Royal Marriage Market (4 page)

She collapses into an overstuffed chair, arms and legs sprawling in all directions. Judging by the bags under her eyes, I hazard a guess she hasn’t slept in far too many hours. “Why do you want me to get you out of the country, Elsa? Have you murdered somebody? Embezzled the country’s coffers?” Even her smile is weary as she regards my joke. “That would be so like you, to wait until I was on maternity leave to wreak havoc.”

“Worse.” I pass her the cup I’ve prepared. “I am to attend the Decennial Summit in forty-eight hours.”

Her eyes widen behind the porcelain. Royals do not speak of the Summit with those outside of their innermost circles; it’s how we have managed to keep the gatherings secret in the past. But as my closest, most trusted advisor, Charlotte knows everything there is to know about the Decennial Summit and the RMM.

“Bloody hell, Elsa.”

Ah, now she gets it.

She sits up straight, honeyed hair swishing softly around her shoulders. “I’ll—I need to call Josef, tell him that I’ll be—”

“Don’t be daft. You are not coming. Summit or no, you are still on maternity leave.”

“Elsa.” Her exhaustion beats a path out of the room as steely resolve surges to the forefront. “Where is it being held?”

“California.”

“California, as in the United States?”

“Are there other Californias in the world?” I muse.

“This is no time for jesting!”

“I am quite aware of that, despite my pathetic pleas to smuggle me out of the country. Perhaps I ought to have asked you to find me a rent-a-husband instead. Do you happen to know of any reputable escort services?”

Her teacup discarded onto a nearby table, Charlotte locates one of the hundreds of notepads littering her house. “What has His Highness said? Are there any targets for us to know about?”

“Targets?”

“Future husbands,” she says grimly. “Whom is Prince Gustav leaning toward? I cannot imagine he’s dragging you to California without several goals in mind.”

She makes an alarming yet valid point. “Nothing was said to me yet.”

“I need to call Josef, see if there are any countries that Parliament has been angling to bolster trade agreements with. Or buffer alliances with, especially within EU voting blocs.” She scribbles like an enflamed madwoman. “Last I heard, there was a call toward agricultural outsourcing, considering recent shoddy crops due to global warming. Who right now has good export prices on—” She is out of her chair, rooting around the room for her cell phone. “Dammit. I think there was talk of iron, too. And then there’s Her Serene Highness’ most fervent desire to become the Monaco of the north, which would require loads of capital.”

I would not put it past my mother to whisper names of ludicrously wealthy suitors in my father’s ear, all in the name of securing her glory and dreams. “I have received no marching orders yet.”

“His Serene Highness never goes into these situations blind.” Her cell is extracted from underneath a stack of baby books. “I’ll bet everything I own your parents already have somebody selected for you. And then a pair of back-ups if their first choice proves unfeasible.”

This is yet another reason why Charlotte is worth her weight in gold. “You realize that Vattenguldia has precious little political pull in the world, right? I highly doubt that any marriage of mine would be able to change that.”

I’m impressed my words are steady as this falsehood slides out. My mother has long insisted to anyone in our family that, if I choose right, our principality’s visibility could expand exponentially. And as Her Serene Highness has her sights set on tourists from the Americas and Asia and their deep pocketbooks, there is little doubt she looks to cash in on this belief.

After all, the world loves a good royal fairy story.

Charlotte is already dialing her husband. “You are splitting hairs.”

“Outside of me fleeing the country right now, I highly doubt that, even if we knew who the Prince is eying as a future son-in-law, I have any other say over what is to happen.”

The phone is ripped away from her ear as she stares at me incredulously. “Who are you, and what have you done with Elsa?”

I stir my tea, even though the sugar has long melted. Confident Elsa is currently in crisis mode, thank you very much.

“Many royals marry exactly who they want,” she says. “Look at all the commoners and trainers who are now happily married into royalty. Why couldn’t you fall in love with your trainer, Elsa?”

“Hedda is an amazing woman, and attractive to boot, but she is already happily married with a whole slew of children,” I say dryly.

“My point stands. There are plenty of people of your ilk who are married as a result of their own free will.”

“Not if they were single during the Decennial Summit.”

She slaps her notepad down upon a table and comes to sit next to me on the couch. “Would Their Serene Highnesses really go through with making you marry someone you don’t know? Or love?”

I set my teacup down. “Yes. I neglected to mention that Isabelle is to come, too. It will be a two-fer: the Vattenguldian princesses for two new political gains.”

The pity on my best friend’s face makes me want to claw my own in rabid frustration.

chapter 4

Christian

The rock my father kicks skitters down into the pond at the edge of the palace grounds; ripples barely form as it rolls to hidden depths. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and glances up to the angry sky. “It’ll rain today, I think.”

It rains a lot in Norslœ, so that’s basically like him saying, “Grass is green,” or other stupid shite people say when they’re trying to make irreverent small talk. But that’s Andres de la Warren’s
modus operandi,
especially in difficult situations.

Lukas’ pack of dogs yip and rush past us, scattering ducks into the pond. My brother shouts their names, but as they are the only truly willful, disobedient creatures on the palace grounds, they pay him no mind. “Fuck the rain,” he says. “Let’s talk about how Chris and I are lambs off to slaughter tomorrow. Can’t you talk to the She-Wolf about this?”

