Once Upon a Prince

SEVENTEEN



Snow flurried in the crystal air as the uniformed driver scooted through the rapid traffic, honking, muttering, gesturing. “I say, the coronation festivities have made everyone a bit crazy.”

He gunned the gas and zipped through the roundabout, slipping under a yellow light, threading his luxury sedan through Cathedral City.

He’d met them at the gate. Sent by someone. Nathaniel? Jon? Susanna didn’t know. But there he was holding a sign with their names on it.

When she had RSVP’d to the Lord Chamberlain, Susanna had received an automatic response with details of the festivities. She fully expected to hail a taxi when they arrived, but this man was waiting for them.

Susanna gazed out her window. Avery pressed her nose against the other. Every few seconds, they sighed in harmony.

From the moment Mama and Daddy dropped them off in Atlanta, Susanna loved this journey.

A glitch in seating earned them an upgrade to first class.

A humorous flight attendant. Excellent food. Funny movie. The fire in the clouds as the sun set over the Atlantic. Falling into a peaceful sleep.

It just felt like everything was going her way. As if she saw a piece of the largeness. Saw the beauty in believing apart from God she could do nothing.

Then there was Avery. Beautiful, bold, enthusiastic, embracing every moment of the journey with abandon.

For the first three hours of the flight, Susanna just listened to her sister talk. Smart and funny, Avery exuded wisdom beyond her seventeen years.

With twelve years between them, Susanna was always a bit big sister and a bit part-time mama. Just when Avery got interesting, Susanna was in college, then working in Atlanta, all the while tangled up with Adam.

She’d never spent much one-on-one time with her sister as a young woman until now. And she’d found a treasure she’d never realized before.

Was this the purpose of her invitation and royal journey? To see her sister in a new light? Susanna glanced across the car as a gust of cold air whipped around her. Avery had powered down the window and leaned out up to her waist. “Hello, Brighton! We’re going to the coronation! Woohooooo!”

Well, there was this side of Avery too. The boisterous, slightly spoiled side. “Avery.” Susanna tugged on her jeans. “Get in here. Sheath your Georgia redneck, will you?”

“I feel like I’ve walked into a real-life Disney fairy tale,” she said for the hundredth time, squeezing Susanna’s arm. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“The shoes were the real magic.” A kiss from the Lord. Susanna had carried them on board with her and stored them under her seat. “What do you want to do first? Sightsee?”

“Shop.” Daddy had handed both of them spending money at the airport.

“Don’t feel like you can’t get what you want,” he said with his eyes watering. His emotions sat close to the surface since his heart attack.

“We could shop for ball gowns,” Susanna said. There’d been no time to shop at home. Even if they knew what kind of gowns to buy. Besides, who wanted to wad up a beautiful gown into a suitcase for an eight-hour flight?

What she really wanted was to meld into the scene beyond her window. Into the gabled and turreted buildings. Into the cobbled streets and the aroma of open-air cafés.

She wanted to inspect the architecture and gardens. Brighton was as old as Britain, a blend of British, Prussian, German, and Russian art, thought, and design. Every structure seemed to tell a piece of the ancient island’s story. Stone edifices with marble inlay—churches, courts of law, businesses. Then rows of plaster-and-beam buildings. Pubs, shops, and apartments.

Trees with bare, snowy limbs entwined with Christmas lights lining the avenues.

“This is the fashion district, ladies,” the driver said, watching them in the rearview. “Do your shopping here.”

Susanna looked close for dress shops. The day after Christmas, the fronts remained trimmed for Christmas as well as the coronation, and costumed carolers still strolled the streets. She opened her window to listen and was electrified by the unseen but tangible coronation excitement.

“This is amazing!” Avery slid from her side of the car into Susanna. “I want to eat at every restaurant and visit every shop.”

Susanna lifted her face when she caught a whiff of baking bread. “We’re only here five days. Let’s pace ourselves.”

“Pace ourselves? I’m going to burn the candle at both ends and every inch in between. Who needs sleep? We can sleep when we get home.”

The scene changed as the car headed deeper into traffic. The avenues widened and the pedestrians had a business-like stroll, dressed in dark overcoats and galoshes. High lamps arched over the streets. Banners swayed from the poles.

