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Lady Jenny jumped and squealed, then finished hanging the boot. She whipped to face Charlotte once she did, her eyes round. “You’ve caught me,” she said, looking as though she meant it in more ways than applied to a silly Christmas tradition.
Charlotte eased up her stance and walked fully into the room. She reached for Lady Jenny’s hand, saying, “Now you must do something for me as a forfeit.”
Reluctantly, Lady Jenny took the offered hand and allowed herself to be led to the couch. As the two of them sat, she said, “What do you want from me?”
The way she asked the question made Charlotte wonder if the woman expected her to shout and rail, or even beat her.
Instead, Charlotte said, “I want you to tell me the truth.”
Lady Jenny swallowed. “The truth?”
Charlotte was nearly too excited to reveal all to maintain her composure. “I would like you to tell me how long you and Crown Prince Oskar have been in love.”
Lady Jenny sucked in a breath, then burst into tears. The transformation from timid and sad to limp and sobbing was so fast that Charlotte knew her theory was correct. She could do nothing then but scoot closer to the woman and draw her into her arms as if they’d been friends for a decade.
“I love him so,” Lady Jenny sniffled. “I have almost from the start. Prince Petrus is a very nice man, but he has been in Aegiria so little since my arrival, and Oskar was so kind as to entertain me in his cousin’s absence.”
Everything became so much clearer to Charlotte. “The man you were sent to charm was off losing his heart to someone else,” she said, unable to stop herself from smiling. “And the one you were never meant to notice or be noticed by became your whole world.”
“Yes,” Lady Jenny said, straightening and staring at Charlotte with a look of wonder and gratitude. That look stiffened to worry, though. “You…you are not angry with me?”
Charlotte laughed and rubbed Lady Jenny’s back. “Why should I be angry with you? The man I love loves me in return. And if what I just overheard is true, the man you love adores you just as much.”
But instead of being heartened by those words, Lady Jenny burst into tears once more. “Oskar does love me, but he says he must marry someone else, a German princess. He says that he cannot let his heart rule him, he must rise to the needs of his kingdom and do what is right for Aegiria.”
“Nonsense,” Charlotte said, still rubbing Lady Jenny’s back. “I do not know Prince Oskar well, but it seems to me as though he is taking his duty as the future king a bit too seriously.”
“Oskar is a very serious man,” Lady Jenny agreed wetly, nodding and forcing herself to sit straight. “I….” She sent Charlotte a sheepish look. “I believe he has read a few too many novels about heroes of old who sacrifice themselves for the greater good.”
Again, Charlotte laughed. “And they say that we are the weaker sex, that we are the ones prone to flights of fancy and imagination.” She shook her head. “Men are just as bad, if not worse. If they conjure up a way they think they can become a proud and tragically noble hero, they’ll snatch at it without trying to find another solution.”
“Yes, Oskar is a very proud man,” Lady Jenny said. “Just the other night, I tried to tell him—”
She stopped, her face going redder than Charlotte thought anyone’s face could go.
A moment later, Charlotte put the pieces together. Her eyes went wide, and she grinned from ear to ear. “You spent the night with Prince Oskar, didn’t you?” she asked.
Lady Jenny’s expression went from shocked and horrified to pinched and guilty. She lowered her head and said, “You must think I am the lowest sort of strumpet.”
“Quite the contrary,” Charlotte said, unexpected joy and a sense of closeness to Lady Jenny filling her. When Lady Jenny glanced up at her in question, she leaned close and whispered, “I spent the night in Petrus’s bed the night of Huckle Buckle Beanstalk.”
Lady Jenny gasped and sat straighter, blinking her tear-wet lashes at Charlotte in surprise. “That is the night I slept in Oskar’s bed.”
It was all Charlotte could do not to giggle like a fiend. “I’d wager the two of you did more than sleeping,” she said, as if she and Lady Jenny were wenches at the tavern her oldest brother favored in Brighton.
Lady Jenny laughed so unexpectedly that she snorted. That made both of them laugh hard, covering their mouths and sagging together as their friendship blossomed and bound them together.
But after the laughter, Lady Janny moaned. “What are we to do?” she asked. “Oskar is so determined that I should marry Petrus to secure an alliance between Aegiria and Sweden, and he is intent on courting Princes Feodora to bolster relations between Aegiria and Germany.”
“Prince Oskar is wrong,” Charlotte said bluntly. “He is behaving as a typical man and thinking too much where he should be feeling. Even King Milas thinks so, or so I believe.”
“Truly?” That seemed to raise Lady Jenny’s spirits higher than ever.
“He said something to me the other day that led me to believe he does not approve of his son sacrificing love for duty.” Charlotte blinked, slouching a bit as all the facets of the problem presented itself to her. “Why does the king not simply tell Prince Oskar that he’s being an arse and that he should marry you?”
“Oh, but hehastold him,” Lady Jenny said. When Charlotte turned to her in surprise, she went on with, “That was the reason the king took Oskar and Prince Petrus to task the other day. He’s told Oskar on more than one occasion that love is more important than duty.”
It was like someone had lit a torch to illuminate all. The conversation she and Petrus had overheard while hiding in the closet in the library was not about Oskar’s duty to marry for diplomacy, it was about his duty to marry for love and to set that example to the people of Aegiria.