Once upon a time, I believe my father was a confident man. He was popular, funny, and charismatic, a favorite of Spanish society and media. He had girlfriends and money and even played a year on a professional Spanish football team. Within a blink of an eye, his uncle, the King, sold him off to my mother for banking perks during one of the RMMs and shipped him north. Isolated from the Mediterranean, and trapped in what he rapidly realized was an antagonistic, loveless marriage with a She-Wolf, my father initially rebelled until my mother somehow smashed him into submission. None of us know how she did it, but whispers in the palace tell me that all of his
joie de vivre
disappeared until he was nothing but a puppet the She-Wolf trots out when necessary.

He is no true Grand Duke. Instead, he is the Grand Duchess Britta of Aiboland’s silent Prince Consort. So for Lukas to even ask him of this is absurd. Still, my father says, his lingering accent more noticeable in the fresh air than inside,
“Mis hijos
, she is resolute about finding you proper matches at the Decennial Summit.”

He bends down and digs a smooth rock out of the mud below our Wellies. With a flick of the wrist, it sails toward the pond and skips one, two, three times across the surface.

“I am resolute about telling her she can go to hell,” Lukas mutters.

For hours after we got home from the pub, my brother and I brainstormed over ways for me to escape the She-Wolf’s machinations. No solutions were found, except for Parker to call the local newspapers and cash in favors to have the photographs from the outing not published.

“I hear,” my father says, “that the Vattenguldian girl is lovely, Christian.”

“Well, shite. That makes it all okay, right?” Lukas tugs a stick out of one of his dog’s mouths and throws it into the distance. “Chris! Did you hear that? As long as the lady is pretty, nothing else matters. She could be an inbred idiot or a raving bitch like the She-Wolf, but as long as her face is good to look at and the babies she pumps out are lovely, you’re golden.” He pretends to step into line like one of the ceremonial guards outside the palace. “Long live Aiboland, an island of beautiful, unimportant royals in a world that finds monarchies obsolete.”

Our father sighs. “Lukas . . .”

Light raindrops splatter against my cheek as I gaze upward. “I wonder what it would take to stage a coup?”

Lukas reclaims the stick from one of the dogs. “Balls of titanium, I imagine.” Bitter chuckling escapes him. “Not so doable for emotional eunuchs like ourselves, right?”

“Did you know your uncle planned to arrange your marriage?” I ask our father.

He squats down to pet one of the less obnoxious dogs. As there are five of them, and I’ve been gone for years, I haven’t yet put effort into learning all their names. “I’d heard rumors of the RMM from my cousins, but I certainly never thought I’d be worth any leverage in such matters.” The dog leans its head against my father’s leg. “But
mi madre
always warned that, as nephew to the King of Spain, my future was not always mine to make.”

It’s pointless to argue with him, especially as I know he has no pull with the She-Wolf at all. And still I find myself saying, like some kind of bloody fool who just doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, “It’s the twenty-first century. Arranged marriages are archaic!”

“There are plenty of places in the world where that is not the case and you know it,” my father counters.

“In First World countries, it most certainly
is
the case. If I’m not mistaken,” Lukas’ glance around us is exaggeratedly sweeping, “despite this island being a shitehole in the Baltic Sea, we’re still considered First World—or so people believe, considering our wealth. So, Chris’ point stands.” He kicks the toe of a Wellie into the mud, suctioning out a hole. “There are a lot of royals out there right now marrying whoever they feel is right.”

“Not during the Decennial Summit,” our father says softly.

Lukas turns away, stalking toward the pond’s edge.

A weathered hand comes to rest against my shoulder. “
Mi hijo
, you must understand that—”

“No,” I tell him. “I really don’t.”

I’m surprised when he doesn’t roll over and just let it go like every other time confrontation finds him in this family. “We aren’t like other people. We don’t have the luxury of doing what we wish, no matter what the rest of the world thinks of us. You have a duty to this country, Christian. Fighting against expectations will only lead you to pain and misery.”

The clouds above us rip open. Lukas barks out an order to round the dogs up so we can head back to the palace. My father moves to follow, but I stay him with a hand on his shoulder. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“It comes from me,” he says quietly, “because I speak from experience.”

I feel like punching something. “I don’t
want
what you have. I want . . .” I pull at my wet hair. “Shite . . . love, maybe? At least friendship? If I have to marry somebody, I want it to be because I
choose
to, not because my fucking monster of a mother made me.”

But then he’s gone without another word. Brown fur flies as the dogs circle him on the path back toward our prison.

chapter 5

Elsa

What do they call those final, desperate moments of the condemned, where sweet, soft mercy is pled for, only to have fragile hopes carefully cultivated be stomped upon with unforgiving steel-toed boots? An appeal, maybe?

Whatever it is, that was me an hour before we left Vattenguldia via private jet. I went to my father with my pride tucked into a pocket, petitioning for compassion and understanding.

He was unmoved. “You are taking this too personally.”

“How can I not? It
is
personal. This is my life!”

“Yours is a life of service. You have a chance right now to make a difference for our country, as does Isabelle. Two massively beneficial chances. If you are unhappy with your spouse, do as I’ve done.”