Page 2 of Forbidden Royal Vows

Besides, it was expected.

No point going all the way to a palace and not experiencing anything palatial, now, is there? her sister, Carliz, would have said if she was there.

Mila let her lips curve with great serenity as she passed the line of bowing subjects. But inside, she felt that surprising pang again.

She didn’t know why it had not occurred to her that she would miss her sister.

When Carliz had gone off to university, the first one in the family to leave the kingdom to do so, she had been younger and consumed with learning her duties as Crown Princess. It wasn’t that she hadn’t missed her then, because she had.

But it was different this time.

She had gotten used to having Carliz here, was the thing. She had gotten used to her sister slipping into her room at night, when Her Majesty was left at the door and Mila could simply be Mila again. They had spent most of a summer that way and Mila had gotten used to it. She had come to rely on it, even. That was all.

It wasn’t that she would change a thing. She was too happy for Carliz, who had gone from being one of the world’s greatest sparkling It girls to about the happiest wife and mother Mila had ever seen.

But she could be happy for Carliz and sad for herself, it turned out.

I contain multitudes, she thought as she moved, practicing the dignified inclination of her head which she could often use in place of actual speech, or even a smile.

This was one of the great many ways she got people to forget how very young she was.

Only twenty-seven, though that was rarely mentioned in the way it had been at first, when her father had died and the whole of Europe had acted as if they didn’t know what an heir apparent was.

Now when they said “only twenty-seven” it was in tones of awe, as if no one could quite credit that she was still something less than the formidable dowager of indeterminate years she would be one day. The one she had gotten so good at pretending she already was.

If everything went according to plan, she would simply grow grayer but otherwise remain exactly the same.

The Queen, nothing more and nothing less.

As ageless as the currency she graced.

Her mother was murmuring to her as they walked, the usual comments about this noblewoman’s dress or that aristocrat’s wandering eye, because nobody minded if the Queen Mother offered commentary. And the dancing had begun, so there was no shortage of things to look at.

“And, of course, we are treated to the next regrettable stop along Lady Paula’s road to ruin,” her mother was tutting at her side. “I often look at her and think, there but for the grace of God above did your poor sister go.”

Mila was entirely too well-trained to react broadly enough that anyone could see it. All she did was slide a look her mother’s way. Nothing more. She did not even have to raise an eyebrow.

Still, the Queen Mother blew out a breath, aware that she had stumbled into one of the places she should know better than to go.

As Mila had made her feelings on this clear. As the Queen.

“My sister,” Mila said softly, smiling magnificently at a set of honorees as she passed them, dipped down low into their curtseys, “would never dream of embarrassing me. And she never did. Lady Paula, who I think you know I quite like, has a different goal entirely in mind.”

She did not go so far as to say, I support her.

But she was defending her, so that should have been obvious.

“You may judge me if you like,” her mother replied in that particularly aggrieved tone she was so good at pulling out at moments like this, as if Mila had thrown her in the dungeons. If the palace had actually had dungeons, which it did not, she might have considered it—for the express purpose of watching expression on her mother’s face. But that was childish. And the Queen could never be childish. Even when she’d been a child, it had been discouraged. “But I cannot for the life of me understand what it is Lady Paula is so upset about. Many women of her station are called upon to make life choices that honor their family legacy, not their own wild impulses.”

It was well known that Lady Paula’s father wished to marry her off to a man of his choosing. Lady Paula had made certain that no one in the whole of the kingdom could think for one moment that this was something she approved. Or would ever approve. She had gone to great lengths to make sure that her disapproval was recorded in the starkest possible terms in every tabloid that could be found.

With as many inappropriate men she could find, to her father’s fury.

“Maybe it’s time that we allowed women of whatever station to choose their own destinies,” Mila said.

Reasonably enough, to her mind.

The look her mother shot her was sharp. Too sharp for a public setting, Mila would have thought. “I hope you do not intend to follow Lady Paula’s example. Your Majesty.”