Letters from a Prince
The Royals of Heledia
Victoria Hart
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Afterword
Also by Victoria Hart
Excerpt from A Royal Predicament
Copyright © 2016 by Victoria Hart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, events, and incidents are the products’ of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and or not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1539775270
Chapter 1
There was a homeless man outside the grocery store.
I reached for my mother’s hand and felt her squeeze lightly, but her footsteps didn’t falter as we walked through the bright summer sunlight toward the automatic doors.
He crouched on his heels, holding a coffee cup. His clothes were battered, his face was wrinkled, and his eyes weren’t quite pointing in the same direction.
“I love you, Peggy Sue…” he sang, and I shuddered. His front teeth were rotten.
“Isabel, would you like to give the man a dollar?” My mother let go of my hand and stopped walking to rummage in her purse. We were only a few feet away from the man. Close enough to smell that he wasn’t clean. Like, at all. My nose wrinkled.
Horrified, I searched her face, and she met my eyes. I read the warning in her gaze. Behave. Get ahold of yourself.
She held out the dollar and I took it.
“Pretty, pretty, pretty…” the man sang, and then he saw me. At least, one of his eyes did. He shook his cup. “Hullo darlin’. Is that dollar for me?”
My mother’s hand rested on my shoulder for just a moment. It was enough.
I stepped forward and dropped the dollar into the cup. “Yes, sir,” I said.
“Why, thank you. Have a nice day, now.”
My mother steered me through the automatic doors. When we were through, she gave my shoulder another squeeze. “Perhaps you could get a cart,” she said.
I skipped forward and tugged on a cart that was nested into the end of the row. It was stuck, and wouldn’t budge. Two other hands, no larger than my own, appeared next to mine. With one great tug, it came free.
I turned to my helper. She was just my age, only she had red curly hair and zero front teeth.
“I like your dreth,” she said. “Red flowerth are my favorite.”
“Roses,” I frowned. I’d been proud of that dress and the dazzling roses on it. They weren’t just any red flowers, and I wasn’t about to let someone rob me of my glory.
But Jess smiled anyway and nodded along with me. Our mothers were chatting, so after a moment, we started talking too.
“Isabel?” my mother had been listening. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?” She always wanted me to talk to other kids, but I wasn’t very good at it.
“My name is Isabel,” I said, and I had been taught. “And you are?”
“Jeth.”
“Hello Jeth, I am pleased to meet you.” I intoned, and then I raised my eyebrows at my mother. Ok? I silently asked.
“It’s Jess,” the girl’s mother explained. “My, what proper manners you have!”
The mothers began to talk, and the girl took my hand.
“If you like flowerth, come look!” She led me to a large display of colorful bouquets. We talked about flowers after that, and then about bugs, and then our favorite animals. Our mothers might have had a five-minute conversation, but it seemed like Jess and I spent hours talking, standing by the flowers.
“Isabel, time to go,” my mother finally said, pulling me from my new friend. We waved goodbye and I thought that was that.
But on the car ride home she asked me if I wanted to go out to the park tomorrow, to play with Jess.
“Uh, no thanks, mom.”
She sighed, and frowned at me in the rear-view mirror. “Isabel, you need to try a little harder. You should have friends. Jess seems really nice.”
And in the end it didn’t matter what I thought, because it had all been arranged already.
And that’s how Jess, the daughter of a middle class family from the edges of Capitol Hill, became the best (an only) friend of a standoffish senator’s daughter at the age of seven.
Not long after this instant friendship, however, my mother informed me we had to cut them short for a time. My father was getting a promotion, was how she described it. She said his boss (the president) was giving him a very important new job. I asked if it was more important than being a senator, even though I had no idea what a senator really was at the time. She said it was important in a different way.
“Do you know where Heledia is?” she asked me.
I’d only just started learning the countries, and that one was new to me.
“It’s near Italy and Greece, you know where they are. How would you like to visit there?”
“Okay.”
I had no idea what or where this place was, so how else could I answer? The idea of missing a few play dates with Jess did upset me, just a little. The night before we left I was up with nightmares that Jess had found a new best friend who didn’t have to fly on a plane to a different country because of her father’s job. But my parents assured me it was for the weekend only, and everyone takes vacations away from their friends at some point.
So I got on the plane, unaware that I’d meet someone who would become the other most important person in my life.
* * *
Heledia was small; even at a young age I could tell that much. My father called it a “micro country” and said it was tiny, but very nice. He was to be the ambassador for this place, which meant he’d visit and speak on behalf of the president and everyone else back home when it was time to talk about important things.
“What kind of important things?” I asked.
