Lone Prince by Lilian Monroe
Penelope
A beadof sweat starts a long journey at the nape of my neck and travels down my spine. Another adventurous droplet gets a head start from right between my boobs. They both trickle in unison down my body, and I wonder which will reach my panties first. Surprisingly, the sweat race currently taking place on my overheated skin is not the worst thing about today. At least if I focus on how uncomfortable I feel physically, I don’t need to think about the emotional riot currently taking place inside my chest.
It’s been nearly seven years since my husband died in a skiing accident, but going to weddings still makes my gut twist. Time, it seems, doesn’t heal this wound.
Seeing other people’s happiness—remembering how full of love and hope I used to be—makes me realize just how frigid I’ve become.
I guess the names I’m called in the kingdom’s newspapers are accurate.
Ice Queen. Heartless Witch. Cold. Bitter. The Worst Thing to Happen to the Arctic Since Climate Change.
Okay, okay. I made that last one up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw it splashed across the front page of a tabloid.
A waiter hands me a flute of champagne. He bows his head with trembling reverence, making sure to never make eye contact. I take the glass without a word and relish the cool feeling of the glass beneath my fingertips. The waiter lifts his eyes up to stare at my face and immediately reddens and drops his head.
I know people call me a bitch. I suppose I probably am one. How else am I supposed to act? I have a kingdom to run, and pleasantries aren’t high on my list of priorities.
The waiter scurries away as I sip my drink, my lipstick leaving a dusty pink mark on the rim. It tastes terrible—but maybe that’s just my own discomfort at having to be here. The champagne is probably lovely and expensive. Fit for royalty.
A warm breeze ruffles my hair. My armpits are soaked. Who the heck decided an outdoor wedding is ever a good idea? And an outdoor royal wedding? Somewhere as warm as this?
Please.
That’s just asking for soggy paparazzi photos.
Sure, the series of tents they’ve set up beside the rose garden at Westhill Palace are immaculately decorated. The sun is shining and a string quartet plays delicate melodies that accompany the birds in the trees. It’s…gorgeous. I guess.
Farcliff Kingdom is beautiful. It’s located between the United States and Canada, to the east of the Great Lakes. The summertime is warm and sunny. Picture-perfect. In the countryside, where we are, the air tastes sweet and flowers are in full bloom.
I just…prefer the cold. I like being wrapped up in a warm jacket, staring out at a vast, white expanse of tundra. I like sitting on the edge of the Arctic, feeling alone in the wilderness with my people. I like staring into a fire, watching the flames dance and knowing my frail, human body is no match for the elements. My kingdom is called Nord, and I love every jagged coastline, every frozen lake, every explosion of life that happens during the short summer months.
Muggy heat? Happiness? Birds singing in trees and flowers bursting to life all around me while I feel altogether too damp?
Stifling.
My brother, Silas, nudges me with his elbow. “Lighten up, Pen. You’re supposed to be happy for Prince Gabriel and his bride.”
“It’s too warm in Farcliff,” I grumble.
“For your cold, dead heart?”
“Don’t you have some poor woman to swindle into sleeping with you?” I arch a brow at him.
“I’ve never swindled anyone.” Silas grins, mirth dancing in his deep blue eyes. A curl of rich, chocolate-brown hair falls over his forehead. Somehow, Silas’ brow isn’t damp with sweat like mine. He looks roguish and happy, not a bit bothered by the sticky heat.
I turn away from him, casting an eye over the wedding guests and all their finery. “No, you just leave a trail of heartbreak wherever you go.”
“I leave a trail of something.” Silas laughs, gulping down champagne as he scans the room—presumably for a woman who will serve as his next conquest.
I wrinkle my nose. “You’re disgusting.”
“Come on, Penelope. You haven’t left Nord in months, and you haven’t seen Prince Gabriel in, what, ten years?”
I nod. “Since my own wedding.”
“At least try to pretend to be happy for him.”
“I am happy for him. He’s marrying the love of his life, which means he’ll forever be exposed to having his heart wrenched out of his chest if anything goes wrong. Hooray for him.”
Silas lets out a sigh, wrapping an arm around my shoulder in an awkward half-hug. “I know this is hard for you,” he says quietly. “I’m proud of you for being here.”
Shaking my brother off, I pinch my lips together. “It’s fine. It’s no harder than the dozens of state dinners I need to attend every month.”
“It’s a bit different.” Brown eyebrows arch as he stares at me, waiting for an answer I won’t give.
He’s right, of course. This isn’t just a state dinner. This is the wedding of an old friend—and seven years after the death of my own husband, it’s the first wedding I’ve had the guts to attend.
Gabriel and I went to the same boarding school. I’ve known him since I was a child, but we’ve had vastly different lives. His wife-to-be, Jolie, came to work at the castle as a gardener. She and Gabriel fell desperately in love, and the whole kingdom of Farcliff has embraced their beautiful romance.
How wonderful for them.
Oh—and she’s heavily pregnant, which feels like another dagger in my heart. That’s one thing I never got to experience before the love of my life was taken away from me. Xavier and I didn’t have a whirlwind romance. We didn’t meet in dark rooms and steal kisses from each other. It was all arranged, approved by the people who needed to approve—but it was far from loveless. Our marriage blossomed into something that felt deep and real and everlasting.
’Til death.
Being here, on what must be the happiest day of Prince Gabriel’s life, makes me feel hot and uncomfortable. I readjust the neckline of my dress, bringing my glass of champagne to my lips with a shaky hand. “Where are these mining moguls I’m supposed to scope out?” I ask my brother, scanning the room just like he is.
