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It made me proud of her—of her energy and confidence. I held on tightly, too, even when she let go of my arm, and we walked out into the hall where Wolfgang, Gelula, and Thelma were. They all bowed or curtsied, even Gelula, who didn’t need to as she’d done so twice this morning, already. However, they all really just wanted to hammer it home for me.
I nodded to all of them.
We followed Wolfgang, who was a little quieter than he normally was, his shoulders slumped. The three of them had to be exhausted from the wedding, too; all of them pushed through for me. And I didn’t want to disappoint them.
I walked with my head high—not too high, I could hear Lady de Marissonne’s voice yell in the back of my mind. It made me smile and wonder what she had thought of my wedding walk. I would have to thank her later. There were so many people I would have to thank, actually…
“Her Majesty, the Queen.” The voice of head butler, Mr. Parsworth, bellowed and startled me as I reached the engraved French double doors to the living room.
And I fought the instinct to turn around and look to find the queen that he announced. The doors opened, bringing me face to face with the rest of the royal family—and not just Queen Mother Elspeth or Princess Eliza, or even Sophia, Dowager the Duchess of Elmburgh, but also Gale’s grandmother, the Grand Dowager, Queen Arabella, who despite all my best efforts to get to know her, was very formal, uptight, and sharp.
She reminded me of Violet Crawley on Downton Abbey. She had not said much to me. And I had no idea what she thought about me. I would have felt slightly bad about it had it not been for the fact that she was the same with Elspeth. I didn’t know what that drama was, and I would stay clear of it. It wasn’t just them that I had to worry about it. But Gale’s only surviving aunt, Princess Cornelia, who was around the age of Elspeth, maybe older, who had four children—Gale’s cousins: Hadrian Hargreave, Second Earl of Landhem; his wife, Countess Lydia; and his sister, Florence, the Lady of Helhoven; and as well as Marcus and Antoni, who were twins in their early twenties with copper hair and blue eyes.
They had no titles yet.
I had gone from just Mother, Augusta, and Yvonne by association…to a massive royal Brady Bunch with titles that I spent days trying to remember. All of them were currently bowing and curtsying to me.
I glanced around for Gale, but somehow, he was not here yet, leaving me with no shield. When I noticed they were still waiting—because I had to be the one to speak first, since Gale wasn’t here—I nearly panicked. The soft pat from my mother behind me pushed me through.
“I do hope I did not keep you all long,” I said to them as they rose and met my eye.
“Not at all.” Eliza nodded at me, smiling. “We were merely talking about memories of Arty.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Right…I knew this was the remembrance for him.
But still, part of me had forgotten how much he meant to them all. Walking forward, I moved to take a seat on the couch; every movement I focused on in my head even when I sat.
“Please do not stop on my accord. I wish to hear it.”
“It’s all silly personal things, Your Grace,” Princess Cornelia said opposite of me, also being formal. “Inside jokes, I believe they call it in America.”
“They call them inside jokes here, too, Mother.” Hadrian nodded to her and then looked back to me with a tilt to the head. He looked the most like what I had seen pictures of Arthur, a little bit shorter and not as fit. But one could definitely see the eyes, nose, and jaw were very strong family traits.
“Just before you arrived, Your Grace, I recalled how once, during our summer in Evaebury, when Gale was about fourteen, he came to me and asked how to drive a stick shift. I had no idea how myself, but I wanted to watch him try miserably. So we went and took one of the royal cars—”
“And wrecked it beyond repair,” his sister, Florence, interjected with a laugh, brushing her blond hair behind her ear.
“Thank you, sister. It is my story.” Hadrian shot her a glare and then looked back at me. “As I was saying, we took the car…yes and wrecked it in the fountain. Which caused all the estate to be in an uproar. I was lectured nearly into a coma by Mother and Grandmama here. And I was waiting for Queen Elspeth to do the same. However, instead, the one who showed up at my rooms in the middle of the night was Arthur, who punched me straight in the jaw.”
“I still don’t believe this story,” Eliza said, her eyebrow raised, glaring at her cousin.
“Neither do I,” his own mother said as she frowned at him. “Arthur was not at all violent in any shape or manner. He was always a very peaceful child, especially back then. You all said he preferred his books to people.”
“No one ever believes me when I tell the story, but I swear…” Hadrian said, looking at me desperately. “He punched me so hard I fell onto the floor. And he threatened me, saying if I ever put his baby brother at risk like that again, he was going to pound my face in.”
Even I cringed slightly, not believing it. From what I knew of Arthur, that didn’t sound right at all. “You must forgive me. I do not know if I believe it, either,” I said.
And he gasped dramatically, throwing his hands in the air. “I swear!”
“It’s true.” Her voice was so soft that we had paused to make sure we heard it.
But seeing Eliza turn to her, I did, too, looking to Sophia, who wore a dark-gray dress and matching hat, the smallest of smiles on the corner of her lips.
“What?” Elspeth asked, speaking up for the first time since I had arrived.
“Hadrian tells this story nearly every year,” she explained as she touched her wedding ring. “Everyone would laugh, Arty would deny it. We believed Arty. One night I just asked him, and he looked over to me with the biggest smile on his face and said yes, full of pride, he did it. But he enjoyed watching Hadrian desperately try to get people to believe him. He found it hilarious.”
“I knew it!” Hadrian exclaimed, now vindicated. “He was torturing me, letting me know he could get away with it. I’m telling you, Arty could be devious.”
