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That reminded her of something. Amalia made herself smile, though thinking of Joaquin hurt. But then, trying not to think about him hurt, too.
It all hurt.
“Someone told me that I’m Cinderella in reverse,” she told this woman who looked like her and who was now living her life. “And there are no stories for that.”
Delaney’s gaze turned shrewd. And Amalia remembered the first time she’d met this woman, in a press call that had been all about flashbulbs and fixed smiles. Even then, she’d liked her. Now, though, she liked her even more—maybe because she’d spent some time in that farmhouse. She’d sat on that much-loved couch in the living room and heard stories about people Delaney had known and loved.
They’d exchanged lives more than once already. How could they do anythingbutlike each other?
“It seems you came to exactly the right place,” Delaney was saying. “Because it looks like we have a lot of new stories to write, you and me.”
Instead of summoning the servants to escort her to a guest suite, Delaney walked with her. And Amalia was so involved in pretending not to be overwhelmed by being back in the palace that it took her a moment to realize that they were walking directly to her old rooms.
“You can’t be serious,” she said when they stopped outside her old door. “These are the Crown Princess’s rooms.” She remembered herself. “They’re yours, Your Royal Highness.”
“Call me Delaney, please.” And Delaney shrugged when Amalia stared at her instead of proceeding into her old rooms. “I don’t actually stay in the palace.” At Amalia’s look of astonishment, she sighed. “My husband prefers to stay under a separate roof than the one the Queen enjoys.”
“I see.”
And Amalia did see. Of course Cayetano Arcieri, sworn enemy of the Montaigne family for the entirety of his life—a grudge he had inherited from untold generations in his very blood—would not lay his head down in the palace. Not until it was his.
“Did you choose the dower house?” she asked. “I’ve always thought it would be the best place to live. Near enough to the palace, yet also far enough away.”
“This is why you are the only person in the world I can turn to for help,” Delaney said then, her expression fierce and serious. “You already know everything I’ve had to learn on the fly.”
And this felt weird. There was no getting around that. Itwasweird.
But still, Amalia knew—just as she had in London when Delaney had extended this offer—that this was where she belonged. She thought of Catherine and the cornfields, and even though it was in complete defiance of all known protocol, she reached out her hand and put it on Delaney’s arm.
“I was very, very good at being the Crown Princess,” she said softly. “And it will be my honor to make you even better.”
And that was precisely what she set out to do.
She spent her first few days sitting down with Delaney—because Esme was unavailable, she was told each time she tried to see her—and her seethingly ferocious husband, who looked at Amalia with frank suspicion. Which she returned in kind.
“This is not my idea,” he told her, seeming far too large and dangerous for the elegant dower house.
“I think we all know it wasn’t mine,” Amalia replied, princess smile in place. “Or I would be the one wearing the tiara.”
“It was my idea,” Delaney told him, with a private sort of smile. “And it’s a good one.”
Cayetano and Amalia, born and raised to be mortal enemies, were just going to have to learn how to deal with each other.
Amalia set up an office in the palace. She knew precisely which staff members she needed to ask to join her, and which ones she would allow nowhere near this particular enterprise.
“I think this means you’re my chief of staff,” Delaney said one day, sitting slouched in the corner of Amalia’s new office, wearing clothing that would likely give Queen Esme the vapors if she were to see it. A T-shirt reading MIDWEST IS BEST and a pair of jeans that Amalia’s former aides would have removed from her wardrobe and burned, without asking.
“The Crown Princess does not have a chief of staff,” Amalia told her. “That sounds like something a common politician might require. You are a member of a royal family stretching back into antiquity.” She smiled. “I believe you can call me your lady-in-waiting.”
Delaney sighed. “That seems a very silly name for all the things you do.”
Amalia eyed the true heir to the kingdom over the span of her desk. “Here’s the thing about real power. It doesn’t matter what it’s called. All that matters is if you can wield it.”
“I take it the lessons have begun,” Delaney said with a laugh.
And every moment she wasn’t in the palace or in the dower house on the grounds with Delaney, Amalia was exploring. She’d decided that she did not wish to live in the palace, and certainly not in the very same rooms were she’d been a different person. She was a private citizen now. And she might serve the crown yet again, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t permitted her own life as well.
Besides, she had lived on this island her entire life, yet knew it very little. She knew what their main city looked like from the safety of her motorcade. She’d visited any number of sites and toured them, but always in staid and formal arranged engagements.
