Chapter 29

Charles

I sat back in the armchair in Heidi’s room while she reveled in every intricate detail.

“And the bedding! Those little embroidered sparrows.”

As she nestled the silky fabric to her cheek, I couldn’t help but smile.

“A present from the emperors of China a few years back, I believe.”

She giggled at my indifferent tone. “You really are an ungrateful beast, aren’t you?”

In response, I threw my arms around her, placing a big smacking kiss on her lips.

“Not for all things.”

She only laughed.

We were both pooped out. Moving all her stuff into the palace had taken longer than expected, mainly because Mother couldn’t decide which room she wanted to throw Heidi into. Finally, she’d given in and allowed her to take the biggest guest room at Father’s insistence.

Even Henry had been let back in the palace, partially because he had annoyed our dear cousins long enough and partially because now Mother had her hands full as it was without harboring resentment for both her sons.

After disappearing into the bathroom, Heidi emerged with an even bigger grin on her face.

“And the Jacuzzi!”

I went over to check since I’d forgotten how big it was.

“Big enough for two,” I said innocently with a wink.

“Oh, is it?” she said with her devilish grin.

As soon as my arms closed around her, she squealed. Her phone rang and she answered it.

“Liza!”

I wanted to kiss that ecstatic smile. That smile was because of me. Heidi was this happy because of me. It seemed incredible and wonderful and spellbinding all at once.

“Yeah, I’m with him now,” Heidi said.

I slid my hand around to give her ass a little pinch. She gave me a warning look, but I only gave her a shit-eating grin in response.

“It’s like something out of a storybook,” Heidi oozed to Liza. “Of course you can come visit and see for yourself sometime. But my room is just beautiful. Every piece of furniture is like something out of the French Romantic era, and Charles has been just…”

I slipped my hand around to her ass and gave it a good squeeze. Giggling, she twisted herself away.

“Both infuriating and charming and gallant,” she continued.

I sniffed, then disappeared out of the room. Better to let her talk to her friend, as much as I wanted to enjoy her for myself.

A few minutes later, when Heidi was done speaking with Liza, it was dinnertime.

So, down to the all decked-out dining room we trotted dutifully. Mother and Father were at the heads of the table, as usual. Thankfully, Mother looked at least one or two degrees warmer than the last time she’d been sitting in this room with Heidi and me.

“So good news,” Henry said as we approached the table. “Mother and Father have already begun planning a ball for your formal introduction.”

Beside me, Heidi’s face blanched slightly, and I reached out to squeeze her hand.

“Sorry. I meant to say that was the bad news,” Henry added with a cockeyed grin. “The good news is they’re actually going to let you have input in it.”

As Heidi sat down beside me, that seemed to relax her somewhat.

“Up to a reasonable extent, of course,” Mother said lugubriously, sipping at her water.

“Your mother insists the ball should be at Buckingham Palace,” Father said with a wiggling of his brows, which indicated there was no point in even attempting to say one syllable of refusal to her about this point.

It surprised me when Heidi was the one who answered.

“Of course. I’m really grateful that you allowed me into your home like this.”

“Yes, yes,” Mother said, bobbing her head with her large green-jeweled earrings flashing in the light. “Although this won’t be the end of things. You’ll have manifold responsibilities, not to mention etiquette to follow. Of course, not only I will be coaching you on that, but there are experts we’ll be bringing in too. I just don’t want you to go into this with your head in the sand.”

“I understand,” Heidi said in a clear voice that surprised me even further. “And I’m prepared to do what it takes to secure a good future for Charles and my child.”

That seemed to satisfy Mother for the time being.

When dinner, the fanciest rendition of bangers and mash I’d ever had, courtesy of Cook Mary, was finally served, talk drifted to other things, namely Mother’s latest success with her charity ball.

“Only yesterday and people are already imploring me to put on another!”

Around fifteen minutes later, after a mouthwatering chocolate cake, I excused Heidi and myself. Once we were outside, I confessed something to her. “I didn’t want to tell them, but we have somewhere to be.”

She arched a brow.

“We do, do we?”

Despite her pestering, I didn’t crack and reveal to her just where we were headed. Instead, I had us walk out in the temperate Sunday night air.

“Can I at least ask if this is a good surprise or bad surprise?” Heidi joked.

I delivered a pout. “When have I ever given you a bad surprise?”

When she opened her mouth, I held up a finger.

“On purpose.”

Smiling, she only shrugged.

