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CHAPTER FIVE
ALITTLEOVERa week later, Natalie thought she might actually be getting the hang of this princess thing. Or settling into her role well enough that she no longer had to mystify the palace staff with odd requests that they lead her to places she should have been able to find on her own.
She’d survived that first dinner with the king, who might or might not have been her father. The truth was, she couldn’t tell. If she’d been expecting a mystical, magical sort of reunion, complete with swelling emotions and dazed recognition on both sides, she’d been bitterly disappointed. She’d been led to what was clearly her seat at one end of a long, polished table in what looked like an excruciatingly formal dining room to her but was more likely the king’s private, casual eating area given that it was located in his private wing of the palace. She’d stood there for a moment, not knowing what she was supposed to do next. Sit? Wait? Prepare to curtsy?
The doors had been tossed open and a man had strode in with great pomp and circumstance. Even if she hadn’t recognized him from the pictures she’d studied online and the portraits littering the castle, Natalie would have known who he was. King Geoffrey of Murin didn’t exude the sort of leashed, simmering power Rodolfo did, she couldn’t help thinking. He wasn’t as magnificently built, for one thing. He was a tall, elegantly slender man who would have looked a bit like an accountant if the suit he wore hadn’t so obviously been a bespoke masterpiece and if he hadn’t moved with a sort of bone-deep imperiousness that shouted out his identity with each step. It was as if he expected marble floors to form themselves beneath his foot in anticipation that he might place it there. And they did.
“Hello,” she’d said when he approached the head of the table, with perhaps a little too muchmeaningin those two syllables. She’d swallowed. Hard.
And the king had paused. Natalie had tensed, her stomach twisting in on itself.This is it,she’d thought.This is the moment you’ll not only be exposed as not being Valentina, but recognized as his long-lost daughter—
“Are you well?” That was it. That was all he’d asked, with a vaguely quizzical look aimed her way.
“Ah, yes.” She cleared her throat, though it didn’t need clearing. It was her head that had felt dizzy. “Quite well. Thank you. And you?”
“I hope this is not an example of the sort of witty repartee you practice upon Prince Rodolfo,” was what Geoffrey had said. He’d nodded at her, which Natalie had taken as her cue to sit, and then he’d settled himself in his own chair. Only then did he lift a royal eyebrow and summon the hovering servants to attend them.
“Not at all,” Natalie had managed to reply. And then some demon had taken her over, and she didn’t stop there. “A future king looks for many things in a prospective bride, I imagine, from her bloodlines to whether or not she is reasonably photogenic in all the necessary pictures. But certainly not wit. That sort of thing is better saved for the peasants, who require more entertainment to make it through their dreary lives.”
“Very droll, I am sure.” The king’s eyes were the same as hers. The same shape, the same unusual green. And showed the same banked temper she’d felt in her own too many times to count. A kind of panicked flush had rolled over her, making her want to get up and run from the room even as her legs felt too numb to hold her upright. “I trust you know better than to make such an undignified display of inappropriate humor in front of the prince? He may be deep in a regrettable phase with all those stunts he pulls, but I assure you, at the end of the day he is no different from any other man in his position. Whatever issues he may have with his father now, he will sooner or later ascend the throne of Tissely. And when he does, he will not want a comedienne at his side, Valentina. He will require a queen.”
Natalie was used to Achilles Casilieris’s version of slap downs. They were quicker. Louder. He blazed into a fury and then he was done. This was entirely different. This was less a slap down and more a deliberatepressing down,putting Natalie firmly and ruthlessly in her place.
She’d found she didn’t much care for the experience. Or the place Valentina was apparently expected to occupy.
“But you have no queen,” she’d blurted out. Then instantly regretted it when Geoffrey had gazed at her in amazement over his first course. “Sir.”
“I do not appreciate this sort of acting out at my table, Valentina,” he’d told her, with a certain quiet yet ringing tone. “You know what is expected of you. You were promised to the Tisselians when I still believed I might have more children, or you would take the throne of Murin yourself. But we are Murinese and we do not back out of our promises. If you are finding your engagement problematic, I suggest you either find a way to solve it to your satisfaction or come to a place of peace with its realities. Those are your only choices.”
“Was that your choice?” she’d asked.
Maybe her voice had sounded different then. Maybe she’d slipped and let a little emotion in. Natalie hadn’t known. What she’d been entirely too clear on was that this man should have recognized her. At the very least, he should have known she wasn’t the daughter he was used to seeing at his table. And surely the king knew that he’d had twins. He should have had some kind of inkling that it waspossiblehe’d run into his other daughter someday.
And yet if King Geoffrey of Murin noticed that his daughter was any different than usual, he kept it to himself. In the same way that if he was racked nightly by guilt because he’d clearly misplaced a twin daughter some twenty-seven years ago, it did not mar his royal visage in any way.
“We must all make choices,” he’d said coolly. “And when we are of the Royal House of Murin, each and every one of those choices must benefit the kingdom. You know this full well and always have. I suggest you resign yourself to your fate, and more gracefully.”
And it was the only answer he’d given.
He’d shifted the conversation then, taking charge in what Natalie assumed was his usual way. And he’d talked about nothing much, in more than one language, which would have made Natalie terrified that she’d give herself away, but he hadn’t seemed to want much in the way of answers. In Italian, French, or English.
Clearly, the princess’s role was to sit quietly and listen as the king expounded on whatever topic he liked. And not to ask questions. No wonder she’d wanted a break.
I have a confession to make,Natalie had texted Valentina later that first night. She’d been back in the princess’s absurdly comfortable and elegant bedroom, completely unable to sleep as her conscience was keeping her wide awake.
Confession is good for the soul, I’m reliably informed,Valentina had replied after a moment or two. Natalie had tried to imagine where she might be. In the small room in Mr. Casilieris’s vast New York penthouse she thought of as hers? Trying to catch up on work in the office suite on the lower floor?I’ve never had the pleasure of a life that required a confession. But you can tell me anything.
Natalie had to order herself to stop thinking about her real life, and to start paying attention to Valentina’s life, which she was messing up left and right.
Rodolfo kissed me.There. Three quick words, then the send button, and she was no longer keeping a terrible secret to herself.
That time, the pause had seemed to take years.
That sounds a bit more like a confession Rodolfo ought to be making. Though I suppose he wouldn’t know one was necessary, would he?
In the spirit of total honesty,Natalie had typed resolutely, because there was nothing to be gained by lying at that point and besides, she clearly couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t share all of this with Valentina no matter the consequences,I kissed him back.
She’d been sitting up against the headboard then, staring at the phone in her hand with her knees pulled up beneath her chin. She’d expected anger, at the very least. A denunciation or two. And she’d had no idea what that would even look like, coming from a royal princess—would guards burst through the bedroom doors and haul her away? Would Valentina declare her an imposter and have her carried off in chains? Anything seemed possible. Likely, even, given how grievously Natalie had slipped up.
