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“I am certain your beloved will propose before Christmas,” she said, putting on a smile. “Is not Christmas a time for proposals and romance?”
“It is,” Lady Jenny said, “but I fear—”
“Ah, Lady Jenny, there you are,” Crown Prince Oskar said as he strode into the doorway.
Lady Jenny leapt away from Charlotte, as if the two of them had been discussing something forbidden.
“I have been asked to fetch you to see if you would help with the trees in the ballroom,” Prince Oskar said with a kind, if somewhat tight and guarded smile. Prince Oskar was the only member of the royal family who had seemed offended by Charlotte’s presence with his family. He sent her the briefest of looks—one that took the warmth right out of her—then glanced to Lady Jenny again. “My father has requested you join us specifically.”
There was something brittle and tight about that final pronouncement, as though it pained Prince Oskar to say those words.
“Yes, your highness,” Lady Jenny said with a perfect curtsy.
She left Charlotte’s side without another word, though she did glance back at Charlotte with an apologetic look.
The pain in her heart that Lady Jenny gave her—without explanation or reason—deepened as Charlotte watched her leave the room. Something was amiss. Something more than the prospect of Lady Jenny being forced to leave Aegiria. There had to be a reason the woman wanted to stay.
“She is scared of you,” Brigitta said, coming back to help as Charlotte returned to pinning bows to the garland over the fireplace.
“Good heavens,” Charlotte exclaimed. “She cannot be.Iam rather intimidated byher.”
“You are?” Brigitta frowned curiously at her.
“Indeed,” Charlotte said. “For Lady Jenny is clearly a noblewoman of the highest order, whereas I am the daughter of a self-made man. Considering we are in a royal palace, I know which one of us fits and which does not.”
“I believe you fit here,” Brigitta said, her smile glowing with mischief. “I believe you fit quite well, and that you will continue to fit, if my brother has anything to say about it.”
Charlotte’s face immediately went hot. “Your brother?” Charlotte’s voice cracked with guilt.
Much to her horror, Princess Dagmar and Pryia stepped away from the window where they were working and came over to join them.
“Do not for a moment imagine that I am unfamiliar with the workings of my own son’s heart,” Princess Dagmar said.
She gestured for Charlotte and Brigitta to join her and Priya at the circle of chairs and the sofa near the center of the room. A platter of special Aegirian Christmas buns sat on a low table there, along with a tea service. Princess Dagmar had evidently decided it was time for the decorators to pause for refreshment.
“I know that my son has met with you several times in London,” Princess Dagmar said, pouring tea for Charlotte, then the others. “I know he has written to you quite a bit since then as well.”
“You do?” Charlotte asked. She could only imagine what a princess would think of her son falling in love with a commoner.
“I have seen the joy in Petrus’s eyes when he reads your letters, my dear,” Princess Dagmar said, smiling with her eyes. “I have seen the delight that you bring him. Now that I have met you in person, I understand that joy and delight entirely.”
“How very kind of you to say, Princess Dagmar.” Charlotte bowed her head to the woman over her tea.
“I am unsurprised that my eldest son has given his heart away to an Englishwoman,” Princess Dagmar continued, handing tea to the others. “He is half English himself, after all.”
Charlotte nearly choked on her tea. She knew that the strange laws of Aegiria meant that Petrus was still considered a royal prince, even though he’d been born out of wedlock, but it startled her to hear the matter spoken of so freely.
Princess Dagmar seemed to sense the source of Charlotte’s shock.
“I fancied myself in love, my dear,” she told Charlotte, as if that were a reason for the openness. “Lord Vegas represented himself falsely to me, to be certain. I was young and in awe of the foreign country I found myself in. I was flattered that a marquess would pay me so much attention. I did not have a friend to caution me as to the man’s true intent, and I was led down a dangerous path because of it.”
“I…I am very sorry,” Charlotte said, at a loss for words.
Princess Dagmar laughed. “I am not,” she said, surprising Charlotte. “For even though Petrus was born out of my folly, I do not know what I would do without him.”
“That is true,” Charlotte said, still stunned for all the ease with which Princess Dagmar told the story.
“More than that,” the woman went on, “because of my surprising state, I was too embarrassed to stay for long in this city when I returned from my sojourn in England. I asked to be allowed to stay at the family’s summer house in Tjornbay, on the other side of the island. Which is where I met my husband, Hektor. His father is a duke, and he lived on the estate adjoining our family’s. We met because I was in self-exile, and his kindness won me over. With Hektor, I have found a love that surpasses description, and I have had two more wonderful children.” She reached her hand out to take Brigitta’s.
