“You know Oslo has a very good university as well,” he points out and quickly exchanges a glance with the Queen.
Okay. That’s kind of an odd thing to bring up, as if it’s a competition. “I’m afraid I haven’t heard much about the schools in Norway. Actually, I don’t know too much about Norway in general.”
“But you seem to know an awful lot about Norway’s environmental policies,” Magnus speaks up.
I whip my head over to him and catch a hint of a smile playing on his full lips. I’m not sure why my mind is noticing how full and lush they are considering what he just said and I urge my brain to ignore them. “Yes, well it’s hard not to know those things when they stand out like a sore thumb among the world’s developed countries.”
“Were you a fan of Captain Planet when you were growing up?” he asks, now fully smiling. The royal bastard has a lovely smile.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell him quickly and then realize that perhaps that wasn’t the best way to speak to the Crown Prince of Norway. “I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
“It’s quite all right, Your Highness,” he says right back. “I think it was before your time. How old are you again?”
“Magnus,” his mother chides him. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a woman’s age?”
“Woman?” he says, jerking his chin at me. “She’s just a girl.”
“I’m twenty-two,” I say stiffly. “And whether I’m a girl or a woman, that’s not for you to speculate.”
This time, Jane jabs me in the side. That’s a first.
I look over at her and she’s giving me a stern look. Sheepishly, I look back at the royal family, expecting to see disapproving scowls on their faces, but instead they all look rather impressed, even Magnus.
“I must say, I like you, Princess Isabella,” the King says emphatically, and the curious praise makes me feel warm inside. “We need more people around here to keep the Prince in his place.”
“Yeah, that’s just what I need,” Magnus mumbles before finishing the rest of his champagne and walking across the room to plop the glass down on a side table, which makes his mother gasp at the meeting of the glass and the wood.
“Magnus,” his father calls after him as Magnus yanks open what looks to be a liquor cabinet and starts rifling through it. “You know not using a coaster amounts to treason in this family.”
“I’m sure the schools in Norway are very good,” Jane says eagerly, trying to save face, even though the moment has passed.
“Indeed, they are,” the Queen says with an appreciative nod. “Two of our girls opted to study here instead of going abroad.”
I look at Mari. “And where do you plan to study when you’re done with your schooling?” I pause. “That is if you’re planning on going to school.”
“Of course, she is,” the Queen answers for her, giving Mari a proud yet tight-lipped smile. “She’s exceptionally bright.”
Mari just nods though I can tell there’s something holding her back. She might just need time to figure out what she wants to be.
“And after you get your degree,” the King says to me, “where do you plan on living?”
Again I want to shrug. I straighten my shoulders instead. “I’m not quite sure yet. Edinburgh is lovely. London seems the right choice, but I think it’s just a bit too big for me. Anywhere that I feel I can use my voice best.”
“Then wouldn’t you head back to Liechtenstein?”
Is this a trap? Is he trying to trick me into saying something bad about my country?
I shake my head. “While Liechtenstein will always be my home and I think it has a lot to offer, there aren’t many opportunities there for what I’m interested in.”
“And what is that?” the Queen asks.
I look at her in surprise. I thought that was pretty apparent. “Getting together a non-profit organization to help the environment. To do something that invokes change. That’s my end goal, anyway. It’s a lot harder to do than it seems.”
“Your father has no interest in helping you?”
I hold back a bitter laugh. “My father has no interest in helping me at all. In fact, telling me about this dinner was the first time he acknowledged I existed since he gave me a present at Christmas.”
The King raises his gray brows and exchanges a perplexed glance with his wife.
Oh shit. If this was a trap, I didn’t sell my father very well.
“You see, he’s a very busy man,” I add quickly. “And I’m terrible at keeping in touch.”
“It’s true,” Jane says, nodding adamantly.
“I completely understand,” the King says, his voice warm and reassuring. He clears his throat. “May I ask, what exactly did your father tell you about tonight’s dinner?”
At that question I notice Magnus slowly sauntering back over to us with a highball of what looks like scotch and eyeing me curiously. Actually, everyone is looking at me the same way.
