“Where is Queen Agatha?” I asked, my voice trembling.
But no one answered. Suddenly this woman who I’d only seen from afar, observed from a distance, was a key linchpin in the events of the day.
But Kristian spoke for his mother.
“The Queen is indisposed,” he said coldly. “Agatha is still my mother no matter what that tramp says.”
All of us knew that the “tramp” he was referring to was Violet. Karl and Kato immediately turned on him, growling, hackles raised.
“Shut the fuck up,” ground out Karl.
“Fuck you,” spat Kato.
Clearly, no one was going to insult their mother, even if she was bat-shit crazy. But after glowering at each other for a few more seconds, all three males turned away, faces shuttered, giving nothing away. Maybe it was because the sight of each other was a jolt to reality – the realization that their physical resemblance wasn’t just chance, it was biology.
So with a dark look, Kato turned to the King.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he growled. “He’s our older brother, isn’t he?”
Georg looked defeated at this point.
“I’m ashamed boys,” he said quietly. “That things have gotten to this point because yes, he is.”
And there was a stunned silence.
“What the fuck?” growled Karl. “How the fuck did this happen?”
Georg just looked sad more than anything else, a faraway look in his eyes before he began.
“A long time ago when I was a young man,” he began slowly, “I met an American student at a ski lodge,” he said wryly. “Life then was different then. We were young, carefree, and she was beautiful, smart, lively, and even a little nuts back then,” he said with the first hint of humor we’d seen since this turn of events. “Violet was irresistible and what can I say? We got pregnant accidentally,” he said, looking at Kristian. “You were born the next year.”
The Crown Prince was dead silent, his face expressionless, giving nothing away.
“I explained to her who I was, what I was up against,” continued Georg slowly. “I wasn’t my own man, after all. Sure, I was royalty, I had titles galore, and my family was reputed to be worth billions with holdings in Switzerland, Dubai, and the Cayman Islands. But the truth is,” he said, taking a deep breath, “we had very little. Everything that we ‘owned’ actually belonged to the people of St. Venetia. This castle, these furnishings, the crowns, the jewels, none of it is ours. We’d been living off a small nest egg that was getting smaller every year, until we were barely scraping by,” he said wryly.
“So when Kristian was born, it was hushed up because I was already engaged to Agatha. Or more accurately,” he corrected, “our families ‘brokered’ the marriage, trading royal titles and prestige for an infusion of cash. Agatha and I were just pawns, son. Whatever happens, don’t blame your mother. Agatha and I,” he repeated, looking at Kristian sorrowfully, “we never had any choice.”
“But the Rothschilds are no fools,” he continued slowly. “Agatha, as you know, is a descendant of the German Rothschilds. She’s Baron Goebbel von Rothschild’s only surviving great-granddaughter. And her family would only continue with the marriage provided that we passed off Kristian as Agatha’s biological son.”
My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets now, my mouth hanging open in shock. It was like opening a dark closet and discovering not one skeleton, but a skeleton within a skeleton within a skeleton. The royal family was messed up, that was for sure.
But Georg wasn’t finished, not even a little.
“And so we were married,” he said simply. “Agatha and I tied the knot and the first of our family’s deep, devastating secrets hatched. It was like a snowball rolling faster than you can imagine, turning into a crushing avalanche within seconds. Because within a year,” he said, “I had a new wife, a new son, and Violet … well, she left the minute I told her I was engaged to someone else. Who would blame her?” he said, the look on his face pained, bitter even, thinking back to these events from long ago.
But he wanted to offer some salvation.
“Your mother wanted to take you with her,” he said to Kristian quickly, “she cried and screamed, even threatened to kill herself, but the Palace didn’t care, ignoring her entreaties, turning a blind eye. They kept you under lock and key, never letting you out of sight, because there was no way a poor student from America was going to make off with St. Venetia’s heir to the throne.”
“So life continued,” he said. “Violet disappeared and here I was with a completely new life. Was I happy? Was I sad? I can’t really say, just that the days passed in a blur, my mind on autopilot. I probably was too numb to feel anything,” he added reflectively.
“But life took another unexpected turn. I was on a flight to Jerusalem a couple years later, and who was on board as the first class flight attendant but the beautiful Violet? It was a shocker to say the least,” he said, light flickering in his eyes. “I want to say we were cordial, we were civil, but it didn’t happen like that,” he said wryly. “And I guess you know this part. You two,” he said nodding at Karl and Kato, “were conceived on that flight. When we parted ways, I figured it’d been a lucky break, that I got to sample the irresistible Violet one last time, unexpectedly, out of the blue.”
“So when she told me that she was pregnant, I was astounded,” he said. “I mean, what are the chances? Two accidental pregnancies with the same woman who wasn’t my wife? But now things were different. I was a married man with obligations, a role model for the country and its citizens. What were the people going to think if I announced two bastard children?”
“So the Palace hatched another plan,” he continued slowly, reflectively. “They told me to let Violet keep the kids, and I’d be able to communicate long-distance with you. Little did we know that your mom would go crazy, home-schooling you guys, isolating you on that farm in the middle of nowhere.”
“But that’s what happened. I tried to get in touch at first, kept phoning, kept writing letters, but never got through, never heard back. And after a while, I gave up. I figured you’d live your lives and we’d live ours, separated by an ocean, never to cross paths. But evidently that’s not the case anymore,” he said painfully.