Princess Ever After (Royal Wedding Series) (30 page)

Uncle just came to my room, admonishing me to hurry. Then he said with no emotion, “The House of Augustine-Saxon has fallen.”

My heart nearly stopped beating. Surely after the war, when all is settled, we can return. I said as much to Uncle.

“It’s over, Ali. We’ve lost.” But he was most grave and so very sad I could not remain angry with him.

“I don’t understand.”

“No, I suspect you would not. I’m not sure I understand it all myself.”

“Why can we not stay? Why must we flee?”

“I’ve abdicated the throne, Alice. The earls and lords will come for us tonight. If caught, I’ll be tried. Most likely hanged. We might all be hanged.”

Then as if some punctuation to Uncle’s declaration, the windows rattled as a cannon fired. Sovereign Lord, be near us.

“Will we ever be able to return?” I didn’t bother to hide my tears.

“At the end of the entail.”

“When will that be?”

“Long after you and I are gone.”

“Then how can we return? What are the conditions of the entail?” I felt in that moment we were not uncle and niece, but peers sharing a common burden.

“One hundred years.”

“One hundred years!” I could not help but gasp. “None of us will be left. How can we return home?”

“Find your courage, Alice. The future of Hessenberg and the restoration of the House of Augustine-Saxon are within you and your children.” He handed me an envelope. “Keep this in a safe place.”

“What for? What is it?”

“For Hessenberg.” I peered inside the envelope. “Bonds? Uncle, what good are bonds when I am leaving, being forced out? By you, I daresay.”

“They will pay out, love. Trust me.” Then he seemed to lose all breath and strength as he turned to go, leaving me there with my mouth gaping. “Pack. Be ready to go.”

Pack. That’s exactly what I plan to do. Pack for my eventual return to Hessenberg. Yes, I will return. One way or another.

Alice

TWENTY

O
n Sunday afternoon, the clock on Tanner’s wall seemed to tick-tock louder and louder by the moment.

One-o-one. One-o-two. One-o-three.

He closed the book he was reading and turned on the telly. He was tired. Wanting to relax.

He’d spent Friday and Saturday touring Regina about the countryside, seeing the landscape through her eyes, and his love for Hessenberg’s rocky shores and high-peaked mountains deepened.

Saturday evening, they dined up by the north bay, at a hundred-and-fifty-year-old pub, Wettin Whistle, named after Wettin Manor.

Like in the atmosphere of the Fence & Anchor, Regina blended in, enjoying the food, talking with the people, joining in the shouting during the final minutes of a rugby match.

She was truly one of them. Tanner couldn’t explain it exactly, but heaven above, she felt Hessen to him. Sure, she still spoke like an American Southerner and refused to be called Your Majesty, but she was one of the people.

A mental picture of her laughing, recounting the story of the redheaded man-woman dancing juggler to Jarvis and Serena,
flashed across his mind and made him chuckle down in his chest. Her Southern accent grew thick when she was telling a story.

“Tanner thinks he is protecting me from the people getting riled up because Seamus is on TV, talking about the entail and the EU court petition. So we run outside into this minefield of photographers. But did they want to see me? Heck no. They came to see the redheaded he-she dancing juggler.” Her laugh rang through Tanner’s memory. “The waitress must have tipped them off.”

After that, Regina moseyed into the kitchen to tell the chef and the maid like they were . . . family.
Y’all, listen to this . . .

Tanner didn’t have to inquire of Jarvis how it was going with the princess. He could see it written all over the man’s face. He adored her. They all did.

But today his thoughts were not on Regina—he appreciated the emotional distance—but on the party about to commence up at Estes Estates.

Should he go? No! How could he? He and Trude had a deal.

Focusing on the sports presenter, Tanner tried to care more about rugby scores than blonde, ten-year-old twins, but with each tick-tock of the clock, his heart wrestled with his decision.

