ChapterOne
AEGIRIA – DECEMBER, 1891
The very last thing Miss Charlotte Sloane had expected from her Christmas holidays was to spend them in the tiny island kingdom of Aegiria. Nor would she have expected to be there as the particular guest of her dearest friend, Lady Priya Rathborne-Paxton, Countess Cathraiche, mere weeks after Priya’s marriage to Francis Rathborne-Paxton, Lord Cathraiche. Priya was surprised to be spending her honeymoon in Aegiria as well, as she explained to Charlotte when the hasty invitation was issued, just a fortnight before. But after the discovery that Prince Petrus of Aegiria was the secret love child of the Marquess of Vegas, father of the Rathborne-Paxton brothers, and therefore Lord Cathraiche’s half-brother, the decision was made that the entire family, all four brothers and their new wives, would travel to Aegiria to reconcile with their surprise sibling.
There was, however, another reason entirely that Charlotte was devilishly excited to be included in the family holiday. One that Priya knew about, but that few others were privy to. And that was her very special acquaintance with Prince Petrus himself. The two had met when Charlotte had invited Priya to spend a holiday in Brighton with her family over the summer. She and Priya had met Petrus at the train station. Over the next few days, Charlotte and Petrus had developed a friendship. That friendship had continued through correspondence ever since, though even Priya did not know about the content of the sweet letters that had been exchanged.
Petrus had hinted an invitation to Aegiria might be in Charlotte’s future a month ago. He’d hinted that quite a few other things might be in Charlotte’s future as well, if his family should approve.
Which was why Charlotte was breathless and bright with anticipation as the ferry carrying the entire Rathborne-Paxton party from Copenhagen and across the Baltic Sea to Solrighavn, the main city—the only true city on the island of Aegiria—approached the harbor.
“I was not entirely certain that Aegiria actually existed,” Charlotte said, leaning out over the railing near the front of the ferry, one gloved hand on her hat to keep it from being blown off, as if leaning might bring her to her destination sooner. “It has always seemed rather like a fairy tale kingdom to me.”
Priya laughed at her side, though Charlotte noticed her friend had one hand clasped on the back of Charlotte’s coat, as if she could prevent Charlotte from falling into the sea. “Itisrather like a fairy tale kingdom,” she said. “As I understand it, Aegiria is like a world unto itself.”
“It was part of the Kingdom of Denmark for quite some time in the Middle Ages,” Lord Cathraiche said as he walked up to join Charlotte and Priya at the railing. “At least, until King Magnus the first was granted the entire island as his own sovereign territory after services to the King of Denmark in one of their many wars with Sweden in the thirteen hundreds. Sweden tried to take it a few times, but they never succeeded. The Aegirian Navy has always been first-rate.”
Charlotte wasn’t certain she cared about the Aegirian Navy. Unless, that was, Prince Petrus had served in it and had stories to tell of daring dos at sea.
Charlotte was much more interested in certain domestic laws of the fascinating island kingdom.
“There are quite a great many princes in Aegiria,” she said, half a statement of the things Petrus had written to her and half the things she’d discovered through her own research. “Any member of the royal family has the right to call themselves a prince. And inheritance is determined by the female line instead of the male, which I find utterly remarkable.”
“Royal inheritance passes through the female line?” Alice, Mr. Samuel Rathborne-Paxton’s wife, a woman who had quickly become Charlotte’s friend in the last few weeks, as plans for the holiday voyage were made, asked in her lilting, Irish accent. She stepped over to join the rest of them at the rail, her son, Ryan, with her. Ryan seemed more interested in the action of the boatmen and the men on shore as the ferry was drawn in and moored against a dock than the conversation of adults.
Charlotte hummed and nodded to Alice. “King Magnus the first insisted on it. The legend goes that he was so deeply enamored of his wife, Queen Petronella, that he made it law that her sons and daughters and her descendants through the female line would be the ones to inherit the kingdom.”
“Sounds more like Queen Petronella had her husband wrapped around her little finger and could bend a king to her will,” Samuel said, stepping up behind Alice and wrapping his arms around her. As shockingly inappropriate as the gesture was, Samuel kissed his wife’s cheek as he held her in his arms and said, “Which is a state of being that I approve of entirely.”