“Donovan Enterprise’s CEO is supposed to be here. Reginald Donovan. He has two large mines in Farcliff, and there have been mentions of his desire to expand into Nord.” My brother grunts, jerking his head across the tent. “There.”
An old, graying man gives a big belly laugh, looking a young waitress up and down with lecherous eyes. I pinch my lips together. “He wants to mine land in Nord?”
“Hundreds of acres in the north of the kingdom, near Roston. They’ve found vast diamond fields. He has a bad track record with environmental breaches, and they say his company is in financial trouble.” My brother’s gaze shifts from the old mining tycoon to the group of ladies again, and I know I don’t have much time before he leaves my side.
“Tell me again why it’s a bad idea for him to expand to Nord?”
“He’s notorious for having little or no regard for the environment, for one,” my brother says, shifting his gaze back to Donovan. “And there are rumors he’s shorted the Farcliff government out of millions of unpaid royalties. He’s bad news, Pen.”
“And the Nord Resources Group is in enough debt that they need the Crown to bail them out every year. We can’t develop those mines as a public project without external investment.” I sigh, shaking my head.
“NRG would be the first option, but the CEO says until they’ve finished restructuring, they can’t take on any more work. If unemployment weren’t so bad in Nord, Donovan would be laughed out of the country, but things are getting dire. We might actually need to entertain his offer.”
“I’ve seen the protests.” Thousands of people in the streets, demanding employment. Telling me I’ve failed them as their Queen.
Silas grunts. “We need to provide jobs for people, and soon. We can’t wait for NRG to get their act together.”
I let out a sigh. Just another day as Queen, really. There have been dozens of prospectors trying to exploit my country’s natural resources. Politics are a delicate tightrope, and I’m growing weary of walking it every day.
Maybe I should just try to enjoy Prince Gabriel’s wedding and worry about Mr. Donovan tomorrow.
Weddings are tougher than politics, though. I had what Gabriel has. I had a loving spouse and a bright future. I didn’t have a child, but I hoped for one. A decade ago, when I married Xavier, I thought it would be less than a year before I was a mother.
I suppose, in a way, it was a small mercy that I didn’t know of my infertility on my wedding day. There was nothing to dampen my spirits that day. Nothing to make me feel the icy chill of my own barrenness.
I have polycystic ovary syndrome. PCOS. It went undiagnosed for years because I was largely asymptomatic. Sure, I had irregular periods, sometimes not menstruating for months at a time—but the doctors said it was normal. I was young. I was a healthy weight, and I didn’t have excessive unwanted hair growth. I had a bit of acne, but nothing that caused huge concern. My periods would even out as I got older, the medical team assured me. It wouldn’t be a problem for childbearing.
They were wrong.
Nothing became normal. Even when I was twenty-three and getting married, way past the end of puberty. Even as I tried and tried and tried to get pregnant, the doctors assured me it was still possible. My body would cooperate. I just had to keep trying.
And try I did. Every method. Fertility treatments. IVF. Every invasive, heartbreaking procedure that wore me down month after month after month.
My body betrayed me.
No baby grew in my womb, and I became desperate. I wasn’t thinking of the kingdom, of my duty, of my people. I wasn’t thinking of politics, or the hundreds of tightropes that were being snipped while I was distracted.
I was only thinking of my own failures as a woman and a wife.
That’s when the doctors finally diagnosed me with infertility and PCOS. Three months later, Xavier went skiing, crashed into a tree, and I lost him, too.
I’m a barren, childless, husbandless queen. I’ve been drifting through life on my own, wondering what I did to deserve this. Was I a naughty child and somehow brought this on myself? Is it because I didn’t exercise enough? Because I snuck too much alcohol at parties in my teens? Is it because of the stress of becoming a monarch when I was ten years old? I skipped class too many times at boarding school?
What did I do? Why me?
Putting my champagne flute down on a table, I clasp my hands together to stop them from trembling.
Stop thinking of the past, Penelope.
What use is it in dwelling in my own failures? I’m still a queen. The reigning monarch of the arctic kingdom of Nord. I’ve successfully led my kingdom out of one recession and made sure my people are happy and safe, and staring down the barrel of another economic downturn. After Xavier died, politics became my sole priority. The wealth and happiness of my people became my only duty.
I’ve done good for the people of Nord, even though I was the youngest female monarch in the kingdom’s history, and I had plenty of detractors. I’ve silenced most of the criticism, except the ones that call me nasty names.
Straightening my shoulders, I lift my chin.
Silas makes an approving noise. “There she is.” He smirks.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Ice Queen.”
Turning my head, I give my brother the iciest Ice Queen glare I can manage. Bitter satisfaction gurgles in my heart when his smile slips.
Silas throws his hands up, dipping his chin. “Fine. Be miserable. I’m going to go over there.” My brother waves an arm at a group of young women on the other side of the tent. One of them glances at him, hiding her coy smile behind a hand.
I roll my eyes. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble one day, Silas.”
Flashing an impish grin at me, my brother pushes his silky, perfectly tousled hair off his forehead and sets off in the direction of the women.
My heart pangs, but I shut down the feeling as soon as it appears.
The only thing that’s kept me sane for the past seven years has been my strength. My frigid demeanor. My ability to lock up all my feelings into a tiny metal chest and bury it at the bottom of the Arctic Sea.
Even if I pretend to hate the title, I am the Ice Queen, who rules over a land of snow and wind. The Queen who listens to the howling of the storm outside and lets a smile tug at the corners of her lips.
Cold loneliness is my home, and I can’t wait to go back.
* * *
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