“I, uh, well he didn’t exactly say,” I admit stupidly, feeling my cheeks grow hot. “He just said that Jane and I were invited for dinner and that was it.”
“You didn’t ask what it was for?” the Queen asks, frowning.
I feel even stupider. “Well, no. My father didn’t tell me himself, his butler did. And he wasn’t sure. I just know to take my father’s word that if he tells me to go somewhere and do something, I do it.”
“So obedient,” the King says under his breath, almost wistfully, before he looks over at Magnus.
Magnus nods at him and then says to me, “Listen. Ella, right? I need to speak to you in private for a moment.”
I blink at him, totally confused as to what’s going on and then give Jane a helpless look. She only gives a slight shrug, her eyes getting that devious glint in them, the one that means she’s getting inappropriate thoughts that I pray she keeps to herself.
“Sure,” I tell him, and I step back away from the group as he lightly places his fingers at my elbow, guiding me toward a set of French doors. From the moment his skin makes contact with mine, I feel a subtle jolt of electricity travel through my veins, like I’m some kind of conductor, and I nearly jump back from it. I don’t know if it’s his smell, like a pine forest with a hint of booze, his proximity to me, or what, but it’s never been more obvious that I’m sorely out of practice even just socializing with the opposite sex.
I glance over my shoulder at the others and they all seem to be holding their breath, except Jane, who is downing her glass of champagne.
Magnus opens the doors with ease and we step out onto a stone path that winds its way through a few bushes filled with night-blooming flowers and a bench, before it turns into the back courtyard and parking area we first arrived in.
“It’s lovely out here,” I tell him, my voice shaking a little, from both nerves and the bracing air.
“It’s ridiculous is what it is,” Magnus says, leading me over to the stone bench and then running his hands over it, brushing off any dirt. “Here, sit.”
I hesitate a moment before I do, still so unsure of what’s going on. “What’s ridiculous?”
“What isn’t?” he asks, and I notice he’s not sitting. He stands in front of me, and from here he looks even more massive and powerful than before. He’s intimidating, that’s for sure. “This is what constitutes my mother’s garden. It’s the only place she has in private to enjoy her flowers.” He gestures to the park behind the palace. “In the summer, the park and main gardens are open to the public. Hell, a lot of the palace inside is too. I don’t know why they choose to live like they’re fish in a bowl.”
“Our palace back home is completely blocked off,” I tell him. “No one can even get near, though of course it’s pretty useless since no one really cares about us. No one even knows where Liechtenstein is.”
“They have some great places to go abseiling,” he says. “Some great women too.”
I shouldn’t roll my eyes at the Crown Prince of Norway, but I do.
“Hey, you could be one of them,” he says.
“I’ll pass,” I tell him with a scoff, folding my hands in my lap. “So, may I ask what we’re doing out here? What was all of that inside?”
He gnaws on his lip for a moment, that damn full bottom lip. He’s almost wincing.
This isn’t going to be good, is it?
Six
Ella
“You honestly don’t know why you’re here?” he asks as he stares down at me.
My heart starts to thump harder in my chest and I shift uncomfortably on the bench. “No,” I say quietly, wishing now I had the courage to not agree to any of this until I had talked to my father. I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into by coming here, but I have a feeling I’m about to find out.
He presses his lips together, raising his brows as if to say, oh boy, here we go.
“Right, well. I’m going to be straight with you. More so than I think my family would like, but since we’re both involved in this, I think honesty is the only thing we’ve got right now.”
“Okay…” Jesus, what is it?
“I’ll start by telling you what my father told your father.” He runs his hand through his hair and starts to shift his weight from one foot to the other.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I tell him.
He shakes his head and I know I shouldn’t take any offense to the fact that he won’t sit next to me, but I kind of do. Do I smell? I fight the urge to take a whiff.
“The reason you are here, Princess Isabella of Liechtenstein,” he goes on, “is that my father told your father that I was very interested in meeting you.”
Huh? Come again?
“You were interested in meeting me?”