Princess Ever After

TWO





Tanner Burkhardt rather enjoyed when September’s white-gray clouds and soft drizzling rain descended upon Strauberg, Hessenberg’s capital city. And this rainy Wednesday was no exception.

With a small box under his arm, he walked from his car toward the side entrance of Wettin Manor, the former city home of what had been Hessenberg’s royal family. Now it was the capital’s government center.

The chill in the wet air reminded him of his boyhood. Of dashing through the parish front door into the aroma of Mum’s simmering beef stew and baking biscuits.

But those days were long gone, and he only allowed himself an occasional reminiscent journey into the past when fall first rolled round. Otherwise, he avoided looking back. The days and years were too painful, littered with the debris of his foolishness.

Tanner entered the manor, his heels tapping on the sparkling marble floors, and bounded up the stairs to his fourth-floor office. Navigating the ancient and hallowed halls, passing under the lancet arches, he shook the rain from his overcoat and brushed the drops from his long hair.

He considered again that perhaps his dad was right—as much as it pained him to admit it—the time for his long locks ended when he played his last rugby match.

But the look fared well for him when he was a young barrister, and Tanner’s style became a symbol of his success, rather than a reminder of his failure.

Long hair was one luxury he could afford after the incident with Trude. After leaving seminary.

And now, as Hessenberg’s Minister of Culture, he’d succeeded in putting all of his failures behind him. Had he not?

Tanner caught his thin reflection in the glass of a corridor picture frame.

Perhaps someday he’d cut his hair. But not today. Or tomorrow. His hair reminded him to be diligent and focused lest he forget the depths of his depravity.

Back to his external tasks . . .

His morning at the museum had gone well. He was rather pleased with the Saxon Museum curator’s organization of the Augustine-Saxon royals in the main hall. As the newly appointed Minister of Culture, Tanner lent the exhibit his seal of approval. Save one: the Renoir of Princess Alice.

Tanner requested that her painting be hung at Meadowbluff Palace. After all, the palace was the princess’s last home before her uncle, the Grand Duke, surrendered Hessenberg to Brighton at the beginning of World War I without a shot being fired, then fled the country with his family members in the dark of night.

It felt right, returning the princess, the last heir to the throne, to her palace.

And with the end of Hessenberg’s entailment with Brighton approaching, the hunt for Princess Alice’s heir would produce a living, breathing person and return the House of Augustine-Saxon to the palace’s hallowed grounds.

Rounding the corner toward his office, Tanner met his assistant, Louis, in the corridor.

“There you are.” Louis fell in step with Tanner, his ever-present mini e-tablet in hand. “I’ve been ringing you.”

“I left my phone in the car while in the museum.” Tanner reached inside his breast pocket for his mobile as he crossed into his office, slipping from his overcoat and draping it and his suit jacket over the coatrack, and set down the box. “What’s so urgent?”

Tanner lifted the lid of the box, taking out one half of a torn photo. Princess Alice, young, smiling, emanating her classic beauty, her left arm—or what Tanner could make of her arm—linked to another. By the edge of the sleeve, he guessed the princess’s partner to be a young man.


He flipped the image over. The writing was faded. And also torn.

—edrich

—14

—alace

“Are you listening to me?” Louis bent over the desk. “What have you there?”

“Nothing. A box I found in one of the palace suites.”

“Rather boring box, don’t you think?” Louis angled for a closer look at the smooth brown wood.

“Yes, rather boring.” Lonely, actually. Tanner felt sorry for the old box, abandoned at the palace. He thought it belonged to one of the cleaning crew until he opened it.

Then he knew. It belonged to the princess.

“Are you ready to go over your diary?” Louis said, holding up his iPad calendar for Tanner to see.

“Go on.” Sitting at his desk, with one eye on Louis and one on his computer screen, Tanner listened to his daily schedule—as read by Louis Batten.

Meeting with the university cultural department.

Review of the art festival sponsors and vendors.

Assign speechwriter for his address to the Center of European Art Preservation.

As Tanner listened, a disturbance rumbled in his soul, rocking his sense of harmony and balance. But what? So far, all seemed well. Perfectly typical.

Maybe it was the box. Maybe it was his fixation the last few months on the former royal family of Hessenberg.