N II R

Susanna fixed her eyes on his cipher and raised her hand to the nearest banner as the car slipped by. Her swirling emotions surprised her. The honor, the joy of being here for him. Even if she didn’t get to see him in person.

You go, Nate.

“Look at the buildings, Suz.” Avery peeked inside. “So old and cool. I love the turrets.”

“Brighton dates back to ancient times,” the driver said. “But five hundred years ago, good ol’ King Stephen I wrenched the island jewel from King Henry VIII and gave us our little Brighton Kingdom. You’ll enjoy the coronation celebration, ladies.”

Avery shot forward, draping her arms over the back of his seat. “We’re friends of the king’s.”

“Are you now? No wonder you’re staying at the Parrsons House.”

“Do you know if it has a dungeon?”

The driver laughed. “Don’t know, lass, but I doubt it. Parrsons is the royal family’s summer home. It’s quite nice. Been a royal residence for two hundred years.”

Avery chatted about Brighton and royalty with the driver. Susanna retreated to her thoughts, her heart, to the movement of the city.

She loved it here already. It felt like home. While she refused to imagine any kind of end result of this trip, every once in a while her stubborn thoughts reminded her that she and Avery were guests of the queen.

But weren’t all the invitees and dignitaries guests of the queen? It didn’t mean anything, did it? Or that she’d have any access to Nate.

But there was a ball. The ball … she’d see him at the ball. Yet Susanna’s only mental image of a royal ball was the Disney animated Cinderella. In her mental scenario, she and Avery were the clumsy Drizella and Anastasia Tremaine.

Obscurity might be the perfect option.

The driver surged through a changing light. Up ahead, a magnificent stone palace rose on the horizon.

“Is that Stratton Palace?”

“Yes, ma’am, where the king himself lives.”

Banners waved from turret peaks, and golden lights illumined the paned windows. As the car drifted past, beneath, and through the palace shadow, the largeness feeling in her soul rested.

For a moment.

Then they left the city behind, sailing down narrow roads girded by stone fences, adorned with snowy white fields, sleeping farmhouses, and quaint countryside villages.

When the driver turned off the road and down a lane canopied with wintery trees, Susanna’s nerves tapped her adrenaline.

Would she see Nate on the other side of the door? Why hadn’t he contacted her about her RSVP? Her million questions lined up and saluted.

A clearing bloomed at the end of the lane, and a grand estate came into view.

“Oh, my gosh.” Avery leaned out her open window for an unobstructed view.

Susanna leaned between the bucket seats for a closer look out the windshield. This was a country house? To her that meant small, quaint, a couple of bedrooms and a deck.

Parrsons was a palace, a massive brick-and-stone estate of classic design. Clean and simple with wings and turrets and a well-groomed, snow-covered ground.

“Quite a place,” the driver said. “Over twenty thousand square feet, and that’s not including the ballroom nor the royal mews.” The driver eased to a stop by the front door.

Curved stone steps skirted down to the drive from an open, wide porch with a carved railing.

Avery aimed her iPhone, snapping pictures. “I’m going to run out of memory before the first day.”

“Then take it easy,” Susanna said, reaching for her bag.

Two young men in uniform wheeled a cart through the front door and scurried down the stairs, taking Susanna’s bag without a word.

“Footmen. Wow,” said Avery. Click, click.

With the women’s bags on the cart, the footmen disappeared into the house, and the driver bid them good day.

Susanna reached for Avery’s hand and faced the steps and the open door. “Ready?”

“Ready.” She jerked and jiggled, stretching her arm to get a shot of the two of them.

“Okay, put that away.” Susanna started forward. “Don’t put anything on Facebook until we get home.”

“Too late.”

“Aves … we don’t know the protocol yet.”

An older gentleman appeared in the doorway wearing a suit and high-collared shirt. “Pardon me, misses, I didn’t mean to be tardy, but there was an emergency in the kitchen.” He bowed, indicating they should come in. “I’m Rollins, the house manager. You are Susanna.” He looked right at her. “And Avery.”

“How did you know?” Avery curtsied.

“It is my job to know.” He smiled. Susanna liked him immediately. He might be a good source of intel. Who invited us? “Welcome to Parrsons. No need to curtsy, miss. I’m the royal staff. Not a royal prince. Your suite is upstairs.”

