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“My husband and I thank you all for joining us this Christmas Eve in celebration of our kingdom, our family, and our Savior’s birth,” she began. “As you know, it is our tradition that every Christmas Eve, a Christmas Princess is crowned to represent the love we have for each other and for you. In the past, this princess has been the chosen bride of a member of the royal family. It has been quite a long time since any members of the family have been of an age where this tradition can be carried out, but tonight, once again, to our great delight, the Christmas Princess will be the bride of a prince.”
The crowd gasped and murmured with excitement and joy.
Petrus’s stomach twisted into knots. He had the horrible feeling that he was about to be trapped into proposing to Lady Jenny in front of half the kingdom of Aegiria. If that were the case, there was no way he would be able to choose Charlotte as his own, or to let Oskar have the woman he loved.
He had to do something. He cleared his throat and stepped closer to the center of the dais, where the king and queen stood.
It was the wrong move.
“And here is our royal groom,” Queen Sylvia said, gesturing to Petrus as though he’d stepped forward on queue. “Prince Petrus.”
The crowd gasped and applauded, their eyes bright, excitement humming in the air.
Petrus was worried he might be sick. He smiled at the crowd, but lost that smile when he reached his aunt and uncle at the center of the dais.
“I’m not certain this is the best—” he began.
He was cut short as the double doors at the far end of the ballroom opened to reveal the Christmas Princess. There was a rush of rustling skirts and shifting bodies as everyone turned and stepped aside to see who it was. They created an aisle from the back doorway to the dais as they did.
There was a second gasp of shock as not one, but two women appeared in the doorway. Petrus’s jaw dropped as well as both Charlotte and Lady Jenny stepped into the light of the ballroom, holding the Christmas Princess’s crown between them. They were dressed in identical red dresses—although how the two of them had managed to obtain two of the same gown on such short notice was a mystery to Petrus.
That mystery could wait for another day. As Charlotte and Lady Jenny stepped forward, walking through the ballroom and approaching the dais with uncertain smiles, everyone watched, holding their breath. Petrus was vaguely aware of Oskar moving up to his side. The two of them watched the women come closer, and Petrus thought he might die with the suspense of the whole thing.
“I don’t understand,” someone in the front of the crowd, one of the Aegirian nobles, said. “Is Prince Petrus going to marry two women at once?”
“Aegiria might be progressive,” someone else said, “but we’re notthatprogressive.”
Charlotte and Lady Jenny stepped up onto the dais and stood so that they faced Petrus and Oskar, the king and queen standing between them. Charlotte wore a look of delicious mischief, which let Petrus know at once that the entire thing had been her idea. Lady Jenny looked completely terrified and appealed to Oskar with her eyes for help.
A long, tense silence followed before the king said, “It appears as though we may have two brides before us.” He stared hard at his son, as if telling him the time had come to step up and do the right thing.
Oskar practically vibrated with stress before it all seemed to evaporate around him. He dropped his shoulders and let himself smile. It was the first smile Petrus had seen from his cousin in weeks.
“Yes, we do,” he said in answer to his father’s words. He stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Lady Jenny, and offered her his hand. “Jenny, I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything. You are my sun and my moon, my spring flower and my autumn leaves. I have tried so hard to do what is right for my family and my kingdom, but I see now that the right thing is to love and to show that love in all its glory. Will you be not only my Christmas Princess but my bride and the joy of my heart?”
Everyone in the room held their breath. Even Petrus felt the romance of the moment.
Lady Jenny let go of her side of the Christmas Princess’s crown, which Charlotte scrambled to catch with her other hand to keep it from spilling to the ground and its candles from igniting something. She stepped toward Oskar, taking both his hands as he offered them.
“Yes,” she said, and even though her voice was tiny and quiet, it seemed to ring throughout the ballroom. “Yes, Oskar, I will marry you. I love you.”
“My darling,” Oskar said, and then, in front of everyone, he pulled Jenny into his arms for a kiss.
The crowded ballroom erupted with cheers and shouts of approval. The king and queen beamed to show that they approved of the match as well. Not a single person in the crowd paused to wonder why Crown Prince Oskar was the one who had just become engaged in front of them when the queen had stated that Prince Petrus was the one to become a groom. They likely all thought it was just another Aegirian royal family Christmas prank, although some of them might have guessed the truth when Charlotte stepped forward to affix the Christmas Princess’s crown on Lady Jenny’s head, with Petrus’s help, and then moved back to hold Petrus’s hand, the two of them beaming at each other, as they watched Oskar and Lady Jenny wave to the room.
“I wasn’t certain how that was going to go,” Charlotte told Petrus with a laugh about fifteen minutes later, after the ceremony was over and the dancing had begun.
Petrus held Charlotte in his arms, beaming happily at her as they whirled around the ballroom in a waltz. “I think it went splendidly,” he said, so proud of Charlotte that he could burst.
“We only had today to plan,” Charlotte confessed. “Lady Jenny only confessed to me that she loved Prince Oskar this morning. We talked about it and worked things out, and agreed that we should both appear as the Christmas Princess and force the two of you to choose who would marry who.”
Petrus arched one eyebrow. “How did you know I would not choose Lady Jenny, as I was supposed to?”
Charlotte threw back her head and laughed. It was the jolliest sound Petrus had ever heard, and it made him feel warm, inside and out.
“Dear Petrus,” she said, shaking her head at him, heat and naughtiness in her beautiful eyes. “You would never choose Lady Jenny, as marvelous as she is, over me. You love me, and you are a man of honor.”
“Precisely,” Petrus said, agreeing with her, but enjoying the teasing. “Which is why I could have done my duty, as Oskar wanted me to, and married Lady Jenny to secure that alliance.”
