadne set the tray down on the small table between the two sofas.

  She poured three cups with a neat, confident hand before purposefully sliding one toward Emma. “Drink that,” she told her. “When you’re ready, we’ll be here to listen.”

  Emma tried valiantly to stop, but it took another couple of minutes before her sobs finally quieted enough that she thought she could speak. She blotted her wet, tearstained eyes, then gave her nose a good blow in spite of the indelicacy of the act. After all, she was among friends who had already seen her at her very worst over the years.

  “Tea,” Ariadne reminded in a gentle voice, then gave the cup another tiny push forward. “It’ll do you more good if it’s hot.”

  Drawing a shaky breath, Emma leaned forward and raised the cup to her lips. The warm brew slid soothingly down her throat, easing away a little of the strained roughness created by her tears.

  Mercedes and Ariadne patiently looked on.

  “Aren’t you having any?” Emma croaked.

  After exchanging a look, her friends picked up their cups and drank.

  “Biscuit?” Mercedes suggested.

  Emma shook her head, then lowered her gaze to her lap.

  “I presume your unhappiness has something to do with the time you spent in London without your brother’s consent,” Ariadne said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t really stay with Miss Poole, did you?”

  Emma’s eyes widened, dually amazed and exasperated by her friends’ perception. “Not the entire time, no.”

  “Well, then,” Ariadne said, her satisfaction apparent. “What is his name and how did the two of you meet?”

  Emma’s lips parted, then closed again. “How did you know?”

  Ariadne and Mercedes shared another knowing glance. “We had a great deal of time to speculate whilst in the coach,” Mercedes said almost apologetically. “It was the only thing that made any sense.”

  “Leave it to the two of you to figure all that out from my letter. And here I thought I’d been so careful not to reveal anything alarming,” Emma said.

  “You should know by now that it’s fruitless trying to hide your feelings from us.” Ariadne gave her a reproving look. “Besides, you’ve never been good at dissembling. We know you too well for such nonsense.”

  Emma nodded. Ariadne was right. They did know her inside and out. Perhaps she’d written to them for just that reason.

  So they would realize she was miserable.

  So they would ask her about it.

  “His name is Nick,” Emma said. “And we met the day I ran away.”

  Over the next half hour, Emma poured out the entire story, telling them everything that had happened—or rather nearly everything. There were two things she refused to share, even with her dearest friends.

  The first was Nick’s title and family name. No good could be served by revealing his full identity, she decided. It made no difference to the telling of her tale. All that mattered was that he was not of royal blood.

  Second, she said nothing about giving her virginity to him. What had happened on that last night between them was intimate, special, and to speak of it seemed wrong. She also worried that Mercedes in particular might think less of her for lying with a man who was not her husband.

  Mercedes put great stock in institutions such as marriage. She had spoken in the past about the sanctity of wedding vows and how she hoped to find a communion of the souls with her future mate. Mercedes, Emma well knew, would never even dream of going to her marriage bed anything but pure and would be shocked if she knew that Emma would.

  Ariadne, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She had once confided to Emma that she found the notion of taking a lover vastly exciting. Marriage was nothing but a prison, she declared, and she had no interest in becoming one of its inmates.

  Ariadne had gone on to astonish her further by revealing that she saw no reason to forgo the physical pleasures to be enjoyed with a man. If she was careful, she believed she could find someone intriguing who would be willing to initiate her. Considering the lack of males under the age of sixty at the academy, however, Emma assumed Ariadne was still looking.

  And so, when it came to her having made love with Nick, Emma held her tongue—although she wondered once she finished if Ariadne suspected she had left something out. There was a gleam in the other girl’s bright green eyes that was far too knowing.

  But Ariadne didn’t press and she didn’t volunteer anything more.

  “It’s obvious what you must do,” Ariadne declared once she had fallen silent. “You must tell your brother that you cannot marry King Otto.”

  Emma stared. “That’s impossible.”

  “Of course it is not. Just go to him and say you’ve changed your mind. Surely he will release you if you explain.”

  “Explain what?” Emma said, setting down her teacup with a clink. “That I’m in love with another man? A man I’m not even supposed to have met? Someone my family would never let court me. Rupert would be furious. He would…” Her voice grew quiet. “He would probably disown me.”

  “All the better,” Ariadne declared. “Then you can marry Nick.”

  “No, I can’t. For one, I am underage and require Rupert’s consent, which he will never give. For another, Nick doesn’t want me. I think he… hates me now.”

  “You don’t know how he feels. Write to him. Find out if he would like to see you again.”

