The Wicked Prince

by Wood, Vivian

  I scrunch my face up. “That still sounds kind of lonely. Didn’t you go to school?”

  He sighs. “No. I was tutored privately. But once Erik was around, I never wanted for a friend.”

  My lips curl. “Yes, I can see that. You two are inseparable.”

  He stops, turning to face me. “What about you? Tell me about your childhood living in the Big Apple. Or… did you move to New York later in life?”

  I give him an annoyed look. “We made it through one question about you. One. How am I supposed to write this article if you won’t cooperate?”

  He shrugs a shoulder. “You’re not supposed to bore me to death, I’m pretty sure. My whole life has been documented. Photos were taken to mark each little milestone of my life. It’s a part of the public record.” He gives me a hard look. “I’m just trying to keep things interesting. I regurgitate sound bites about my life. You give me some of your story in return.”

  “What if I said that I wasn’t interested in the same sound bites that you’ve been giving for your entire life?” I cock my head, challenging him. “I want the truth. Besides, if I write anything that is too sensitive, it will no doubt be caught by the press office.”

  A genuine smile plays across his mouth. “Fair enough. What I need to know is, will you be as honest in your answers as you are encouraging me to be?”

  I roll my eyes. “Of course. I have nothing worth hiding.”

  A wrinkle of concern appears on his forehead. “So you say.”

  “Yes. So, to summarize: if I answer your questions, you’ll answer mine.”

  He examines me for a moment, his eyes searching my face. “It’s a deal.”

  Stellan holds out his hand. And I take it, shaking it firmly.

  “Stellan!” a woman calls from the other side of the hedge. “Stellan, come tell everyone about your trip to Okinawa!”

  He lets go of my hand and shakes his head. “I don’t even know who that is.” His lips curl down into a frown. “Tomorrow, we’ll go somewhere private and try to get most of your questions out of the way.”

  My eyebrows lift. “Okay…”

  But he’s heading away, already turning around a corner in the hedge maze. I frown after him. What am I supposed to make of our agreement? I have absolutely no idea.

  But I do know that this is entirely new territory for me. I’m in a foreign land, at a freaking palace, trying to puzzle out a tall, dark, handsome enigma.

  Nothing is familiar here, not anymore.

  My office mandated cell phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a brand new iPhone, so new that I haven’t even taken the plastic film off the screen yet. I slip it out of my pocket, frowning at the unknown number.

  INTERNATIONAL NUMBER is splashed across the screen.

  That could be anyone. An old colleague. A friend from New York. Or it could be a member of the American press. I haven’t given anyone this number yet, but that doesn’t mean anything in this day and age.

  I let it go to voicemail, biting my lower lip. Then as soon as I get a notification of a new voice message, I press play and put it to my ear. I’m only half listening as I turn and head back to the party.

  Mostly, I’m really hoping that Pippa is around. I spent an hour and a half getting myself ready for this event… I’d hate to just go back to the party and skulk around, wasting all my efforts.

  When the voice mail finally plays, I almost drop my phone in surprise.

  “Hi. It’s your mother calling.” There is a sound on the line, like the crinkling of a bag of potato chips. “I just found out that not only did you move out of the state, you frigging moved all the way across the ocean. I thought you said the last time we talked that we were going to keep in better touch with each other. Guess that doesn’t matter to you though, does it?”

  I break into a sweat. My mom always makes me so nervous. Even though I’m well past the age of having to worry about when and if she would ever show her face at home… it’s hard to overcome a lifetime of that.

  “Anyway,” she continues. “Your little friend called me. What’s her name? Abby? No… Something with an A. She said she had a lot of questions about you.”

  I pale. About me? An uneasy feeling slithers through my gut.

  “I said I’d have to talk to you first.” Mom smacks her lips. “I think you and me should talk, baby girl. Give me a call back quick, else I think I’m going to have to talk to that nice lady.” She hangs up.

