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“Well, you should be mindful. There are rules and you are about to break them. Goodnight, Your Majesty!”
He called as he crossed back to the wing Marie and he shared.
“Goodnight,” Alexandra called back politely.
“I should go,” I said, shaken back to reality.
I loathed it but he was right.
“Why do they live here but you don’t?”
“Mikkel doesn’t do well on his own,” I whispered. “And I think Marie needs Mamma to run interference.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s out there. And he and Marie don’t get on like us,” I said. “Believe it or not, we’re friends. They aren’t. It’s all a bit odd.”
She giggled. “We’re friends?”
“A bit,” I agreed.
Alexandra leaned back to give me a sweet kiss. “It will be okay. We are friends, yes. But I think we will have a lot more to be happy about. Let’s get home, get married, and do all the things we need to get to freedom.”
Twenty-Nine
Alexandra
Celeste did her best to separate us. I longed to keep up this back-and-forth of attending engagements with Rick, but it was not to be. Celeste ensured we were assigned separately most of the time. Going out with my future husband was a rare treat. She said it “preserved the mystery" but I doubted her reasoning.
Matters became further complicated when his sister-in-law announced her first pregnancy only two weeks after we landed in Neandia. She had complications very early on. When she landed in hospital, Rick’s father requested that he return to Lundhavn to help them manage engagements. Marie was the social butterfly. She was the one people wanted. And, as I well knew, Mikkel was dreadful before a public audience without her.
Rick would come back to Neandia occasionally, but we never had much time together. I didn’t fault him. Nor did the girls. We knew he was taking care of his family. We admired him for it. However, the house was lonely without him. Rick was teaching the girls how to waltz. So, since Asti and I had gotten quite good at it, we continued this. I spoke with him on the phone daily. Everything about our relationship felt surprisingly normal.
The girls and I busied ourselves with royal wedding planning. Odette took great pride in putting things together and planning out “looks” for everything from flowers to colours to motifs. She even helped me choose our wedding march and monogram. Rick cared not what I picked there. He trusted me. He would always joke that I could put him in a pink tuxedo, and he would simply arrive and do the thing. It was our agreement, but it was also just Rick. He had no interest in micromanaging wedding plans and otherwise loathed being home and alone, having adjusted to Neandia.
Rick arrived back in Neandia for good a month before the wedding. He returned this timewithhis parents. Mikkel and Marie were still grounded, but Karolina and August were free to travel. Neandia hosted a state dinner for the King and Queen. It doubled as our engagement celebration, tripling as Rick’s birthday night, and quadrupling as my official coming-out party.
To prepare, a designer prepared a beautiful red dress—the prettiest I had ever seen. It sparkled in the light. It was a traditional ballgown, but the bodice was the most age-appropriate thing I had ever worn. And, to top it off, Rick's family presented me with the most spectacular tiara—a traditional gift for a royal bride. It was the first time I had worn a tiara, and I was still getting used to the weight and pain of it boring into my skull.
Astrid and I prepared for the evening with a long bout of hair and makeup. The girls little joined us, bubbling with excitement.God, I loved to see us all so happy together!It filled my heart in the biggest way. I dismissed them while I took a moment to soak up everything I felt. I also needed to do the thing I needed to do every day now. I grabbed the package of birth control pills I hid inside a hollowed-out book on my bedside table. It was brilliant to give the old bat the middle finger. I was now a warrior for my cause—and that of my sisters—and this was another step. I was called more every day to take charge.
All a-dazzle, I reported to the line-up by the ballroom to lead in the rest of the family on Rick’s arm. It was the first time we had spoken all day. As I raced down the hall with Astrid, I found him there with his parents trying to ignore Celeste. He looked bored but dashing in a tuxedo that brought out his shoulders. I was flustered thinking about him.
Rick’s eyes met mine. He did a double-take. I still wondered why he saw me attractive enough to bother with. I knew I wasn’t his type as he preferred thin, leggy brunettes. If you did some research and saw the women he dated, they all fit that mould. I was curvaceous—something Celeste loathed—and short. I stopped to his right, letting him take me in.
“You look… magnificent,” Rick stammered.
I blushed uncontrollably. I wasn’t sure if he was generally impressed or just surprised I could ever look this good. I didn’t blame him if it was the latter. I was surprised myself.
I said, “Thank you. You also look very nice.”
“Nothing compared to you.”
He gave me a quick kiss. Celeste cleared her throat, annoyed.
“Let us be on good behaviour, shall we.”
“Oh, that’s harmless, Celeste. We’re among family,” August said. “It’s nice to see the two of them happy, isn’t it?”
