When they returned to the carriage, his aunt watched him thoughtfully. “Going away did change you.”
“I heard rumors, Aunt Genevieve, that your husband cared deeply about improving conditions for the poor. That my father sent him away for it. Why . . . why would he do that?”
“That wasn’t the reason your father sent him away,” said Genevieve abruptly. “I don’t want to talk about it—it’s better left in the past.”
“Forgive me, Aunt.”
“If anyone should be seeking my forgiveness, it’s Ferdinand, not you.”
When she wouldn’t elaborate, Charles gently changed the subject. “The Grand Duke isn’t exactly in my good graces, either. He wants me to marry the Princess of Lourdes. I would consider it if I truly thought we were in danger of war. But I fear his real motive is to expand Aurelais’s power to Lourdes.”
Charles continued, “My father and I should be looking to improving this country for our people, not enlarging our territory. Times are changing. While I was at school, I would slip into town occasionally, unnoticed, and observe the people. How it surprised me to see them unhappy, some of them barely able to afford a roof over their heads, others begging on the streets. There were riots, too—riots against the nobility that Ferdinand denies ever happened. If the council won’t address the problems arising within our own country, then I must.”
“What would you do about it?” said Genevieve quietly.
“That is the difficult part, is not it?” confessed the prince. “I’ll make enemies of powerful men like the Grand Duke, and the people will dislike me by nature for being the head of the regime that oppresses them. But I want to help them. Truly, I do.”
“Your father and mother were blessed to have you as a son,” Genevieve said. “They tried for many years to have a child, you know.”
Three brothers and two sisters had died before him. Charles had never met any of his siblings, and the physicians had pleaded with his mother not to try for a sixth child, citing her health and her age. She had persevered, but in giving birth to Charles, her health had suffered.
A familiar wave of guilt overcame Charles, and he turned to the window, sucking in a gulp of air.
His aunt touched his arm. “Your father only wants the best for you. He doesn’t want you to be alone.”
“I understand, but I just returned home. I don’t know why he’s in such a rush for me to marry.”
Genevieve hesitated, then she drew the windows closed and lowered her voice. “George plans to abdicate.”
The confession sent a jolt through the young prince. He blinked back his surprise. “What?”
“I’ve already said more than I should have. He will tell you himself, when the time is right.” She frowned. “Best to keep this to yourself, Charles. I don’t trust the Grand Duke. Lord knows what he’d do with this information. The transference of the crown always brings about a period of uncertainty and unrest. It wouldn’t be above the duke to take advantage of that and rally the lords to take more power for himself. ”
“I would dismiss him before that ever happened.”
“It wouldn’t be that easy. Ferdinand has great influence. The nobility trust and revere him.”
“He’s a manipulator. Every time I try to tell Father so, he won’t believe me.”
“You must not blame your father. Ferdinand has been his friend longer than you’ve been alive. Forty years of ruling Aurelais will exhaust any man, and the Grand Duke has taken advantage of that.” Genevieve’s expression turned grim. “The point is, you must surround yourself with people you trust.”
“I trust you, Aunt Genevieve.”
“I’m even older than your father,” she said gravely. “Neither of us will be here forever.”
Charles perched his arm on the carriage door and looked to the horizon, punishing himself with a glance at the sun. He blinked away the sting in his eyes. “You’re right. But I worry that I’m . . . I’m not ready. I worry I’ll never be ready.”
“What does your heart tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” She paused, and when she next spoke, her tone was gentler: “I heard you promised to marry the girl who fit this so-called glass slipper. A rather rash declaration, was it not, Charles?”
The prince sighed. “Father and Ferdinand wrote the proclamation. I didn’t have a choice. . . . Besides, what was I supposed to do, Aunt Genevieve? Let her go?”
“I’m not trying to lecture you, but any girl could have fit that shoe. Any girl.”
“I wouldn’t care whether she were a princess or a scullery maid,” Charles said fiercely. He already knew the Grand Duke’s opinion, and he didn’t need a second person haranguing him that the girl he’d fallen in love with could be “a mere commoner.”
“That is not what I meant.” Genevieve clicked her tongue, deliberating over how to explain. “Fitting a glass slipper is not a sign of character or of compatibility. Surely you must know every eligible maiden in the kingdom dreams of marrying you. A girl might cut off her toes simply to fit the glass slipper. Making a promise like that could have doomed you to a union with someone you didn’t love, someone just pretending to be the girl you met.”
“I see what you mean, Aunt Genevieve.” Charles bowed his head. “That was Father’s idea, but I agreed to it. It was foolish of me. I understand that now.”
“Love has a way of addling our wits.” Genevieve tilted her head. “You take after George in that regard. He was very much in love with your mother, you know. She wasn’t a commoner, yet she was certainly on the diminutive end of minor nobility. My parents didn’t approve of the match, but George raised all hell to be with her.”
“I didn’t know.”
“To this day, your father is a romantic.” Genevieve gave a tight smile. “Funny, until then, my parents always considered me the rebellious one.”
Charles had heard stories about his aunt when she was young. How she once stole his father’s trousers and traipsed across the royal lawn in them, an act that had distressed his grandmother so much that she nearly had a stroke. How she’d once made a slingshot out of a gold necklace and shot pearls at her tutor for suggesting she wasn’t as bright as the future king.
Since her last visit, his father rarely spoke of her, but when he did, it was always with a sort of bittersweet sadness. The prince didn’t know what had passed between the king and his sister, and he didn’t dare ask.
“Were you unhappy, Aunt Genevieve?”
“No, no. On the contrary, I liked my husband very much. But I married him for a chance to get away from the palace and all this.” She gestured at the tiara she’d tossed to her side. “I married him for freedom, for a chance not to have my life laid out for me. Few kings and queens have had the luxury of marrying for love. You’re lucky your father is giving you that chance.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
The young prince’s brow knotted, and he clutched the side of the carriage door. “It’s like she vanished completely, as if she never existed. No one knows who she is, and no one’s ever seen her before.”