Six months ago, the newly crowned His Majesty, King Nathaniel II of Brighton, appointed Tanner Minister of Culture with the primary goal of preparing the Grand Duchy of Hessenberg to be an independent, sovereign nation again as the one-hundred-year entail between Brighton and Hessenberg was coming to an end.

The king was determined to find a solution to the entail’s ardent, ironclad stipulation. There must be an heir to Hessenberg’s Augustine-Saxon throne for the island duchy to be free from Brighton.

If not, the Grand Duchy of Hessenberg would become a permanent province of Brighton and cease to be its own nation.

Just thinking of it gave Tanner heart palpitations—a yearning to see his country remain . . . a country. He wanted his beloved Hessenberg to go on for another thousand years. A sapphire gem in the North Sea.

“—and I pushed off the meeting with the Young Artists until next week.” With that, Louis perched on the side of Tanner’s desk, smiling, pleased with himself. “Tally ho, as my old uncle would say. On with the day.”

“Right, tally ho.”

“So what did the curator do with the Renoir of Princess Alice?” The aide had fallen in love with the painting of the last Princess of Hessenberg every bit as much as Tanner.

No more than sixteen at the time of the painting, the princess posed in a spring meadow, wearing a white summer gown.

Wisps of her brilliant red hair feathered across her cheeks and her blue eyes were eager and innocent, hopeful. Most likely she had no knowledge that war loomed or that her uncle, Prince Francis, was ill prepared to fight.

Tanner liked the painting because it touched him in the hidden place of his heart. It made him . . . feel.

“I sent it to the palace. Where it belongs.”

Louis let out a low whistle. “I bet the curator didn’t care for that decision. The only bright and beautiful painting of someone in the royal family sent off, leaving him with dark, somber ancient dukes and duchesses whose expressions have all the merriment of sitting on a straight pin or drinking bitter dregs.”

Tanner laughed. “He said much the same, but the princess’s portrait is not big enough for a museum wall. The others are eight to ten feet. Hers is no more than five. She belongs in the palace. Maybe in the suite we’ve set up for the coming princess.”

Tanner sat back and began to roll up his shirtsleeves, his heart’s eye still viewing the painting of Alice stored in his memory.

Feel. Like he must protect her. Like he must protect Hessenberg.

He’d failed miserably at his last call to be a protector, when it mattered most. Now that he had a chance to do something for his country, perhaps even for the memory of Princess Alice and her scattered generation, he’d do it. And with his whole heart.

“Speaking of the palace,”—Louis tapped on the tablet’s screen—“the house manager you hired, Jarvis, made his recommendations for the rest of the staff. Shall I set up interviews?”

“Let’s wait. We’ve no idea where we are in the search for Princess Alice’s heir.” The king kept him apprised since he’d launched an investigation, but so far all they knew was that the heir was most likely an American. All other avenues and leads had been dead ends.

“Fine. I’ll let him know, but he is anxious to move forward. Anything else?”

Louis peered at Tanner. Barely out of university, he was the poster boy for the next generation. Good-looking and hip, a decent chap. In fact, Tanner used his face for his first cultural campaign, plastering Louis’s image all over the duchy.





The End of the 1914 Entail. Do You Know How It Impacts You? Visit www.hessenberg.co.gd.





“Louis,” Tanner said, “what do your mates say about Hessenberg becoming a sovereign nation again—self-ruling, becoming a voice, no matter how small among the nations of the earth?”

“As long as their Euros still spend in the pub,”—he grinned—“I don’t suppose any of us see much difference between being ruled by Brighton or being independent again. We’ve never known anything else.”

“What if being independent means your Euros buy more?” Tanner motioned to Louis’s suit. “More pints, more holidays, more custom-tailored skinny suits?”

Louis’s sense of fashion was the point of office ribbing on a weekly basis. In fact, Marissa, Tanner’s office manager, found it personally offensive that Louis owned more shoes than she did.

“Pardon me,”—Louis feigned a frown and smoothed his tie—“but I say long live an independent Hessenberg if that be the case.”

“Your consideration of our political and economic future, and that of our children, is profound, Louis. Thank you.” Tanner crossed the corner office space to a tea cart. Beyond the arched windows, the drizzle had become a full-on rain shower.

