Page 29 of Throne Off Course

By midday, they had settled on a stone bench overlooking the valley, their packed lunch spread between them. Thomas stood at a discreet distance, technically watching for security threats but mostly watching the unusual pair.

“You know,” Alexander said, after a moment of comfortable silence, “when they said they had assigned someone to this project, I expected a dry academic who would simply follow the palace’s lead.”

Emilia smirked. “Disappointed?”

“Surprised,” he corrected. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t have been, once Davenport told me about your reputation.”

“My reputation for being difficult, you mean,” she replied, but there was no heat in it.

Alexander’s mouth quirked upward. “I believe the term I used was ‘insufferable.’”

“Ah, yes,” she nodded solemnly. “Much more flattering.”

To Thomas’s quiet amazement, Alexander laughed—a genuine sound, not the carefully measured response he typically offered at public functions.

“I may have been hasty in my assessment,” he admitted.

“High praise from Your Highness,” she said, but her teasing tone softened the formality of the address.

Thomas watched as something subtle shifted in Alexander’s expression—not a dramatic transformation, but a quiet easing of the constant vigilance he maintained. Miss Carter didn’t treat him with the reverence of a courtier or the calculation of a politician. She spoke to him directly, honestly, with a refreshing absence of agenda.

The car pulled to a smooth stop outside the palace’s east entrance, where Emilia typically entered to access the archives. Thomas sat in the back, while Alexander—who had again insisted on driving—brought the vehicle to a halt with practiced ease. Thomas noted the prince’s lingering gaze on Miss Carter, so different from the cool assessment he’d given her weeks ago.

“Thank you for the outing, Your Highness,” Emilia said, gathering her notebook and the worn leather satchel that had accompanied her all day.

Alexander’s smile was genuine—a fact not lost on Thomas. “I should be thanking you. Your perspective on the historical context was… illuminating.”

“Are you admitting I was right about the architectural influences?” she asked, that challenging spark in her eyes that Thomas had observed all day.

“I’m admitting you’ve given me something to consider,” Alexander replied with unusual warmth. “Which is more than most historians manage.”

“High praise indeed,” she said with a small smile. “But I should get back to the archives.”

“Until tomorrow, then,” Alexander said, his tone carefully casual as she stepped out onto the gravel drive.

Thomas watched Alexander’s composed expression follow Emilia until she disappeared through the heavy wooden doors. Alexander put the car back into drive and started towards the garage.

“She’s quite different from the academics we usually work with,” Thomas observed carefully.

Alexander’s eyes shifted to meet Thomas’s in the rearview mirror. “Yes,” he agreed simply, but Thomas caught the undercurrent in that single word.

“And that difference seems… beneficial to the project.”

Alexander was quiet for a moment, his attention seemingly on the road ahead. “She doesn’t treat history like it’s propaganda, Thomas.”

“She challenges you,” Thomas noted, careful to keep his tone neutral.

“She is one of the few people who doesn’t see the crown first,” Alexander continued, his voice controlled but with an undercurrent Thomas had rarely heard. “She speaks to me directly, honestly. A faint smile appeared and quickly disappeared. “She just sees… me.”

He didn’t add what they both knew - that in the suffocating world of royal protocol, such honesty was as rare as it was valuable.

As they drove through the gathering dusk, Thomas considered what he had witnessed throughout the day. Alexander was not an unkind man, but he had never been an open one. Yet today, he wasn’t just tolerating Emilia’s sharp tongue and stubborn opinions—he was engaging with them, considering perspectives that would have been dismissed outright weeks ago.

For the first time in a long time, Thomas wondered if thismuseum exhibition might be more consequential than anyone had anticipated—not for the history it would present, but for the future it might shape. Emilia Carter was not just a complication. She was a subtle but undeniable shift in Alexander’s very foundation.

And if there was one thing Thomas had learned in his years of service, it was that when Alexander James Edward of Caledonia started to care about something, truly care, the world around him would have no choice but to adjust accordingly.

18