  As I lower the phone, I realize that my hands are shaking. I haven’t actually heard from my mom in almost a year. The last time we talked, she hit me up for money. Again.

  And now some idiot reporter has unearthed her somehow?

  Pippa’s face appears around the corner of the hedge maze. “Hey! I have looked everywhere for you. Come on, there are people that I want you to meet.”

  Scrunching my face up, I nod. “Okay…”

  I head back toward the party, but my mother looms large in the back of my mind, a specter of ill omens.

  Chapter Twenty

  Stellan

  I stand beside the gray gelding, petting him absently. Standing in this riding ring takes me back to my childhood days. The colors of the landscape, heather and green moss, dark colored earth and endless blue skies, all blending together seamlessly. The air here is full of strangely comforting scents: fresh cedar chips, sweet horse feed, the baser scent of horse dung.

  I swear, nothing here has changed since I was a little boy, first learning to ride. The world around me back at the palace never seems to slow down. But out here, in the ivy-covered stables only a twenty minute helicopter ride from the palace?

  It’s just a whole different world. Time stands still. I think it’s because everyone has to dress in riding gear. I’m currently wearing dark riding pants, a loose white button up, and knee-high boots almost shiny enough to see myself in.

  Stroking Karl’s muscular neck, I stare off into space and just… relax. Being who I am is not easy; everyone needs something from me, all the fucking time. Every minute of every day is jam-packed full of doing things to help other people.

  I’m not complaining. But it’s not often I get to zone out. Just… let my mind drift.

  When Margot clears her throat gently, I tense up. My time is up, it seems.

  I turn, eyeing her. My eyes widen a little bit. She’s wearing the khaki jodhpurs and chestnut riding boots that were brought along for her… but on top, she wears a black t-shirt that reads The Smiths. Her riding pants are skintight. And her t-shirt is loose and full of holes, one especially large that shows off her neon pink bra.

  God, why haven’t I taken her riding before now?

  She blushes under my inspection. “You are making me feel even more like an alien from another dimension than I did when I walked out of the changing room.”

  I shrug. “I can’t help it if you look…” I pause, trying to think of how to word my thoughts diplomatically. “Eye catching.”

  Her eyes narrow to slits. “Cool it. Are we going riding or what?”

  “Ja, ja. Look, the stable hand is bringing in the gentlest of our mares for you now.” I point over to the fence, where a stable hand leads in a sleek-looking black horse. “Okay?”

  Her expression remains full of uncertainty, especially when she’s clambering on top of the horse. The stable hand helps her get into the saddle and then backs away, looking nervous. Not half as nervous as Margot looks, though…

  Wide eyed, she clutches at the reins.

  “You act as if you haven’t ever been on a horse before,” I chide her, mounting my horse.

  Beneath her, the mare stands placidly. She looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head. “Of course I haven’t!”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Wait, really?”

  “No! You think I’m joking about it?” Her expression darkens.

  I guide my mount over to Margot, glancing over at her upright posture. “Relax your grip on the reins. Hold them like this.”

  I demon
strate, giving my horse a few inches of slack. She copies me, biting her lower lip. I reach over to her and correct her grip once, then smile. “There. Only pull back on the reins when you want the horse to slow or stop. And use your heels to encourage the horse to start moving. Like this.”

  I use my heels to nudge Karl forward. Using exaggerated motions, I demonstrate how I guide my horse. Margot’s brow puckers, but she follows my movements. Soon, she guides the horse around the ring, successfully starting and stopping a few times.

  “Come on.” I jerk my head to the horizon. “Let’s go out of the ring, into the wild. We’ll go on a really easy ride, okay?”

  She looks at me with terrified eyes, but she doesn’t back down. She just swallows. “Okay.”

  Margot is clearly afraid but she’s not going to let a little worry keep her from trying something new. God help me, but that’s the most attractive thing she’s done yet. I grin at her, nudging my horse toward the gate.

