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Something like jealousy flashed in Amelia’s gut and she turned away to conceal the bitterness from showing on her face. It wasn’t the public who’d had issues with her though, but the press who’d seemed to delight in painting her as the misfit third child, who’d tormented her through their stories and lies. And the public had bought the papers and magazines, had believed so much of it. Amelia sighed softly.
Perhaps sensing the direction of Amelia’s thoughts, Anna-Maria softened her tone. ‘They never really gave you a fair shot, did they?’
‘No.’ Amelia flattened the hurt from her voice.
‘I wish I’d known how to protect you better from that. At the time, I thought we were doing the right thing, by telling you to ignore it. But that wasn’t fair. I should have done more.’
Amelia compressed her lips, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Her parents had been in a difficult position—the royal family never commented on stories in the press. It was a policy of long standing. But the thick skin needed to cope with the onslaught of publicity was something Amelia had never really developed.
‘Is that why you left?’ Anna-Maria prompted gently.
‘No,’ Amelia murmured, sipping her water. ‘But I’m not going to lie to you, the lack of press coverage over the last couple of years has been astoundingly nice. The silence has been wonderful.’
‘I can imagine,’ Anna-Maria agreed.
Amelia angled her face towards her mother’s as they began to walk once more, arm in arm. ‘You married into this lifestyle. Have you ever regretted it?’
‘I always knew I would marry him and become Queen,’ she said with a lift of her shoulders. ‘Your father and I were betrothed when I was just a girl and he a boy. It was my destiny, and his, arranged by our parents to strengthen the throne and the royal family’s place in the country’s political system. My family was politically very powerful, his royal. It made sense.’
‘I never knew that,’ Amelia said with genuine surprise. ‘You’re saying your whole life you’ve been living in an arranged marriage?’
‘Well, yes,’ Anna-Maria agreed, as if she too was a little surprised to have revealed as much.
‘But you seem—I thought you guys had fallen in love. I knew your family was powerful, I just presumed you’d come to know one another by moving in the same circles.’
‘And so we did.’
‘But you didn’t marry for love?’ Amelia asked breathlessly, piecing together an entirely different visage of her mother’s life.
Her lips twisted. ‘I married for love, in some ways,’ Anna-Maria said hesitantly. ‘I loved my parents, my country. I loved the idea of being Queen, particularly the jewels and gowns,’ she added with another wink. ‘And I liked and respected your father a great deal.’
Amelia’s footing slipped a little at the mention of her father.
‘But love took time with us. We fell in love on the job, so to speak.’
‘So you do love him now?’
‘Very much.’
‘What made you love him?’ Amelia pushed, her voice heavy with interest.
Was she imagining the way her mother’s skin paled a little?
‘Some time ago, when the boys were little and you were not yet born, a series of events led me to realise that I couldn’t live without him,’ she said. ‘It was that simple. I had fallen in love without even realising it, and only when I thought about what I could lose, if I didn’t face up to how I felt, did I finally comprehend the strength of my own feelings. I fell in love with him gently, softly, while I wasn’t even paying attention, and for a thousand different reasons. I loved him for his passion for the arts—music, theatre, opera. His skill as a polo player. His body,’ she added, knocking her hip into Amelia’s, to signal a joke, but Amelia could hardly catch her breath, much less smile. This insight into her parents’ marriage, given what she knew, was destabilising, to say the least.
‘I loved how much he thought about everything. Your father is never rash, always considerate, he looks at a problem from every conceivable angle, sometimes twice, before responding. He’s incredibly smart. And over time, he fell in love with me too.’ Anna-Maria stopped walking, turned to face her daughter.
‘You’ve been gone so long, I feel as though I have to get to know you all over again, in some ways.’ She squeezed Amelia’s forearm. ‘Tell me, have you been in love, Amelia?’
‘No,’ she answered, but not entirely without hesitation. She’d thought she’d loved Daniel, but that had been a mistake. And since then, there’d been only Benedetto. While she lusted after him around the clock, that wasn’t the same thing as love.
‘Ah. I wasn’t sure. I thought perhaps in Spain, you might have met someone.’
‘No. No one.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Is it?’