Tanner upped the volume on the telly.
Blimey.
He had to get the party off his mind. He paced to the window and peered down to the street. What did he see? A large bouquet of party balloons floating past.

Well, he was not going to that blasted birthday party.

The clock tick-tocked.

Fine. Fine. He’d go. Tanner fired down the hall to change.

His life was fine. Steady. Manageable. His sins forgiven and stuffed into a very dark closet.

Then his king sent him on a journey. And somehow the buried and hidden became exposed and confronted his solitude, his shallow substitute for living.

In his closet, Tanner yanked a pair of tan slacks from a hanger
and selected a blue shirt. What was it Regina said about him Thursday? He was a zero-to-sixty sort of bloke? At the moment, he certainly felt like something akin to a zero-to-sixty g-force was squeezing his heart.

Changing before he could consider what he was actually about to do, Tanner slipped on his loafers, grabbed his keys, and left his flat with the lights on and telly still blaring.

Halfway down the street he realized he had no gift. What did one bring to ten-year-old twin girls?

At the moment, he could think of nothing. Well, nothing he could purchase on a Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoons in Hessenberg clung to the old ways. Quiet, restful, most if not all of the shops closed, dozing in the afternoon sun.

In truth, Britta and Bella would have more presents than they could enjoy for the day, or the year for that matter. Why pile on one more from the derelict father they’d not remember anyway?

Driving north toward Estes Estates, a fifteenth-century manor in the highlands, Tanner absorbed the light and sounds of the afternoon, calming his anxieties, studying the bank of white clouds drifting across a crisp, clear river of blue as the edge of the sun crested the mountaintops.

What a perfect party day.

Tanner rehearsed what he’d say to Trude, to her parents. To the girls. Should he have a chance to speak to them. But his words sounded thin and hollow.

The road bent around the mountain, then flattened, cutting through the plains toward the estate. Downshifting, Tanner slowed at the entrance. He parked on the lawn, the last car in a row of many. Frankly, he was surprised the Esteses didn’t hire valet service for the day.

He stared at the stone house with its pitched and peaked rooftop, multiple chimneys, and turrets, wondering what waited for
him beyond the door. There was only one way to find out. Tanner hauled in a deep breath and moved toward the manor.

The butler answered the door, wearing a pink party hat. “Welcome. Do come in.” He offered Tanner a hat, but he passed.

“You’ll find the family out on the lawn. Do you need me to show you the way?”

“No, thank you. I remember.” Trude lived here, with her parents, when she was pregnant.

Adjusting his jacket, Tanner started down the hall, working his way toward the back of the house through side rooms and short passageways. The lawn was dotted with white-linen-covered tables centered with bursting bouquets of flowers, colorful tea sets, and a gaggle of girls sipping tea, wearing pastel-colored dresses and matching gloves. An equal number of adults clustered on the party perimeter, teacups and saucers in hand, bent together in conversation. Tanner spotted his parents talking to the Trusdales—old and good friends from Dad’s first parish. A stage sat on the far end of the party with a banner flying overhead. Meant2Be.

Good grief, Trude. They’re ten.

Meant2Be was a very popular boy band on the cusp of gaining international fame. How did she wrangle booking them? And how was the place not mobbed with paparazzi and screaming teens?

Scanning the group of girls for the twins, Tanner’s eyes landed on Trude. Beautiful as ever in a cut-out-of-a-magazine way. Perfect hair. Perfect dress with matching shoes. She was lively and charming, impeccably stylish.

He followed her as she moved through the tables, then knelt beside two girls. Since he could only see the backs of their heads, he could only guess they were Bella and Britta. His throat constricted. His heart raced, drawing his chest tight. He wanted to leave, get in his car, and race down the hill for home.

But he’d miraculously mustered the courage to get this far, so he might as well see it through.

Trude was on the move again, meeting a man in the middle of the thoroughfare between the tables, slipping her arm through his as she tossed back her head with a laugh.