  “And what good would that do?” She leapt to her feet and paced to the window. “The whole thing is hopeless.”

  “It’s only hopeless if you do not try. But even if you are right about Nick,” Ariadne continued after a minute, “and he doesn’t love you as he should, it doesn’t change the fact that you do not wish to marry Otto. You owe
it to yourself to talk to Rupert and tell him you do not want to proceed with the marriage.”

  Emma considered for a moment, wishing her friend could possibly be right. “But he wants this union; the country requires it. Rupert isn’t going to let me back out.”

  “Then find a way to make him. You aren’t officially engaged yet, so it’s not too late.”

  “But it is. Oh, Arie, can’t you see that it’s just no use?” Emma said, tossing up her hands.

  “Maybe Arie’s right,” Mercedes said, finally joining the conversation.

  “What…?”

  “I am…?”

  Emma and Ariadne spoke at the same time, both of them shifting to stare at her.

  Mercedes ignored their amazed expressions. “I think you should talk to your brother, Emma—”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Emma interrupted.

  “Yes, I have, and I know how unhappy you are,” Mercedes said. “Talk to him. Tell him you have changed your mind about the betrothal.”

  “It will never work,” she said dismally. “He’ll want to know why and I cannot tell him about Nick.”

  “Then don’t. Discuss the subject as a hypothetical. Say you have reservations and would prefer not to marry at present. Your feelings for Nick needn’t ever enter into the conversation.”

  “He isn’t going to agree,” Emma said again. Still, she couldn’t help but acknowledge the hope that rose traitorously in her breast.

  “Perhaps,” Mercedes said quietly. “But as I said, you won’t know until you try.”

  Chapter 20

  The following afternoon, Emma walked into Rupert’s private office—or rather the suite of rooms on the first floor that he had chosen to serve that function during his time in England.

  Rather than delay the interview, she’d decided it best to go ahead and approach him before she lost her nerve. But now that she was here, she wondered if she ought not to have come at all. She loved her brother, but he could be an extremely intimidating man, more so even than their autocratic father had been prior to his illness. Still, as both Mercedes and Ariadne had pointed out, she owed it to herself to try to end her upcoming betrothal before it was too late to escape.

  As for her and Nick and whether there was any hope of a future for them, it did nothing to change the fact that she did not want to marry King Otto. Even if he turned out to be the most pleasing monarch in all of Europe, she couldn’t imagine sharing a marriage bed with him, let alone a life. Not after Nick.

  She shuddered now to think of being touched by anyone but him. He really has ruined me for other men, she thought wistfully.

  Crossing the room, she sat on one of the pair of Chippendale chairs positioned in front of Rupert’s massive satinwood desk and waited for him to acknowledge her.

  He continued working, his head bent as he wrote with swift strokes across a large piece of parchment. At length he laid down the quill and carefully sanded the page before placing it aside. Only then did he look up, his midnight blue eyes meeting hers over the tops of the half-moon spectacles on his nose.

  Smiling, he slowly he removed the glasses and set them aside as well. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Imperial business that cannot wait.”

  “I understand and am sorry to intrude.”

  “Not at all; you’ve been most patient. If it were not important, I am sure you wouldn’t have asked to speak with me. I presume you haven’t come to request an increase in your allowance so you can buy a new evening gown or a pair of emerald-encrusted slippers?”

  “No,” she said, surprised. “Did Sigrid really ask for the funds to buy a pair of emerald-encrusted slippers?”

  “No, she bought them and had the bill sent to me.”

  Emma smiled and lowered her gaze, resisting the urge to laugh. Leave it to Sigrid never to be anything less than bold.

  “If you are not in need of pin money, then how may I help?” Rupert inquired, leaning back in his finely wrought armchair.

  The need to laugh evaporated as quickly as it had come. Inwardly, she rallied, forcing herself to proceed. “I wanted to ask… that is to discuss… What I mean to say is that I wish to talk about my upcoming engagement.”

  “Oh? What about it?”

  Inhaling deeply, she lifted her gaze to his. “I do not want to proceed with the betrothal. I do not wish to marry King Otto.”

  There, she thought, I’ve said it.

  Her brother remained impassive for a long moment, his expression not changing in the slightest. Then his eyes narrowed faintly and he leaned forward. “Why? What has brought on this change of heart?”

  “No change. I have never been enthusiastic about the arrangement.”

  “But you have had several weeks now to voice an opinion. You agreed to this betrothal.”

