“We could hardly hold Charles and Diana up as the ideal royal couple, my dear,” Father protests.
“Isn’t their marriage going down the gurgler?” I counter. “That tell-all book about Diana certainly hogged the headlines around the world.”
Mother waves away my words with a flick of her wrist. “The point is, for quite some years, Diana injected arather wonderful sense of something new and refreshing into the family. Before she came along, everyone was terribly bored with Prince Charles. They tried to spin it that he was very handsome and adored by women, but really, he was a bit of a… well, a bit of a dishrag, if I’m to be perfectly honest.”
“Mother!” I say, scandalised. “You can’t speak like that about a member of another royal family.”
“It’s only between us, darling,” she replies breezily. “Someone like Princess Astrid could do exactly what Diana did for the Windsors back then. She could inject something new and exciting into our lives. It could turn the public’s opinion of you right around.”
She pointedly lifts the newspaper photo of me smiling at a dancing Astrid, surrounded by happy, laughing children on the deck of the hospital. “She’s a delight, and you seem rather taken with her, too.”
“You did seem to enjoy her smiles,” Father adds, one eyebrow raised in my direction.
That’s it. This has gone too far.
“Let’s be reasonable about this. I barely know her. Yes, we got on well enough, if you call her doing all the talking, getting on well.”
“You could do with someone to spark you up, darling,” Mother says.
Father fixes me with a pointed stare. “You’re the ‘Prince Charles’ of Ledonia.”
“No, I’m not! I’m only twenty-seven, and I’m not as stiff and…” I stop mid-sentence because I know exactly where that argument leads.
For years, the papers have loved to depict me as a marble statue, a person devoid of emotion, someone whose smiles are always curated, never genuine. They seem tohave no idea the pressure I feel as the Crown Prince. One day, I will be king, and the idea is nothing short of terrifying.
“Darling, you know the tabloids have been calling you the Ice Prince,” Mother says. “Someone like Astrid could help you appear less?—”
I raise my brows. “Less what, Mother?”
“You know,” she replies evasively.
“Do you have any marriage prospects?” Father asks tentatively.
I pull my lips into a thin line. “You know I don’t.”
I’m not exactly the dating type. I meet a slew of women, but I’ve only ever had one girlfriend, and that was when I was at Cambridge. It fizzled into nothing when I moved back to Ledonia. She went on to become a brilliant journalist in New York, and I was long forgotten.
“You’ve never been what they call a ‘ladies’ man’,” Father agrees.
I give a self-deprecating shrug, thinking of how hard I find it to speak with attractive women. It’s like the moment I’m in the presence of a beautiful woman, someone sprays fog into my mind and I can’t think of a single thing to say.
“I’m as much a ladies’ man as a lamppost,” I harrumph.
Mother suppresses a smile.
“Is it really such a terrible idea to have an arranged marriage with a pretty, sweet princess like Astrid?” Father asks, far too leadingly for comfort.
My shoulders drop at the futility of this argument. It would seem Penelope Pemberley-Price isn’t the only one with marriage firmly lodged in her head.
I’m about to reply that simply because Princess Astrid is pretty and sweet doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things when the door flies open and mysister bursts in.
“Good morning, everybody! What a gorgeous day!” Francesca trills as she bounces into the room.
“Morning, darling,” Mother says.
“Good morning, Gio.” She flashes a grin at one server, who grins back at her.
“Good morning, Your Royal Highness. I’ll order your eggs now, if you so wish,” he says.