Strange, Tanner didn’t know the man to be her husband, Reese.

He bent to kiss her and she most assuredly kissed him back. It was then Tanner had a hint as to why Trude invited him here today. She had a new man in her life.

Leaving his preview spot, Tanner stepped outside to the porch.

Trude glanced toward the house, caught sight of him, and waved, smiling.

“You came,” she said, stepping onto the porch, taking his hands in hers and kissed his cheek. “I was nervous you’d not show.”

The man she’d been with trailed behind her and introduced himself.

“Evan Downy.”

“Tanner Burkhardt.”

“Tanner,”—Trude glanced at Evan—“we’re engaged.”

“How does your husband feel about that?”

She chortled. “Oh, Tanner, very droll. But, shh, lower your voice.” Trude steered him inside with an over-the-shoulder comment to Evan. “We’ve not told the girls. Darling, we’ll be in the library.”

Tanner walked beside her in silence.
Can’t wait to hear
this
story.

In the library, the sunlight streamed in through the high, arched windows, warming the room and making the ancient walls seem youthful.

Tanner chose a chair, intending to sit back and listen, let Trude tell her story. But when she closed the library doors, he fired the first question. “What’s this rubbish? Engaged? Where’s Reese?”

“I meant to call you, let you know, we divorced last year.” Trude hovered on the edge of the library, by the doors.

“Divorced?” He fired up from his chair and crossed over to her. “What happened to the happy, cohesive family? The stable environment in which to raise the girls?”

“That’s part of why you’re here, Tanner.” She moved around him, choosing a chair.

“Trude, you begged me to step out of their lives because you wanted Reese to be their dad. You said I was confusing them. Not you. Not Reese. But me. The part-time dad. The Wednesday and every-other-weekend dad.”

“Yes, I know that’s what I said.” She shot him an exasperated look.

“You brought in your parents, Reese’s parents, a child psychologist, all to tell me how unstable it was for them to be jerked around from my place to yours. How they had one mum but two dads.”

“I’m fully aware of what I said, Tanner.”

“Are you? Because divorce doesn’t seem to be the so-called stable environment you begged me to give the girls. If I’d bow out of their lives and let Reese be the dad they so dearly loved and deserved, how grand their lives would be. So emotionally stable.”

“I still say I was right. The girls were confused when they returned from being with you.”

“They were two. Of course they were confused. And it didn’t help that you insisted they call Reese ‘Da-da.’ You contributed to their troubles, Trude.” There, he’d finally said it. Only took eight years.

“I was young . . . Tanner. Reese wanted to be their dad.”

“But I was, am, their dad! And you were not that young. Twenty-six is plenty mature.” Tanner moved toward her in one hard stride, his feelings, his long-buried words fighting to reach the surface. “Now you tell me Reese is out and Evan is in?”

“Tanner, Reese and I tried counseling, but we weren’t working. We were so young when we got married—”

“Stop with the excuses.”

“I’m not making excuses. I’m trying to explain. We weren’t happy, you see. We were miserable.”

“Pardon me if I have no sympathy when I sacrificed my happiness for the girls. You and Reese couldn’t see your way through to do the same?” He turned around to the window, the sunlight fueling his anger.

“Don’t lecture me, Tanner Burkhardt. Reese and I limped along for several years, but the marriage was over. To be honest, I don’t care to go round about this with you. I invited you today so you could see the girls and, yes, to tell you I am marrying Evan. We’re moving to America for a few years.”

“America? Blimey, Trude, what does any of this have to do with me? Why do I need to know what you’re doing with the girls? I’m out of their lives.” He gestured in the direction of the party. “I’ve not seen them in eight years. So tell me why I’m really here.”

“I thought you had a right to know. About Reese and, well, everything.” She stood, smoothing the skirt of her dress and moving toward her father’s desk. “Don’t make a case out of it, Tanner. People divorce. Life goes on.”