  “No,” she corrected softly. “I did not agree. I just did not—disagree.”

  He paused, his features inscrutable. Then his mouth curved in a rueful smile. “I suppose you are right. You were informed, not asked. An oversight on my part.”

  Tentatively she smiled back, her heart pounding with sudden optimism and impossible hope.

  Could it truly be this easy? Had she been foolish not to have come to Rupert sooner and told him how she felt? Think of all the unhappiness she might have prevented.

  “So, now that you know my wishes,” she said, “we can end the engagement?”

  Rupert frowned, lines marring the smooth skin of his brow. “No, Emmaline, I am sorry, but we cannot.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said that I ought to have asked if you would be willing to marry him. I never said you would really have any choice in the matter.”

  Her lips parted, her extremities turning cold as all the blood rushed from them. Her breathing grew shallow and uneven, anger rising at his cruel game of semantics and his heartless lack of concern for her wishes. Any other young woman might have burst into tears, but she had more pride than to rely on such childish remedies.

  “I see,” she said, her jaw as rigid as her tone. “So I am to be married off like a piece of chattel, then.”

  “Not at all. You are of infinite worth and shall be treated with all the respect and care your birthright affords you. You will be a queen once you are wed.”

  “Perhaps I do not care to be a queen.”

  He brushed aside her objection with a hand. “Nonsense. You are only suffering from doubts, which is entirely natural under the circumstances. After you have a chance to meet and get to know Otto, I am sure you will be glad to be his bride.”

  “I won’t,” she said defiantly.

  Rupert arched a brow. “If you are concerned about his character, you need not be. The king is a fine man, energetic and intelligent, considerate of both his servants and his subjects. Your life in his court will be one of ease and comfort, luxuries that even I cannot provide.”

  She didn’t care about luxuries. What did things matter when they had no heart, no soul? Things did not hold you close at night. They did not comfort you or ease the worry from your mind when you were troubled. They did not bring real, lasting happiness. “And what of love?” she murmured, unable to contain the question.

  He gave a short laugh. “Is that what this is about? You want to be in love?” He sent her a wry smile. “Believe me, love will come in time. You will learn to care for him with practice and patience.”

  She met her brother’s gaze, her own hard and relentless. “And if I do not?”

  He looked away, reaching out for a silver letter opener on his desk. Idly, he turned its smooth weight over in his fingers. “Then you will still have a good life. I would not have you marry a man who would mistreat you; you may rest assured of that. As for love, we cannot always have what we wish. We are born to a life of duty and honor, of service to country, to family. It is both our privilege and our burden to bear. As for your betrothal, the continuation of our sovereignty as a nation rests on this union. Like or not, you are its key.”

  Link
ing her icy fingers together, she swallowed against the bitter gall that churned in her stomach.

  “You may imagine I don’t sympathize,” Rupert continued in a gentle tone, “but you would be mistaken. I too shall have to marry someday for duty and reasons of political and financial expediency. I have no expectations of falling in love with the woman I wed. I ask only that she be a person of integrity and strength, a princess of whom I may be proud, who will bear me brave sons and kind daughters. Anything more, such as genuine affection, seems too much to ask. Should such emotions come, then I shall feel truly and uniquely blessed.”

  How sad we are, she thought. How like the menagerie lions in their cages. Regal but trapped. So very trapped.

  A long silence fell before she was able to speak. “This is your final word, then, that I must marry him? This is your command as my prince?”

  He laid down the letter opener. “Do I need to command you?”

  She met his gaze with a direct look of her own. “Yes. I believe that you do.”

  His shoulders drew tight. “In that case, then, yes. It is my command that you marry King Otto.”

  Her blood turned to ice, hope dying inside her like a candle flame that had been abruptly snuffed out. Her limbs weren’t cold any longer; she could no longer seem to feel them at all.

  “As you wish, Your Highness,” she said in an emotionless voice. She stood, careful to hold herself properly and respectfully erect. “May I be excused now?”

  “Yes, go on, Emmaline,” he said, his mouth turned down with obvious sadness.

  After a curtsy, she turned and walked slowly from the room.

  “How did it go?”

  “What did he say?”

  Mercedes and Ariadne asked their questions at the same time, both girls hurrying toward Emma the moment she returned upstairs to her suite of rooms. But one look at her face and the two of them fell silent.

  “Oh no,” Mercedes said, her eyes wide with distress.

  “Why, that heartless brute. Obviously, he’s refused to release you.” Ariadne set her fists on her hips. “I’m going downstairs right now to tell him exactly what I think of his—”