  The stable hand opens the gate, standing aside to let both of us pass. I grin back at Margot as I ride. Her expression is really delightful, part suspicion, part fright, part determination. I lead her down a gentle hill, just as slow as the horses want to take it.

  “Wouldn’t Hunter S. Thompson be proud of you right now?” I tease.

  She glances over at me, a puzzled frown on her face. “Who?”

  “You know, the guy who wrote Leaving Las Vegas. He invented gonzo journalism. He rode with biker gangs, ran for office, and did a ton of drugs.”

  “Ah,” she says, chuckling. “Yeah, I recognize the name now. I feel like he’d take one look at me right now and die laughing. This isn’t exactly gonzo journalism.”

  “No?” I ask, grinning. “I don’t know… You are obviously out of your element, but you’re keeping your shit together.”

  She makes a face. “Maybe. We’ll see.” She looks out at the surrounding landscape, pursing her lips. “I have to say, it’s quite pretty out here. What is that sort of gray plant with purplish blossoms that is growing everywhere here? It just looks like there are endless fields of it.”

  My lips twitch. “Heather.”

  Margot looks at me, her slender brows rising. “Really? It’s awfully beautiful.”

  I nod, adjusting in my saddle. “Ja. There is a famous Danish song about seeing the waves of heather underneath the rolling blue skies…” Eyeing her, I shrug. “During the summer, it is so nice here.”

  She slides me a look. “What about during the winter?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “The snow is very pretty. It can be breathtaking, in a brutal sort of way. But ja, the snow gets old after a few days.”

  “Same thing in New York. Except it is much hotter there during the summer. There’s no air from July until nearly September. Stifling is the word, I think.”

  Pulling gently on Karl’s reins, I drop back so that Margot and I can walk two abreast. She shoots me a hasty smile. “What? Am I doing something wrong?”

  I shake my head. “No. I just want to be able to see your face while we’re talking.” I smirk. “You know that everything you are thinking is spelled out by your expressions, ja?”

  She sends me a tiny scowl. “It is not.”

  “Yes, it is.” I shrug. “When I was younger, maybe age seven or eight years old, I had acting classes. My instructor was a very old French man named Monsieur Bernard. And Monsieur Bernard would make us all dress up and stand in a line to be inspected.” I smile, huffing a laugh. “Little kings and queens, he called us. Even Erik, though I think he knew that Erik was common. Monsieur Bernard always said that it is very important for the family of the king to learn to control their faces at all times.”

  Margot looks a little surprised at that. “Really? That’s… interesting. Most parents would be afraid that their children might hide things from them, I would imagine.”

  I look out at the horizon, squinting. “You don’t know my family, Margot. They are not like anyone else’s family.”

  Her nose wrinkles a little. I fully expect her to ask when she will meet my father and mother, to say that it is an important part of her article or whatever. But she doesn’t.

  “No,” she says, her full mouth flattening. “It would be weird to expect the royal family to function the same as everyone else, I guess.”

  I study her, wondering what she’s thinking that makes her mouth turn down at the corners. “What about you?”

  She looks up at me. “What?”

  “You never answered my question yesterday. Did you grow up in New York City?”

  “Ah.” She looks down at the reins in her hands. “Yeah. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. It was…” She laughs to herself under her breath. “It was basically the opposite of growing up here, I think. That’s what I’m gathering, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask casually.

  Her resulting smile is a little bitter. “I didn’t have anything as a kid. And I don’t mean I didn’t have a palace and a fleet of jets. I mean…” Her cheeks turn red. She pauses, then shakes her head. “I was just brought up differently, that’s all.”

  I shrug. “Almost everyone grew up differently than I did.”

  She tilts her head, cocking an eyebrow. “Have you ever thought about finding someone who was raised in the same way? I mean, I know you are being pressured to pick someone to marry…”

  Rolling my eyes, I shake my head. “Nope. Not interested.”