“All sorts of adult stuff that you hopefully never have to worry about if I do my job right,” he said with a smile. My father’s eyes always crinkled right at the edges when he smiled and it made everything feel warm. He said once that the president asked for him by name. (Later, when I actually understood politics, I learned it was because my father had been the leading senator on a vote to avoid stepping into Heledia’s civil unrest. He said we would have caused a civil war.)
The party to welcome my father was held in a beautiful big palace that someone told me called the Rose Palace. It was then that she told me we’d be meeting the royal family: the king, the queen, the prince, and the princess.
The palace was like a fairy tale. That’s what I told Jess when she asked. It was the exact shade of pink of a twilight sky and was crawling with roses. They weren’t like the ones on my dress though, they were vibrant and real and seemed to have no end. Their deep red against the lightness of the stone made it seem almost like a painting. It had been crafted with that perfection in mind, I think.
I almost squealed with excitement.
“They’re not a prince and princess the way you’re thinking about it,” my m
other said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It’s not a fairy tale with evil witches and magic castles. You know how Daddy has a very important job?” she asked. I nodded. “Well they do, too. Being a prince and princess means you have to do important things. So you need to show them the same respect you show your father.”
I nodded, but my spirits weren’t dampened by this news. It must have blown right over my head at the time, this idea of obligations and rules. One day, this would almost ruin everything that started that day when I looked into Nikolas’s eyes for the first time. In that moment, a future of uncertainty and obligation and tradition was far away because even at that age, when boys were gross and riddled with cooties, he caught my attention in a way no one else ever had.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, stepping up to me all rigid, and bowing just as stiffly. (I’ve made fun of him many times since then.)
“You talk like a grown up, but you’re not,” I said. It was only an observation.
My mother looked horrified, but my father laughed, and so did Nikolas’s father. Nikolas himself turned red and frowned at the ground in embarrassment.
“He needs someone to put him in his place sometimes,” the king laughed.
“Isabel, this is His Royal Highness, Nikolas, Prince of Heledia,” my mother said, somewhat less relaxed about my response.
“Hi,” I said and earned another laugh.
My mother glared at me and nodded sharply. Realizing what she wanted, I curtsied like she had taught me at the hotel, and Nikolas stood up straighter. He wore a uniform like his father’s, light blue with gold tassels and fancy medals and a blue sash across his chest. He was trying to exude the same air of authority as the king, but was only succeeding at looking impossibly cute to the adults, and incredibly funny to me.
“This is His Royal Majesty King Alexandru of Heledia,” my mother said, ushering me toward the jolly man with the loud laugh.
This time I didn’t hesitate to curtsy and he offered me a bow in return, and a wink. I smiled. I liked him. The girl was introduced as well, Nikolas’s younger sister Sonia. At the time I thought she was shy and weird, but one day she’d be almost as close to me as Jess.
“Why don’t you and Nikolas go check out the dessert table for us?” the king said. “Let us know whether it’s worth a visit.”
I looked to my mother imploringly. She nodded and I raced off, Nikolas and Sonia in tow, as our parents stood together to talk about important things.
“What’s your favorite?” I asked when we got in sight of a table filled with luscious pastries.
“The baklava,” he said. “Try it.”
His manner was cool with me but he had been trained to be polite since before he could walk. He was putting up with me, then. It wasn’t exactly love – or even friendship – at first sight.
I took the pastry and wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It was nutty and greasy and didn’t taste as sweet as I wanted it to. Nikolas shrugged as if to say “your loss” and downed his own. Sonia got some on the front of her dress, and frowning in consternation, muttered an apology and scurried away.
“Is it fun, being a prince?” I asked.
“It’s boring,” he said, and then looked instantly alarmed at his own honesty.
I smiled. “Sometimes my life is boring too.”
“Where are you from?”
“Washington, DC.”
He looked confused, as if trying to place the location inside a map of his mind’s eye.
“It’s the capital city of your country, right?”
I nodded and he smiled in triumph.
“What do you do for fun there?”
We turned from the table with our haul of sweets and he offered various ones to me to see if I enjoyed them any more than the baklava. Off to the other side of the large balcony, some other children were dancing to strange music I’d never heard before, but Nikolas didn’t acknowledge them.
“We go to the park, and my mom is teaching me how to read long books on my own,” I said. “When it snows we go sledding on the steps of the monuments, but don’t tell Daddy.”
“You have snow?” he asked, eyes lighting up.
I nodded. “Lots, every year.”
“I’d love to see snow. Everything here is too warm all the time.”
“But you get to see the ocean all the time.”