“Why were you ringing me?” Tanner lifted the lid of the teapot and sniffed. Strong and bitter. Just as he liked it. But the tea was cold and he had no taste for that at all. He returned the pot to the cart. He’d get a hot cup at lunch. “You said something about calling me in the corridor.”

“Yes, right.” Louis stood, tucking his tablet under his arm. “The king and his aide are on their way with Brighton’s prime minister.”

“Here?” Panic forged a canyon in Tanner’s chest. “Louis, might you have led off our meeting with this information? What does he want?” Tanner turned a small, stunted circle, surveying the room, jerking down his shirt sleeves. Why had the fashion gods decreed all buttonholes must be smaller than their corresponding buttons?

His office walls . . . He’d not yet decorated them with trendy paintings or classical art or sophisticated decorative accessories. No, he’d only brought his rugby trophies from home and a framed Hessenberg union       poster signed by the team.

More than that, debris and dust flecked the thick blue carpet, and the walnut shelving most likely would not pass a dust inspection. And the remains of last night’s dinner were still in the rubbish bin.

Tanner walked around the center circle of leather and wood chairs, then kicked his rucksack full of sports gear into the small water closet and slapped the door shut.

“Jonathan just said they were on their way. Boarding Royal Air One when he called.”

“He’ll be here straightaway then.” The flight from Brighton to Hessenberg took less than thirty minutes. “Does the governor know the king is coming?” Governor Fitzsimmons’ office and staff occupied the entire second floor of Wettin Manor. He would want to know the king was on his way.

“Yes, and I’ve put security on alert.”

“Are you sure he’s coming to see me and not the governor?”

“Jonathan specifically said you.”

“Get housekeeping up here,” Tanner said, squaring away his desk, stacking his notes and papers, shoving them into a bottom desk drawer. “And have a fresh pot of tea brought round. Ask Marissa to arrange for some fresh biscuits from Loudermilk’s Bakery. She’s to tell them they are for His Majesty. I believe puffs are his favorite.”

Louis was already on his phone. “They are. I read that same article in the Liberty Press. Manfred, this is Louis. We need housekeeping up here—” Louis made his way out of the office. “Yes, I’m aware, but the king is coming to the Minister of Culture’s office.”

Tanner slipped on his suit jacket, wondering for the hundredth time in the last sixty seconds, What does the king want with me?

Louis reappeared, still on the phone, offering Tanner a thin linen envelope. “This came for you while you were out,” he said, still listening to Manfred on the other end of the line. “Listen, do you want the king to see rubbish all over Tanner’s carpet? Who do you think will get the blame?” Louis’s voice faded as he walked out. “See you in two minutes. Thank you.”


Tanner frowned at the envelope. His name was printed across the front in a fancy machine-pressed script. But who was it from? Flipping it over, he read the return address while dropping into his desk chair.





Estes Estate

2 Horsely Hill Road

Strauberg, Hessenberg 93-E15





The name, the address, awakened all those yesterdays he’d fought to put away and forget. Awakened his failure.

His throat constricted with his thickening pulse as he smoothed his hair with his stiff, icy hand. Why in the world would Barbara “Babs” Estes send him a letter? Actually, an invitation? He’d not been to their hilltop mansion since that fateful night eight years ago. But he didn’t have to invoke his lawyer-trained mind to surmise the contents of the envelope. Some details and memories refused to sink into the recesses of forgetfulness.

The twins were turning ten in a few weeks. On five October to be exact.

Tapping the envelope against his palm, Tanner reached for his letter opener, debating the merits of looking inside or just tossing the blasted thing in the rubbish.

He was in a good place, far away from the evidence of his failures and shortcomings. He’d rebounded. Made law review. Joined the governor’s staff before catching the king’s eye for Minister of Culture.

Then he proved his worth by remembering a former professor, ole Yardley Pritchard, who might have a link to a long-lost heir to the Hessenberg throne.

And if Tanner’s instincts proved correct about the professor’s knowledge of the heiress, Hessenberg would be on her way to being a sovereign independent state once again.

So why today of all days—when the king was actually on his way to this very office—did Tanner receive an invitation from Trude’s mum? Did he have so bold a past it could march in on his present whenever it willed? Well, he’d see that it did not.

Jerking open the middle desk drawer, Tanner tossed the envelope inside, shoving it toward the back. There. Out of sight, out of mind.

A technique he had quite perfected.