Page 30 of Duty and Desire

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Royal Palace, Eisenland

Nick

W hen I was a child, I used to play in the palace’s Great Hall.

It was a huge space filled with objects to hide behind—suits of armor—place to hide in—the balcony—and a room that when the sun shone, its rays fell in solid shafts of light through long arched windows, casting patterns over the stone floor.

Some of these windows had stained glass, and I loved to watch the colors move on the flags, as the sun made its way across the sky.

Of course, playing in there was frowned upon, and I think I did it more in later years as an act of rebellion rather than play.

As I grew older, the hall became my refuge. I would go there when I needed to be quiet, to think. It became my sanctuary. Well, one of them.

Not anymore.

It would forever be burned into my memory as it was now.

Where Eisenland’s flags once hung, there was nothing but black.

The arched windows set into thick walls admitted a cool light in keeping with the air of solemnity.

The focus of the hall had become the two coffins, their polished surfaces invisible beneath the flowers covering and surrounding them, wreaths of green and white, blooms of all colors, a visible outpouring of grief and respect from the populace.

Mourners filed past the coffins, looping around them, the line of people finally reaching its end after several hours, the last public day the coffins would stand in state before the funeral the coming Monday.

Some people stopped to write in the books of condolence standing on tables at each corner of the hall.

I watched from the balcony, nodding to those mourners who bowed their heads when they spotted me. Franz stood to my right, in the same black suit he’d worn the day he came to take me home.

Below I saw Daniela Risch enter the hall, and I knew she was seeking me. I also knew what she’d come to say. The same words she’d uttered for the past four days.

Your Majesty… we need to discuss the plans for your coronation.

Beside me, Franz cleared his throat, an innocuous sound, but I knew him.

He was tired of her too.

“You can’t hide up here forever,” he murmured. “She’ll find you. She’s like a dog with a bone, that one.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “An astute assessment.”

My own words reminded me I was not like other men of my age.

I’d been tutored to speak correctly at all times, a lesson drummed into me from the moment I could talk.

My years at university and on Bora-Bora had loosened me up a little, but here I was, speaking as I had done most of my life, and sounding older than my twenty-five years.

I guess there are some lessons that cannot be unlearned.

I wasn’t the only member of a royal family to speak so correctly. There were two English princes who came across as older than their years too, even when they’d been teenagers .

“I heard your conversation with her yesterday.” Franz kept his voice low. “You were right.”

“She wouldn’t agree with you.”

Daniela had begun the conversation with her repeated statement about making plans, but I’d cut her off.

“No, we don’t.”

“But Your Majesty, we are a country without a head of state.”

I faced her. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

She flushed. “Yes, but?—”

“And I am the king. The head of State. How long do we have before I must ascend the throne? What does the law say?”

Her expression tightened. “There isn’t a law, as such, but?—”

“Exactly. When the Queen of England died, her son became king, but it was six or seven months before he was crowned. I think we can wait. We will have this discussion at another time.”

“Your Majesty?—”

I squared my shoulders. “Miss Risch, I haven’t even buried my father and my brother yet. Surely this conversation can take place after that event.”

She flinched, but I didn’t care. I was getting close to the point where biting my tongue was no longer an option.

Daniela bowed her head. “Your Majesty.”

As soon as she’d closed the door behind her, I’d glanced at Franz.

He’d tried not to smirk and had failed miserably.

And speaking of Franz, his hand was gentle on my arm, drawing me back into the moment.

“Your Majesty…”

“I still prefer Nick when we’re alone.”

He frowned. “That feels so wrong.” He pointed to the dwindling lines of people below us. “I think you can leave now. You’ve been here long enough.” He straightened. “You’ve done your duty to them.”

Except I hadn’t, it seemed. My father’s expectations of my duty still clung to me, and I couldn’t shake them .

“I need air,” I said under my breath. Sunlight. Birdsong. The sight of flowers growing in the earth, not cut and arranged, their petals standing out against the green.

Signs of life.

“Then let’s go outside.”

Franz led the way down the winding narrow staircase, and suddenly I heard my father’s voice.

This is not your playroom, Nikolaus.

We walked from the hall, past the few remaining mourners, through the wide oak doors, and along the stone-flagged corridors. Everyone we passed bowed their heads, and I nodded in acknowledgment.