Alice laughed aloud. “If you ask me, it sounds as though some clever woman hundreds of years ago realized that you will always know the maternity of a child, but you can never be certain about the paternity.”
Charlotte noted the way Samuel laughed low in his throat and shifted one of his hands to Alice’s belly. She caught her breath and smiled. Perhaps there would be a Christmas announcement from Alice and Samuel to go with the holiday cheer of reuniting the family with Petrus.
Lord Cathraiche was either unaware of his brother and sister-in-law’s affection or felt he needed to distract from it. “Inheritance through the female line is the reason Petrus is a Prince of Aegiria instead of merely being my father’s bastard. Begging your pardon, Miss Sloane,” he added with a bashful nod for Charlotte.
“I don’t mind the use of rough language,” Charlotte laughed. “My father was born middle class, and there are times when I suspect my mother was snatched up from an even lower order than that. Such language is, sadly, commonplace in our household.” She peeked at Alice and Samuel. “As is a certain unguarded level of affection.”
In fact, her father and mother were so lax in propriety around the children that Charlotte knew full well why she had so many brothers and sisters. She desperately feared that she’d heard several of the youngest ones conceived through the walls of their family’s crowded house. She was not an ignorant miss with no understanding of such things.
Lord Cathraiche cleared his throat and continued with his explanations. “Petrus’s mother, Princess Dagmar, is the sister of King Milas, and even though he was born before she married Lord Hektor, under Aegirian law, Petrus is still considered a member of the royal family and, as such, has the right to be called a prince.”
“He cannot inherit any of the family’s property or carry out any official duties,” Charlotte picked up the explanation from what Petrus had explained to her. “Then again, he is only the nephew of the king and not one of his several sons, so he would not be in line to inherit anything anyhow. Petrus is quite happy to make his own fortune and find a place for himself in life, which is why he has been so interested in learning the sort of business that my father is in.”
Several sets of surprised eyes turned to Charlotte. Charlotte’s face heated. While Priya knew that she and Petrus had been corresponding, Charlotte hadn’t revealed the depths of the attachment the two of them had developed through their letters.
Lord Cathraiche seemed to catch on. He nodded slowly, a smile lighting his eyes, even though he kept his mouth straight. “Indeed,” he said. “Petrus is quite industrious. He is well thought of by the royal family as well. His is quite close with his cousins, the other princes and princesses, and he has both a younger brother, Prince Fredrik, and a sister, Princess Brigitta, who were sired by Lord Hektor.”
“Petrus considers Lord Hektor like his own father,” Charlotte said as the ferry bumped hard against the dock, signaling their arrival at last. When she received another round of stares of awe, she cleared her throat, feeling her face heat as if she’d given away too much, and said, “Lord Hektor is a lovely man, as I understand it. Any man who would fall in love with Princess Dagmar after she had already borne a child out of wedlock must be a wonderful person.”
“Morals and customs in Aegiria are much more liberal than in England,” Lord Cathraiche agreed. “The place of women especially has been higher than most other kingdoms, ever since King Magnus established the rules. And while Aegiria has remained small and insular, I believe it is a model of how the equality of women is not such a bad thing.”
Charlotte was glad to hear Lord Cathraiche say as much. She was glad her friend had married a man who was so generous in his outlook about women. It was a great deal different from the way Priya had been raised in Koch Bihar.
Their conversation was brought to an end out of necessity as the ferry was secured and the family prepared to debark. Several of the Rahtborne-Paxton family servants had come along for the holiday, and Petrus had sent a few servants from the Aegirian palace to attend to them all and show them the way.
As they stepped off the ferry and onto the bustling dock along Solrighavn’s waterfront, excitement swooped through Charlotte’s insides. It had been months since she’d seen Petrus in London. Those months felt like years to her. Petrus had been in London for a short time in November, but Charlotte had been away in Bristol with her family, attending the hasty wedding of a cousin—who apparently had as few scruples as her parents did when it came to relations between the sexes, considering the loose fit of her wedding gown.
She glanced around for Petrus now, her skin prickling in anticipation of seeing the man who had made her understand why her kin had such relaxed morals. Of course, she and Petrus had never done anything more than smile heatedly at each other while waltzing, but Charlotte was the first to admit she would not mind throwing caution to the wind, if the opportunity presented itself. She was well aware that her Christmas might involve a proposal, after all, so what point was there in delaying the inevitable.