“And what did Oskar say to that?” Charlotte asked.
Lady Jenny huffed. “He said that his father had gone soft and was underestimating the situation.” She paused, then asked, “Why are young men such dolts when they are of a certain age?”
“Because they grow full of themselves before they grow sense,” Charlotte answered, shaking her head. “My brother Benjamin is an absolute pill when he gets it into his head that just because he has reached the venerable age of twenty, he knows more than Papa.”
Lady Jenny laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand, as if that was the wrong reaction.
A moment later, she drooped again.
“What do we do?” she asked. “What is obvious to us isn’t obvious to Oskar at all. How can we overcome his pride to show him that he and I belong together, as do you and Prince Petrus?”
Charlotte smiled. This was the moment she’d hoped they were leading up to. “I have a plan,” she said.
“Oh, thank God,” Lady Jenny sighed, clasping her hands to her heart. “Whatever it is, I will help you. I will do whatever I must to convince Oskar that he, too, deserves love, and that duty will take care of itself.”
“Very well said.” Charlotte smiled, then scooted closer to Lady Jenny. “Now, this is my plan, and it involves the ball tonight and the revelation of the Christmas princess.”
She grasped Lady Jenny’s hands and spilled out the entire plan to her, giddy at heart and knowing the two of them were about to give Aegiria a Christmas it wouldn’t soon forget.
ChapterTen
Petrus had left the parlor where he and Oskar had argued intent on finding Charlotte and pouring his heart out to her. He’d been foolish not to simply make a declaration to her and to his family that he loved her and would marry her no matter what anyone else thought.
But she was no longer in the breakfast room when he returned there, and a quick search of all the places he thought Charlotte could be turned up empty. Before he could search much farther, his mother caught him in the hall and dragged him off to help with some of the frantic, last-minute preparations for inviting the people of Aegiria into the palace for the ball.
“I must warn you, Petrus,” she said as she took him up to their family’s wing of the palace to change into more formal attire, “that a rumor has begun circulating that tonight’s Christmas Princess is to be your bride.”
“Is that what people think?” he asked, uncertain whether he felt horrified or amused by the rumor. He supposed that all depended on who the Christmas Princess was.
“It is,” his mother said. “And it is the talk of the town, of the entire kingdom. Even more people than usual applied to be let into the palace for the ball to see the unveiling, and for the first time, the royal family might have to turn some of our people away.”
Petrus was stunned by the news. He’d had no idea that the people of Aegiria cared so much about the royal family.
No, that wasn’t true. He had no idea that the people cared so much abouthim. He was the odd one out, the one everyone knew was secretly a bastard, albeit one whom the royal family had embraced. But as touching as it was to hear that the people of his kingdom cared about him, it still sent prickles down his neck.
“Do they think Lady Jenny is to be the Christmas Princess and my bride?” he asked his mother as they reached their private quarters.
His mother simply hummed and sent him a knowing sideways look.
They did think that. His mother’s lack of an answer was answer enough. It made Petrus want to find Charlotte to explain more than ever. He rushed through the process of dressing in a festive suit with accents of turquoise and green, the official colors of Aegiria, which represented the sea and the island. He didn’t care how handsome he looked or how impressed the public might be with his appearance, he merely wanted to find Charlotte.
But still, when he came down to search the palace after changing, he could not find her. Activity at the palace had reached its height, so no one was able to stop and help him search, or tell him where they had last seen her either.
It was mildly concerning in the morning. It was worrying when Charlotte didn’t appear for luncheon with the rest of the family—although only half the family managed to stop by the dining room to eat anyhow. Even Lady Jenny was missing from the meal. Petrus’s anxiety became full-blown in the afternoon when Charlotte was still nowhere to be found.
He was certain she would have turned up for supper, but there was no formal supper for the family that night. The palace doors were opened for the ball just as the sun went down, which was quite early. The candles were all lit, the decorations they’d taken so much time and effort to hang sparkled in the winter light, and the stream of citizens from Aegiria, all carrying their bundles of woven wheat and greenery to give to the Christmas Princess, filtered into the palace.
“Where is Charlotte?” Petrus wondered aloud after searching most of the ground floor and eventually ending up in the ballroom as it filled with noise and heat and festively dressed people.
He’d moved to stand near Francis, who was speaking with Oskar on the corner of the dais at the far end of the ballroom.
“You’ve lost track of her, then?” Francis asked, his joy and excitement a contrast to Petrus’s worry. And Oskar’s sourness on top of that.
“I haven’t seen her since breakfast,” Petrus said. He would have scrubbed his hands through his hair in frustration if he didn’t think his mother would take him to task for mussing up a perfectly arranged hairstyle, no matter how old he was.
“Perhaps you should be less concerned about Miss Sloane’s whereabouts and more concerned about Lady Jenny’s,” Oskar said in a tight voice, searching the ballroom instead of looking at Petrus.
Everything he and Oskar had discussed that morning came rushing back to him. He didn’t agree with Oskar’s insistence on self-sacrifice for the good of the family, and the time had come to say something about it.