The Wedding Night They Never Had

“Yes. I’m sure it will be advantageous for you. It’s a shame he’s so busy with his new wife, or you could’ve kidnapped him.”

“It is true,” she said. “He would have been most convenient. A spare, no official position in his country, but raised to be royal. Also, he is the captain of the guard.” She frowned. “His brother, though, I hear has an ill humor. He would not have liked me to kidnap him.”

“You know a lot about my brother-in-law.”

“Of course. It pays to know these things. As I said, I have spent the last year going over everything.”

“What have you learned?”

“Everything about world events.” She squared her small shoulders. “You know they shielded me from many things. What was happening out there. And I wanted to learn all of it, and I did. And I thought...it would make the blank spaces in my mind feel full.” She blinked. “It did not.” She didn’t speak for a long moment. “I wonder... I wonder. I would like...some time to learn more about myself.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She shrugged, in that rather careless way she had. “You know, I have had so much decided for me. And even now, I know so little. I wish to do things like choose my own clothes. As an example. I hate everything that was bought for me. So, when the regime fell, I had my staff choose clothes for me. But I don’t know if it is what I like. I don’t know how to know what it is I like. Same with food. I did not keep the same menus, but I went back to what my mother and father made. Some I like. Some...”

“So what you’re telling me is you know a lot about the state of the world, but not what you want to eat for dinner.”

“It is exactly this,” she said. “Some things I know... Some things I don’t.”

“I...” He found himself speechless, which was...not something that he could remember happening. Except he suddenly realized that he wasn’t sure what he liked anymore either. He played a part. Slipped that role on like a second skin. He drank to excess in public because Maximus King would. He had supermodels on his arm because it was what Maximus King would do. Some grotesque version of himself that he imagined might have existed had he never known Stella. Had he never been in love.

A reckless playboy who cared only about appeasing his own appetites. But for someone who indulged as richly as he did in the hedonistic things of this world, he could not say that he loved them. He drank whiskey on the plane because whiskey was what he drank, not because he loved whiskey particularly. And he found the sort of beauty Annick possessed to be far more compelling than the beauty on any of those supermodels. As for food...

He ate what was served to him. He did not consider it much.

“What is it?”

“That will be our first step, Annick. We will find out what you like to eat. How do you summon your staff?”

“A bell,” she said. She looked very pleased, and she produced a small silver bell.

“Ring it.”

She did so. And three women appeared, with their hair in low, neat ponytails, their clothing all the same, black from head to toe.

“We need food. Food from restaurants in the city. Whatever was being cooked tonight, bring that too, but bring a variety. Annick—Princess Annick—needs to try some things.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“It does not do, Annick, for a Queen to not know her own mind. You need to know what you like. Everything you like. Because it is the job of those around you to make you happy, to make you comfortable, and if you do not know what you want, how can you give easy commands? If you cannot give easy commands...you don’t look like you’re in charge.”

She looked like she was considering this. “Okay.”

“Mostly,” he said, “if you don’t enjoy things, you will become cold and hard and dead inside.”

“What? Like you?” She asked it with some humor, but she had no idea.

“Yes,” he said. “Like me.”

She looked slightly abashed. “Sorry,” she said.

“Are you going to say that you didn’t mean it?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I very much meant it. Only I am sorry that I said it. I’m very out of practice with talking to people I don’t hate.”

He laughed, the bubble of humor in his chest entirely unexpected.

“Are you?”