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Chapter Two
The horses, like Princess Ammalia’s heart, came to a sudden stop.
She did not know what had impeded the progress of the royal stallions this time, but she did know exactly what had caused her own heart to fail, then to burst back into motion, beating twice as swiftly as before. She gazed out of the carriage in wonder.
Thousands of onlookers flooded the streets in the hopes of glimpsing visiting royalty. The teeming masses were what had clogged the escape path—er, parade route—the horses had been following. But it wasn’t fear of a surging crowd that set Ammalia’s blood pumping faster.
It was a woman.
She was toward the back of the throng, half-hidden from view. It didn’t matter. She had the sort of ethereal beauty that could be felt from yards away and in the pitch black of night, if necessary.
It wasn’t the golden blond hair or the plump rose-petal pink lips that had caught Ammalia’s eye. It wasn’t even the high cheekbones or the becoming flush of color rising up her peaches-and-cream skin.
It was the wide blue eyes that had latched onto Ammalia’s own, as if this woman, too, had felt the connection between them as strong as a thick metal chain capable of hauling a ship back to shore.
Anchored in place by eyes like those, Ammalia couldn’t dream of going anywhere else. If the mass of jostling onlookers parted enough to let the horses trot anew, Ammalia would throw herself down from this carriage and elbow her way through the crowd until she reached—
“What are you looking at?” her brother Zurri asked with interest.
“Nothing,” Ammalia said quickly.
But she could no more tear her enthralled eyes from this captivating woman than she could rip her pounding heart free from her chest.
Zurri followed the direction of his sister’s gaze. “Who? Where?”
She didn’t answer.
Their father, the king, was in the carriage behind theirs, no doubt watching his children closely. Not because he feared scandal—this entire spectacle was because the king loved to be the center of attention, at any cost. The bigger the drama, the better.
Nor did his majesty worry about the future of his only daughter, whom he’d given up caring about at the disappointing moment of her birth. Neither Ammalia nor her theoretical children were of import. It was the male line that counted. Her brother was the future king. Rather than arrange a political alliance, Father was even allowing Zurri to select the most beautiful bride in all of England and align the two nations that way.
Ammalia, as the elder sibling and worthless female, was supposed to be finding this enviable match for her brother.
Zurri was, as always, the center of attention—just as he liked it. He needn’t even be charming. Being a prince was more than enough for women everywhere to fall in love on sight.
“I don’t care to know who’s caught your eye,” Zurri said petulantly, as though he were a child of six years, rather than a man of six-and-twenty. “I don’t want anything or anyone that pleases you. You have terrible taste.”
That was the rumor, anyway. Ammalia wouldn’t have had to be the twenty-seven-year-old spinster sister, if she’d bothered to accept any of the many offers for her hand that cropped up repeatedly over the years, often from highly sought-after gentlemen.
Duke of this, Lord of that, His Royal Highness such-and-such. Ammalia was bored by them all, no matter how handsome and wealthy and well-connected they were. She didn’t like men, and never had. Fortunately, as a royal princess, the one concession afforded her by her father was that she needn’t marry any man against her will.
Of course, what Ammalia willed was to marry the woman of her dreams. This scenario was not a thing that existed—a publicly condoned Sapphic royal match wasn’t even the stuff of fairy tales—but that hadn’t stopped her from wanting it viscerally. She longed for love. To find a happy-ever-after with a woman who made her feel not unlike the one whose celestial gaze was still locked on Ammalia’s.
Outside of her family, however, no one knew about her preferences. Although a princess could get away with almost anything, Father had warned her not to embroil the family in gossip or to draw attention away from her brother until after Zurri was safely wed, and the alliance with England secure.
Until then, Ammalia’s wishes didn’t come second—they didn’t matter at all.
“All right, I give up,” Zurri groused. “Please tell me who it is you cannot look away from.”
Because her brother had said please, Ammalia gestured in the general direction of her mystery woman. Not too precisely, of course. With luck, one of the other screaming young ladies flanking her should catch Zurri’s eye.
Unfortunately, Ammalia was not in luck.
“The one with the handkerchief tied to her head and the smudge of dirt on her face?” he asked in disbelief. “I suppose she’d be halfway passable, if she weren’t dressed in rags.”
To be honest, Ammalia hadn’t noticed the smudge or the handkerchief or the patched and tattered gown. Even now, after Zurri had so uncharitably pointed it out, Ammalia could not make herself care about such inconsequential details. She wanted to know all the things that did matter. Like, what was this woman’s name? Was she spoken for? Did she like good wine and ocean sunsets and focaccia fresh from the oven and the smooth feel of cold mosaic tiles beneath one’s bare feet on a warm summer’s day? Would she like to experience all those things with Ammalia?
“Maybe your pauper is just the trick to add sparkle to my image,” he mused thoughtfully. “A pet project, for the public’s sake. Like the time I adopted that dog.”