The nearer we got to the lit-up London Eye Ferris wheel, the more I could see its illumination in her eyes, literally and figuratively.

When we stopped in front of its giant shining form, the grin on her face was cheek wide and I wanted to kiss it, so I did.

When she continued the kiss, I was forced to pull away.

“I made reservations here, you see,” I told her.

Stepping up to it, we were informed that it had broken down only minutes prior.

“You’re kidding me,” I told the foreman. He only shrugged indifferently as if he were talking to an annoying tourist and not the future king of England.

“I think the king has some gondolas locked up somewhere. People sometimes steal one or two and take a run down that bank.”

That was when it dawned on me. The short, balding man, with his impish grin, had no idea who I was.

I let out a little chuckle and said, “What the king doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

He winked. “Exactly.”

I squeezed Heidi’s hand. “What do you say? A gondola ride? I’d almost forgotten about them, to be honest.”

“Maybe this was all part of your plan,” she offered with a half grin. “You plan to have the London Eye break down so you’d at least appear to have done something impressive, but then actually do what you want to do, which is the gondola ride.”

“Which is less impressive?” I pouted.

She smiled in a way that let me know she was teasing.

“I guess we’ll have to see.”

Fifteen minutes later, I lowered the boat into the river, helped Heidi in, and we were off.

“Am I allowed to ask now what all this trouble is for?” Heidi asked. She was leaning back, resting her glossy-haired head on my chest, her gaze spanning the pinprick white stars above us in the navy sky.

“To make sweet, sweet love to you,” I whispered in an accented voice in her ear.

Giggling, she shifted to no avail.

“Charles!”

As she separated from me, I caught a full head-on view of her face illuminated in the moonlight. It was ravishing, absolutely breathtaking. Those high, wide cheekbones set off pine-colored eyes. Those rouge, pouty lips, I wanted so desperately to kiss. That would have to wait.

I had to say what I’d come here to say.

“I don’t know how to say this,” I confessed.

“I can’t help you there,” she said with a still amused grin, “since I still have no idea what this is all about.”

“All I know is,” I said, “from the first time I met you, things were different. I didn’t know then; it took me a while to catch on. But there’s something about you. I’m not sure if it’s your sense of humor or how sassy you are with me or how good we work together in bed. Maybe it’s all these things put together and the way you snort when you laugh.”

“I do not!” she protested, breaking into giggles so hard that she did actually snort.

Grasping both her hands, I continued. “Whatever the reason, I just want you to know that I’m not doing this since circumstances forced us together. I’m doing this because, even if you had wanted to leave London on your own terms as a model, without my child in you, I would’ve wanted you for myself. I like you for you, Heidi, not what you could be to me as a future wife producing me a future heir. I like you as the woman who works so well with me that it would be a crime to let her go without trying to have her for myself.”

The moon had finally emerged fully from its bed of clouds. It shined a giant, glistening, ivory eye on the rippling water, watching, waiting.

I’d just about said it, everything but the one thing that counted the most. Here went everything.

“Heidi,” I said, my hand fishing in my pocket for the box—the ring nestled securely within—that had taken me days of covert searching to decide on. “Would you be my wife? I love you more than words can say, and I know it’s early, and I know this is crazy—”

Inwardly, I cursed. Heidi was already looking like I’d lost it. Instead of stopping, though, I plodded on. “And I know you might want more time, but please. All I can do is convince you of this feeling that has settled over me these past few months I’ve been with you, that you’re right for me and I’m right for you. If I spend the rest of my life with you, it will be more than just a life well spent. It will be more than me fulfilling my duties for the role I was born into. It will be an exuberant, surprising, worthwhile life. It will be an exciting, unexpected, transformative life. It will be the life I would’ve wanted if I’d gotten to choose in advance.”

The moonlight glinted off the exquisitely cut sapphire surrounded by diamonds.

Heidi couldn’t take her eyes off it. Her lips were opening and closing as if she’d forgotten how to speak. When she finally found her voice, it was low, half hoarse.

“This is all happening so fast… I feel like we just became official and realized what we’re going to do, and now you’re asking me…this?”

“Is that a no?” I asked despondently.

The air had suddenly become unbearably chilly. I wrapped her in my arms, and she twisted to grin at me.

“Heidi!” I protested.

Finally, she let out the most delicious peal of laughter.

“Yes. Charles, of course, yes!”

And then, as the moon watched, I slipped the ring onto her fourth finger and sealed the deal with a kiss.