“Finish dressing yourself,” he told his brother quietly. “I’ll be waiting for you in the carriage. But be warned. If you don’t emerge in a quarter hour, I’ll come looking for you, and you won’t like the consequences.”
“You should eat, Your Highness,”Tansy urged Princess Anastasia, once more at home in her role of dutiful lady-in-waiting.
Only, the role no longer felt like home. It felt hollow and desperately wrong. And her every interaction with the princess felt like a betrayal in itself for what she was keeping from her.
Days had passed. Days fraught with tension, fear, and loneliness. With longing for Maxim, too. But since they had last parted, she’d had nothing from him, save curt missives delivered by servants. Inquiries into her welfare. Into the princess’s welfare. Tansy had answered with a shaking hand each time, taking great care with what she revealed, lest one of the guards open her note and read it before sending it on its way. No tenderness. No caring words. No hint of the intimacies they had shared.
Tenderness and love were not hers to give Maxim anyway. He could never be hers, regardless of how deeply her reckless heart longed for it to be otherwise.
Finally, Princess Anastasia had been well enough to return.
Her prayers had been answered. Tansy had rejoiced when her dear friend had tumbled over the window casement in the darkest depths of the night two evenings before. But she had also begun to dread most fervently the moment that would come when she had to unburden herself to the princess and reveal what she had done. A moment that came closer with every passing minute, for she had decided that today must be the day. She could keep the truth to herself no longer.
The princess stood at the window, staring down at the rain-drenched world below.
“I’m not hungry,” she told Tansy after a lengthy silence, refusing to turn and face her.
Her friend had been most unlike herself since her return. Tansy had noted the difference at once. Initially, she had assumed she had been weary, but despite two nights of rest, Princess Anastasia remained listless and quiet. Almost sullen, her mien funereal.
Had she guessed at the truth of what had happened between Tansy and Maxim in her absence? Her heart beat faster at the thought.
“But you must eat, regardless,” Tansy urged. “You haven’t taken a thing since supper last night, and it is afternoon. King Maximilian will be calling soon.”
King Maximilian.How wrong that name felt, the pretense of formality after he had come to mean so much to her. After they had been as close as a man and woman could be.
Princess Anastasia released a heavy sigh. “What does King Maximilian’s visit have to do with eating?”
Heat suffused her cheeks. She mustn’t think of those forbidden intimacies. Nor must she think of Maxim as anything other than the king. A stranger. A man who would soon be the husband of another.
“It wouldn’t do for you to swoon,” Tansy forced out, struggling to be mindful of her duties amidst her conflicted emotions. “You must have at least a bit of tea and toast, Your Royal Highness.”
“Call me Stasia,” the princess said suddenly, whirling to face her. “I find the title is too heavy a mantle to carry on my shoulders at present, and you are like a sister to me. Let us cease with formality.”
The guilt that had been threatening to swallow her whole ever since the day she had first allowed herself to succumb to Maxim came back with a vengeance. Tansy had done her best to stay busy with tasks, but she had no choice but to attend her friend now. The princess had managed to persuade her brother the exiled prince to aid Maxim in his cause. There was no longer a need to linger in London. The betrothal would be announced today.
Which was why Tansy needed to reveal the truth.
She bowed her head now, for she could no longer hold her friend’s gaze, knowing what she had done. Knowing the boundaries she had crossed, the loyalty she had so swiftly shattered. All for the sake of a man she could never have.
“I couldn’t presume to do so,” she denied quietly.
“You can,” the princess countered, her tone firm. “I consider you a sister, a friend. The only friend I have. And I am weary, so very weary, of being a princess.”
Sweet Deus. It was unbearable. She had to confess what she had done. The consequences were hers to bear. If Princess Anastasia banished her, the fault was no one’s, save Tansy’s.
“It is not wise of you to think me your friend, Your Royal Highness,” Tansy warned, keeping her gaze lowered.
“Because you’re my lady-in-waiting?” the princess asked. “Don’t be silly. You have been at my side since before my mother’s death, a lady in your own right.”
“From a House that is impoverished.” Tansy paused, lifting her head at last. “No better than an orphan.”
And for all the princess’s generosity, look at how Tansy repaid her. Shame washed over her.
“The circumstances of our birth should not define us,” Princess Anastasia said firmly.
“And yet, they must,” Tansy told her sadly. “I will never be your equal, Your Royal Highness. Nor would I presume to act as such.”
“I am sick to death of my royal bloodlines,” the princess snapped. “What have they dealt me, other than misery and despair? They have robbed every happiness from my life. Call me Stasia, or do not speak to me at all.”