“Suite?” Avery looked at Susanna. Well, la-di-da. She engaged Rollins in conversation while climbing the stairs like a Georgia tart, swinging her hips from side to side.

Susanna, on the other hand, realized how tired she was from the journey. The time difference, the long flight, the emotional challenge to keep her heart and head in check. The constant flittering hope that Nate would appear around a corner at any moment.

She paused halfway up the stairs and visually inhaled the main hall. Marble, teak, high domed ceiling, tapestries, damask draperies. The dramatic, bell-shaped staircase was fitted against the wall and arched around the foyer to the exposed second-floor landing.

She wanted to remember everything.

“Avery”—she ran up the stairs after her sister—“are you getting all this? On your phone?”

Avery whirled around, phone facing out. “Videoing.”

“The house was built entirely from Brighton resources,” Rollins said at the top of the landing. “The wood, the marble, the wool, the stone.” He stopped at a gilded, carved door that reached to the ceiling. Eight feet if it was an inch. “Your quarters while you’re guests of the queen. The American Suite.”

“What?” Avery lowered her phone. “Can’t we stay in a Brighton room?”

Rollins opened the door and led them in. He was perfect for speak-first, think-later Avery. “Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush have slept here. The queen thought you would enjoy it.”

“Are you sure you don’t need this room for the president?” Susanna eased into the room. It was like everything else she’d seen in Brighton. Bold. Beautiful. Historic.

“He has quarters in the city. I hope this suits you.”

“This is hot-dog fantastic.” Avery aimed her camera high and low, turning a slow circle.

“Rollins, please thank the queen for us.”

“You’ll have your chance, I’m sure. She’ll be at Parrsons throughout the week, as will the other members of the royal family.”

Others? What others? This adventure was starting to raise more questions than answers. She and Avery were staying at the royal summer house with members of the royal family? And she had yet to hear from Nate?

This made no sense.

She wrestled with her questions and fought burgeoning doubt as she followed Rollins through the suite. Living area. Two large bedrooms, each with a private bath. A library, kitchenette, and gabled balconies overlooking the grounds and the countryside.

“It’s decided,” Avery said as she leaned over the railing of the library balcony. “I’m never going home.”

Rollins laughed. “Everyone becomes enchanted with Brighton when they see it for the first time. Especially from a Parrsons balcony.”

“So, where’s the dungeon?” Avery propped her elbow on the rail and peered at Rollins as if she were shooting the breeze at one of her teen hangouts. Rollins’s lips twitched ever so slightly.

“We’ve no dungeon here, miss.”

“Rats.”

The wind was cold, and Susanna could tell Avery was actually fading, so she suggested going inside. Avery disappeared into one of the bedrooms. Good. She’d have to sleep a bit if she wanted to make the most of their trip.

Susanna walked with Rollins back to the living room. “Pardon me, Rollins, but do you know who invited us to the coronation?”

“I suppose Her Majesty.”

“But I don’t know Her Majesty.” Susanna twisted her bottom lip. “Maybe His Majesty, King Nathaniel?”

“Highly possible, miss.” Rollins made his way to the door, stopping by the desk in the corner, and handed Susanna a blue booklet with N II R on the spine. “Your coronation and festivities schedule. Everything you need to know is in this book. Please familiarize yourself with the events, the dress codes, and security requirements. The green events are for the general population in celebration of His Majesty.”

Susanna flipped open to the middle pages.

“The yellow events are audiences with His Majesty for business and government leaders. Red for dignitaries.”

“And the blue?”

“The blue events are private, invitation only.”

“I see.” She made note of the green events. There was a party tomorrow in the Violet Garden.

“Milady, you are free to attend any green event you desire, but you are expected at all of the blue.” Rollins motioned for Susanna to turn to the back of the book. “You’ll see the Colors Coronation Ball tomorrow evening at eight. ‘Tis your first blue event. You are the queen’s guests, so please make yourselves at home. Dinner is at seven o’clock sharp. The queen is not in residence, so dress is not required. Jeans and trainers will be suitable. If you wish to go into Cathedral City or into the village shops, which are quite nice, leave a note on the table in the foyer.” Rollins moved into the hall and pointed over the banister rail to the high-gloss table by the main door. “I’ll arrange a motor for you.”

“Are you sure?” Susanna began to feel like an imposition.

