A Royal Kiss and Tell

“Hear me out, Leopold,” his father said congenially, and drew him even farther aside. “I want this to be as easy and painless as possible for you. There have already been discussions.”

Both of those things sounded alarm bells in his brain. Big brass bells, clanging loudly. His marriage would be easy and painless? The king made it sound as if Leo were a dog to be put down—Leo saw nothing easy or painless about shackling himself for the rest of his life to a woman he hardly knew. There had already been discussions? With whom? Certainly not him. “I would like to—”

“We have made some progress with Wesloria, have we not?” his father quickly continued before Leo could beg off from the discussion.

The knot in his belly tightened. Had they made progress, really? It hadn’t even been a year since some Weslorians and traitorous Alucians had plotted to kidnap Bas. The two nations had a history of war and distrust, but his father was referring to recent attempts to ease the ongoing tensions between the neighboring kingdoms.

At the crux of the dispute were two royal half brothers. When Leo’s father, Karl, had taken the throne some forty years ago, Uncle Felix had been banished from Alucia...mainly because he believed he had a more legitimate claim to the throne than Karl did.

The question of the rightful succession had its roots in a sixteenth-century civil war, when a Chartier had first assumed the throne. Felix’s ancestors, the Oberons, had lost that war and retreated to Wesloria, propping up Weslorian kings and nobles along the way. They’d long held that the Chartier claim to rule Alucia was not as legitimate as theirs, and military skirmishes along the border had been plaguing the countries for years.

Felix and Karl were the result of Leo’s grandfather attempting to bring unity to the two countries after his first wife died. His second wife, a distant cousin and an Oberon, had been a bit of a schemer. She’d thought to insert herself into the mix for the throne with the birth of her son. That had not worked out for any of them, quite obviously.

Uncle Felix made a lot of noise in Wesloria. It was well known that he kept the Weslorian king under his thumb. Felix had promised to unite Wesloria and Alucia under one rule if he was successful in gaining the Alucian throne, and with the many loyalists dedicated to the Oberon cause, the threat of war hung over the heads of the two nations. The Chartiers sought to suppress anyone who was rumored to be sympathetic to Wesloria, which had caused a lot of strife and stymied economic growth in both nations. There were myriad rumors every week of this noble or that wealthy merchant plotting to overthrow King Karl.

Sebastian had wanted to unite Wesloria and Alucia, too. But his idea had been to strike a trade agreement with England. He’d wanted the Chartiers and Oberons and their fellow countrymen to unite in the strength of industrialization and shared prosperity—not by the ravages of war.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared his desire for peace. A plot had unfolded while Sebastian was in England that had involved treachery at the highest reaches of Alucian government and had resulted in the murder of Sebastian’s personal secretary. But in the way tragedy had of revealing a silver lining, his brother had met and fallen in love with Eliza.

Today was the happiest of occasions, but the threat of war and attempts at a coup still surrounded the royal family outside the ivy-covered walls of the palace. No one had forgotten it. Least of all, the king.

“We can make greater progress with Alucia if we align ourselves with the right Weslorians,” his father said, glancing over his shoulder.

“The right Weslorians?”

“Those who have no desire to unify,” his father said, glancing around. “There are many advantages to keeping our borders and our sovereignty.”

Leo didn’t know what those advantages were and really didn’t care to learn them. He liked not knowing the advantages of sovereignty. It all seemed unduly complicated.

“A highly placed minister in the Weslorian cabinet is very keen to foster better trade and economic arrangements with Wesloria. He is the minister of labor, and there is every reason to believe he will be the next Weslorian prime minister.” His father waggled his brows. “A marriage with his daughter would serve us well, indeed.”

Us. His father said the word without hesitation or hint of irony, as if his parents and even Bas and Eliza would walk down the aisle with him. “I understand,” Leo said as he tried to quickly think of a way out of this corner. “But I’m not—”

“You will make her acquaintance tonight, at the ball. You’ll want to be certain to do it publicly, where everyone will see. Dance with her.”

Leo could feel what little blood was left in him after last night’s festivities draining from his limbs. So it really had been all arranged.