We went back and forth about the pros and cons of our own lives and munched away at dessert. I told him about my best and only friend, and he said he didn’t really have any friends here besides a kitchen boy named Dimitri who got him extra food late at night.
“You’re going back home soon?” he asked when the sun had set completely below the horizon of the sea.
“Yeah, my mom said we are only here for the weekend.”
“I have to go soon too,” he said. “I have school in France.”
“Are you nervous?”
“No.” He said it defensively, and then shrunk away and nodded. I felt my own lip pout out in pity for him. Later, he would grow up to be so tall it was hard for me, sometimes, to remember how small he looked back then, when we first met.
When our parents came to retrieve us and as we said goodnight, I asked my mother to help me write down our address. I handed it to Nikolas and told him to write me a letter from France, and then I’d write one back and he’d have another friend. He beamed at that and nodded.
That was, probably, the beginning of the rest of my life.
Dear Nikolas,
You have really neat handwriting, did you write the letter yourself? Your school sounds boring, honestly (my mom didn’t want me to say that). Is there any fun at all? France sounds pretty, maybe you’ll get to see snow for the first time. Tell me if you do. School’s starting here for me too but it’s not like your fancy school. We come home every day, after. My best friend Jess and I are in the same class. Mom says I still have to try and make one new friend though. I’ll let you know how that goes. I hope things get more fun for you. Write me back!
Your friend,
Isabel
Dear Isabel,
I’ve had classes on writing as far back as I can remember; I wrote it myself. The more you write the better it will be. Some of the other boys said we’re supposed to get snow early this year so I hope they’re right. It is boring here, but it’s less boring than being cooped up at home. I think I made a friend yesterday, his name is Hugo and he’s from Paris. He’s helping me in classes. I hope you make more new friends too. I’ll let you know if it really does snow here soon.
Sincerely,
HRH Nikolas
Our first letters to each other weren’t exactly works of great literature. They were very factual and were hard to make longer than a couple of sentences, which seemed like a waste of trans-Atlantic mail but we kept it up for months. By Christmas, the content of our letters got a bit more substantial.
Nikolas,
My mom swears I’m not getting a TV for my room for Christmas but I got the secret out of my dad. Also, she’s no longer helping me write letters (obviously, or else I couldn’t have said that). So you owe me $10 now. We’re off school starting next week so I kind of wish I was getting the TV before Christmas but I’ll have the rest of break to use it. Jess is super jealous, she said the only gift she knows about is a new bike. Her parents refused to get her a cell phone. Someone in our class has one. I asked my mom about it and she said I didn’t need it. I’ll try again soon. Do you know any of your gifts?
Tell Hugo I finished reading that book he told me to read, the one about the guy on the beach who shoots the other guy. My mom would probably kill me if she knew I read it, since Jess said her dad had a copy on his shelf and said it was for grown-ups. It was weird. I didn’t get it. He needs to get better at his book recommendations. Have you read anything interesting? Maybe you’d like the book better.
Your friend,
Isabel
Isabel,
Until
you get the TV I don’t owe you anything. I want pictures as proof when you actually do get it. No bluffing. We don’t get off school for a little while more. Father is sending Antonio to come get me (again). He’s a nice chauffeur but spending hours on a plane ride with him gets so boring. Maybe one day we’ll get cell phones and you can entertain me on these boring plane rides. My mom says I should read during them but I always get distracted. She says I’m not as good a reader as my sister but Sonia only reads when mother is watching, I’m sure of it.
I told Hugo what you said about the book and he said you just don’t get it (he also rolled his eyes and I told him that was rude). He said he’ll explain it to you one day if you ever meet and then told me to read it. I’m going to go with your advice and not. If you have any books you think I might like, let me know. I’m not really good at picking books for myself and have only really read the ones they assigned to us in class. They’re all boring but mother can’t say I never read (ha!). I hope you have a good Christmas, tell your parents I said hello.
Sincerely,
Nikolas
We kept up writing letters for a year. It was through letters that Nikolas and, by extension, Hugo, taught me how to swear in French, and I told them the bad words we used in America. Eventually Jess got in on the correspondence too, when she saw me writing a letter one day.
“What are you writing?” she asked.
“A letter. I have a pen pal,” I said, finishing my attempt at a signature.
“Who?”
“A prince.”
She thought I was lying, and rolled her eyes. She didn’t ask again for a while until I read her a part of a letter, later in the summer, which Nikolas had addressed to her. He introduced himself and apologized that it was through a letter but said I talked about her so much he thought it was only proper that they meet somehow. Jess was so shocked she didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
When she eventually realized it was all real and not a game or a joke, she made me write a reply back.
Letters from a Prince: The Royals of Heledia (Book 1) Page 1