“Yes, I’m to see to your needs.” There was no tomfoolery in his voice. “This is the royal family’s private country home. A very special place. The king died here, as did his father and grandfather before him. During this week, members of the extended family will lodge here for the celebration. The coronation ball honoring distinguished guests will be held here. You are free to roam the house—except the west wing.” He stepped down the hall and pointed to a dark, right corridor. “That is the queen’s private residence. You can’t miss it. The king’s cipher is on the wall.”

“Thank you.” Susanna smoothed her hand over the schedule. This would be going home with her as memorabilia. “We will need to go shopping for gowns.”

“Will this afternoon work?” Rollins pulled out a small e-tablet. “Say three o’clock? Most of the village shops close at six. I’ll arrange a motor for you in the morning as well.”

“Thank you so much.” Surreal. And utterly sublime.

“Don’t forget, dinner at seven sharp. We’re having rosemary lamb stew, warm bread, and apple pie.”

“We wouldn’t miss it.”

Back in the room, Susanna clicked the door closed behind her. She had to agree with Avery in never wanting to leave.

Just then, the little fireball herself ran into the suite, jumping, spinning. “This is so awesome!”

“I thought you went to bed.”

“Who can sleep?”

“Me.” Susanna took the nearest chair and closed her eyes. “We’re shopping at three.”

“Really? Oh great. I need some hot, sexy gown.” Avery’s voice disappeared into another room. “I’m filming every room. Mama and Daddy are not going to believe this.”

Susanna was drifting to sleep on a dreamy wave when she felt someone next to her.

“Do you like it here?”

Susanna opened her eyes. Avery knelt next to her, chin propped on Susanna’s knee. “Yeah, I do. It feels like home.”

“Same to me.”

Susanna pushed up from her chair with a groan. “Unpack or nap?”

“Sightsee.”

“Nap or unpack. We’re shopping at three.” Susanna pointed to the large grandfather clock in the corner. “We have five hours.”

“Do you think we’ll see Nate?”

“I don’t know.” She jerked up her bag and lugged it toward one of the bedrooms. “I’m not going to worry about it. I’m here with you, and I’m going to have fun.”

“You’ll see him, I mean, you have to see him, right?”

Susanna listened as Avery chatted while they unpacked—where did she get the energy?—ate cakes and cookies from the guest basket, turned on the telly, and flipped through the channels.

Susanna tried to lie down, but a maid brought up tea and cakes, which Avery announced by jumping on Susanna’s bed.

So she showered, saying her prayers as the warm water refreshed her tired bones, believing in the Divine for the purpose of her trip.

She toured the suite again, brushing her fingers over the gold-embossed, leather-bound books in the cherry-stained shelves, then stepped onto the library balcony.

Leaning against the rail, she surveyed the landscape to the farthest point of the horizon. It was barren but white. Beautiful in the late-morning light. The sky was a low, hovering blue.

There was a lengthy red stable. Or what did the driver call it? The royal mews. A couple of men pulled up in a truck with a bale of hay and backed to the sliding side doors.

Beyond the mews were several walking paths to the forest’s edge. Susanna spied a walled garden, nearer to the house, between the western and northern wings. A single wintery tree reached bare and silent above its stone enclosure. A lone but diligent sentry.

Susanna’s heart yearned. She must see behind that wall. Was it a true garden or a pathway from the kitchen to the garbage? Was it a king’s garden?

She loved the garden with a single tree. She understood such a garden, such a tree.

“Suz.” Avery stuck her head through the glass doors. “There’s a lady to see you.” She made a face. “She’s got something bad stuck in her craw.”

“To see me?” Susanna came inside, shivering, unaware of how cold she’d become. “Who is it?” She locked the balcony doors behind her.

“I don’t know but … blech.” Avery cut through the library toward the bedrooms, avoiding the blech waiting for Susanna in the living room.

Susanna rounded the library corner to see a pinched-faced woman in a blue-green plaid tweed suit posing prim and proper in the middle of the room with her handbag dangling from her arm. Her dark hair trimmed her tapered face while a heavy fringe shaded her eyes.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Lady Margaret Wiggins.” She held her back stiff, her chin high. “You are the American?”

She turned American into a foul word. “I don’t know about the American, but I’m from the States, yes.”

“My husband, Lord Stanley, is Queen Campbell’s cousin.”

