“No thank you,” said Gabriel. “Crowns are only used in ceremonial dress, Bartholomew. Nothing looks more fake than overplaying the part.”
They were ten minutes from Winscombe—Gabriel,Bartholomew, and Sister Marie—and they’d crested the hill that gave view to the English Channel and the ocean beyond. Bartholomew and the nun had turned up at the Winscombe stables seven hours ago—just after midnight. Gabriel had almost run them through with a pitchfork before he’d realized who they were.
“What are you doing here?” Gabriel had whispered, raising his lantern to their faces.
“We’re here to return the maid of Lady Ryan,” Bart had whispered back.
“Return who?”
“Themaid.Agnes.Lady Ryan left her behind.”
“Ryan left everything behind. She traveled only with a small satchel. What areyoudoing here?”
“Your sister sent us, Highness,” the nun, Sister Marie, had told him, speaking in French.
He’d turned to stare, stunned by the use of his title. He’d blinked into the darkness allowing the words to hit him over the head, to see if they knocked him out.
Your sister sent us, Highness.
Elise, trying to reach him still. The title; popping up to startle him like a ghost.
But the nun hadn’t sounded adoring or subjugated when she’d said it; she simply sounded practical. And a little impatient.
“Incidentally,” Bartholomew had continued, “we’ve left the maid Agnes at the hotel in St. Peter.”
Gabriel had looked back at him. “Why?” He’d been so confused.
“Because we’ve also brought a traveling case of Killian’s clothes, and Agnes is going to”—and here Bartholomew had made the gesture of scissors—“sew you into them until you look like a proper prince.Also, we left her behind because she’s deuced annoying. Not an ideal travel companion in carriages nor boats. Riding horseback from the hotel to Winscombe was out of the question. I hope she’s as proficient with a needle and thread as Elise claims, because she complains. A lot. Many tears. And repeated requests for the privy. But never you fear. We contained her in the hotel with hot chocolate. She’s waiting. But we shouldn’t tarry. She has the look of a bolter, honestly, and she’s very close to home.”
And then Gabriel—despite his fatigue, despite the lack of a solid plan, despite the fact that pretending to embody his real identity felt very similar to simply accepting that identity—had experienced an epiphany. He’d realized that a full life, richly lived, came with no guarantee of rest, or a plan, or control. There were compromises, and wild guesses, and degrees.
Perhaps humanity set up some men as princes and others as horsemen and perhaps he could—in the name of love—be both of them, come what may. For a time. In the name of love.
And so Bartholomew and Sister Marie had hauled him to St. Peter and set about kitting him out like a prince. He wore Killian’s suit. He had a haircut and a shave. He’d squeezed into fine boots and a shiny hat and very tight kid gloves. When all of it was finished, Gabriel had looked in the mirror and barely recognized the man who stared back.
No, that hadn’t been entirely true—he’d seen his father’s face. The sight of this had caused him to step away from the others, to sit on the foot of the bed, to drop his head, and mourn. He’d mourned his father—a prince who’d given his life to starving, outraged people; people who’d loved him one summer and wanted him dead the next.
He’d mourned the loss of his mother, who sent her children away and never looked back.
He’d mourned his sister, who’d been lost to him for fifteen years—who’d suffered in her own way, and who’d started a new family when her own family was too dead, or too selfish, or too damaged to come for her.
Gabriel had also acknowledged that, despite the pain of exile, his parents had provided the boys’ school in Marlborough as an escape route that might keep him safe. He had not been safe, but he had not been unhappy. And he’d also stayed alive.
Finally, he’d spared a moment for Samuel Rein—a man who wouldn’t recognize him now, clean-shaven and wearing fine clothes. Samuel had taken an angry, terrified little prince from the forest floor and made him into a man.
When he’d thought of these things and smoothed them out like open letters inside his heart, Gabriel had told Bartholomew and Sister Marie that he was ready. They’d traded in the modest mount from yesterday for a stallion.
“Did you intend to reveal yourself as prince, even if we’d not come, Gabriel?” Bart asked now, riding beside him.
“Yes, I did intend to,” Gabriel said. “But this is better. A very large part of being royal—”
“—is wardrobe!” provided Bartholomew. “Elise said the same thing.”
“She knows. It’s why I grew a beard and wore skins in the forest,” Gabriel said. “It made me the opposite of a prince.”
“I wasn’t meant to force you to wear the clothes,” admitted Bartholomew. “When we found you. They sent me to be a silent source of useful assistance. And only if you needed me. Also, to miss the first week of the new school term.”
“You will not miss school, my lord,” said Marie from behind them.