  “In talking about it, or doing it?”

  I pin her with a stare. “Either. Now come on.”

  Digging my heels into my horse, I take off like a shot. And Margot isn’t far behind, nudging her horse into a gallop and letting out a whoop of fear and excitement.

  For just a moment, I let go of everything extraneous. Worries about my father’s health, heavy thoughts about becoming the ruler of Denmark, constant needling about choosing a wife.

  Right now, in just this moment, Margot and I are just two people flying far and fast, all the rest of Copenhagen and it’s concerns be damned.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Margot

  “And let us not forget the children for whom we raise this money…” Stellan says, smiling into the microphone. He’s in his usual dress of a richly-cut navy suit and a crisp white button up, standing behind a podium before a ballroom of people.

  I’m staring at him from the sidelines, my cellphone in my hand, recording the whole thing. Still I look at him, at how he draws the attention of the entire room.

  Elegant. Coiffed. Handsome.

  You can say a great deal about his other attributes, including his often-oafish personality. But I look at his dark hair, his light blue eyes, his cheekbones chiseled from granite…

  A person really can’t find fault with his physical appearance, is what I am thinking. My cheeks warm, but I don’t look away.

  I watch him talking to the audience in his native tongue, something that is still foreign to me. He speaks quickly but assuredly, his voice honeyed as it glides over the alien-sounding syllables. I bite my lip, thinking to myself that I have to learn Danish sooner or later.

  That is, if I stay here in Copenhagen after the article is published. All of that is a little too far into the future, murky at best.

  My attention wanders: the ballroom we are in is in downtown Copenhagen, not owned by the royal family from what I can tell. The ceilings are soaring, the decoration ornate. Everything that I’ve seen so far in this hotel is done up in silver and black, in the style of jazz age era hotels. There’s even an old gramophone; I saw it as I entered, segregated from the rest of the room with slinky red ropes.

  “Thank you!” Stellan finishes his speech and the small crowd of businesspeople applaud wildly. As cameras flash, I roll my eyes just a bit.

  No wonder he has such a huge ego. If everyone clapped every time I gave a speech about anything, I would probably have a big head too.

  I see Stellan searching the crowd for me a second before his gaze meets mine. Blushin
g a little, I smooth my hands down yet another rented ballgown. This one is strapless and snow white, with a white length of taffeta meant to be worn as a wrap.

  I slip my phone into my tote bag just as Stellan reaches me. He’s riding high on the applause, his cheeks still pink, his smile still brilliant.

  “What did you think of my speech?” he asks. His Danish accent is more pronounced just now, I suppose from speaking his mother tongue only moments ago.

  I lick my lips, darting my eyes away from his face. “I think I still need to learn Danish.”

  He shakes his head at me, repressing an eye roll. Behind him, a five piece quartet starts playing jazz standards. “Want to see something cool?”

  Clearing my throat, I manage a smile. “Always.”

  Stellan makes a pleased sound deep in his throat, almost a growl, but lacking the heat of anger. He grabs my elbow and starts towing me out of the ballroom. “Come. You’re going to like this.”

  I bite my lower lip. “Am I going to be able to take notes?”

  He pulls me out into the darkened marble hallway, shaking his head just a little. “I would rather you didn’t. I’m celebrating tonight. You should be too.”

  I give a huffed laugh. “What are you celebrating, exactly?”

  He shrugs. “What does it matter?”

  My lips curve up. “Touché.”

  He guides me to the grand elevators, pressing the button to call it to our floor. I cock my head, looking at our reflection in the elevator doors. Stellan is so big and tall, so darkly handsome. I am so petite next to him; with my bubble gum pink hair and my white ball gown, I look as though I am made of marzipan candy.

  What would he be, if we were both made of sugar? Perhaps some bitter black licorice, or some sort of molasses drops. Not the kind of candy most people would want to gorge themselves on, anyway…