“I’ve grown up with this deference all my life and it still feels strange,” I confessed as we strolled. My brother Rudolf had once torn a strip off a servant who hadn’t bowed to him, and while my father had nodded in approval, I’d been horrified.

An early indication that while we were of the same blood, I was not like them.

Thoughts of Rudolf reminded me that there was another tragedy connected with their deaths: Rudolf’s widow, Gabriele, had miscarried. The child my brother had longed for.

Gabriele and I had spoken on the phone, and when she broke down in tears, telling me she couldn’t face the funeral, I told her she didn’t have to. She was under enough of a strain.

I’d be there for both of us.

At last we were outside in the sunshine.

Franz walked ahead of me, and I found it amusing he already knew my destination, a corner of the gardens where a bench sat facing the defunct fountain that hadn’t worked since I was fifteen or so.

I sat, breathing in the perfume of late spring flowers, watching the birds floating on air currents, gazing at the purple-colored mountains in the distance.

I smiled. “When I was little, my tutor gave me a story written in the nineteen-thirties. It seemed an odd thing to give a child, but it became one of my favorite books. It was called Lost Horizon . ”

“I think I saw the movie once. They made it into a musical too. Was that the one about Shangri-La? A peaceful valley in the mountains of Tibet, where people aged slower? A kind of utopia?”

I nodded, then pointed to the far-off mountains. “I used to believe that if I could cross them, I’d find another kind of Shangri-La, one where I’d be free to be myself.”

Franz sighed. “That explains Bora-Bora, then.” When he paused, I knew the signs.

“Whatever it is you want to say, but you’re afraid you’re about to overstep the mark, stop thinking about it and just say it.” Franz was the closest thing to a friend I had right then.

Since you blasted Claudia.

I didn’t want to remember that. My face still tingled and my cheeks burned when I recalled the way I’d spoken to her.

Franz didn’t speak right away. Then he sighed. “I can’t help feeling you’re being railroaded. That you should be able to stand up and say, no, I’m not going to marry her.”

I arched my eyebrows.

“But you mentioned the British royal family, and that got me thinking. They’re just figureheads, aren’t they? And when they push back, it doesn’t tend to end well for them.”

My lips twitched. “So I’m a figurehead? Thank you for pointing that out.” He winced, and I hastened to reassure him. “It’s okay, I get it.”

Not that I could deny it. My father had left the country pretty well sewn-up.

His phone buzzed, and I glanced at it in irritation. “It’s probably Miss Risch, asking where I am.”

He peered at the screen. “And you’d be wrong. It’s an email for me.” He glanced at me. “From Claudia.”

My heartbeat quickened. “But she’s emailing you, not me.” There’d been no word from her since I’d exploded at her.

My fault. I did that .

When nothing else was forthcoming, I frowned. “Well? Is this a love letter or can anyone know of its contents?”

“She says she’s back in the country. She wants to know if she can visit you.”

Claudia was in Eisenland.

I couldn’t suppress the joy that news brought me. I smiled. “Of course she can.” I paused. “Is that all she says?”

“She asks if she can stay here.”

I blinked. Claudia’s family had a big house near the river. “I think we can find room for her in the palace. How many bedrooms are there, after all?”

Franz fell silent, and the skin on my arms prickled.

“What else does she say?”

Franz cleared his throat. “The last part of the email reads, and I quote… ‘Dinner is on me. I hope Nick likes Italian.’”

I frowned again. “That sounds odd. Why would she?—”

Oh God.

I froze.

She’s bringing Gio.

I finally found my voice. “Franz, you said you didn’t report back on everything I did on the island.”

He coughed. “Not everything, no.”

“So my cabinet, my ministers… they don’t have a list of people I engaged with while I lived there?”

“My job was to keep you safe. My instructions were to report any threats. He wasn’t a threat.”

So Franz had read Claudia’s last comment, put two and two together, and arrived at the same conclusion.

“No one knows?”

“No one,” he confirmed. He glanced at me. “Do I ask the palace housekeeper to prepare one room—or two?”

My heartbeat raced and my mouth dried up.

He’s coming.

Gio is coming .

“Two rooms.”

Franz bit his lip. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

I chuckled. “If you’d said that to my brother, my father would have had you taken outside and shot.”

“But you’re not your brother. And I’m only looking out for you. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

I had a plan. Maybe this is what we both need—closure.