“Nice to meet you. Listen, my sister and I promise not to be in the family’s way.”

“Too late for that, I’m afraid.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who designed Leo’s garden. In Georgia.” She moved to the window and pulled back the sheer. Was she signaling someone? “His Majesty told me about it.” Lady Margaret daggered a glance toward Susanna. Her heart lurched. “Yet I heard more love in his tone than garden talk. I won’t have you ruining things for him. Or for us.”

“Ruining things?” Susanna raised her arms. “I just got here.” She batted the weariness from her thoughts. What was this woman talking about? And why did she keep looking out the window?

“I know what you’re about.”

“Good, then tell me because I sure don’t.” Forget standing. Susanna collapsed into the nearest chair.

Lady Margaret shoved the sheer wider and angled to see the snowy lawn below. “You’re a ladder climber, a royal chaser, dreaming of some kind of fairy tale.”

“Is that what Nathaniel told you?” Her words settled like hot coals in Susanna’s soul.

“No, but I can read between the proverbial lines. Nathaniel is too kind. But I know what women like you are about.”

“Because you’re one?” She’d said it. Too late to retrieve it.

“How dare you—” Lady Margaret’s gaze steamed.

“You need to leave, ma’am.” Avery moved into the room and the conversation. “We were invited here. But not to be insulted by the likes of you.”

“I don’t know how you got an invitation but let me warn you, if you’ve set your sights on our new king, you will fail.” Her eyes flickered with fiery flames. “We will see to it.”

“We?” Avery was good-ol’-girl personified, hands locked on her hips, elbows wide, looking around the room with exaggeration. “I don’t see no we. Just a snooty lady in an uptight suit.”

“I don’t have to put up with this.” Lady Margaret rotated for the door.

“Neither do we.” Avery ran around the furniture, arriving at the door before the lady, and jerked it open. “Don’t let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord—”

“Avery!” Susanna fired to her feet. But she wanted to cry.

Lady Margaret paused with one last scouring glance. “You have no idea what is at stake if His Highness abdicates the throne.”

“Abdicate? There’s not going to be any abdicating. Not on my account. Believe me.”

“So you don’t love him?”

The question caught Susanna unaware. She tried to speak but no words formed. No, just say no.

“Just as I feared.” Lady Margaret’s expression drew taut. Susanna could bounce a quarter off her cheeks. “Watch yourself, miss. This is way bigger than you.”

“No … no.” Susanna ran after her and tried to open the door, but she trembled so hard she couldn’t grip the knob. “I don’t … love him.”

“Suz.” Avery’s arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Don’t listen to her.”

“I’m not.” But she did. She cradled her head against Avery’s shoulder, weeping. For herself, for love found and love lost. For agreeing to the surrender of nothing.

She was so tired.

“It’s okay if you do, you know.” There was that seventeen-year-old profound wisdom.

“No, it’s not.” Susanna lifted her head and dried her face, glancing around for a tissue.

“Why not, Suz?” Avery curled up on the sofa. “I saw the way he looked at you last summer.”

“He didn’t look at me any way.”

“Yeah, he did. Like he was completely and utterly in love.”

“I’m telling Mama to get your eyes checked when you get home.”

“Susanna, why not? He’s amazing. You’re amazing. Can you imagine being a queen? It could happen to you.”

“He can’t marry a foreigner. It’s against the law.”

“Huh, the people here can’t marry foreigners?”

“No, not the people; just those in line for the throne.”

“Nate.”

“And he’s not just in line, he’s on the throne.”

“Even if he was madly in love with you, he couldn’t marry you?”

Tears had not been a part of her original agenda for this trip. “He can’t. They have a law. People tried in the past to change it but failed.”

“Why? Why the law?”

“To avoid divided loyalties among the royal houses of Europe. Some princess nearly depleted their army trying to help her Uncle Louis in the French Revolution.”

“So Nate can’t marry you in the twenty-first century?”

“I’m going to lie down until the car comes.” But she didn’t move. The confrontation with Lady Margaret had drained her.

“Suz, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” She shrugged. “That I actually met a prince? And who says a girl has to marry the first prince she finds anyway?”

“Every fairy tale I read.” Avery curled into her.

“Then it’s a good thing I stopped reading fairy tales.”