Peach

Viktor’s brother, Alexander, could not be more different. He has a normal amount of muscles, a neck smaller than the width of his head, he’s not quite as tall, and he smiles.

He also doesn’t make my nape tingle every time he looks at me, nor did he just leave me lightheaded and barely able to hold myself upright.

I slick my wet hair back with a grimace.

“I’m dearly looking forward to getting to know the woman willing to marry into not only Viktor’s life, but also a mess of a monarchy,” Alexander tells me while we navigate the walkways between overgrown bushes that resemble…hearts? “I was unaware his prowess was strong enough to persuade any woman, let alone one as lovely and accomplished as you.”

“That’s gross,” Papaya complains.

Alexander and the man with him—Samuel, he told me by way of explanation, and I assume this is the husband Leonie stuttered about in the car—both smile wider.

“It is quite disgusting, isn’t it?” Alexander says to her as he leads us into the back wing of the castle. “We shall be the best of friends and suffer together.”

Papaya squints at him. “You’re old.”

Samuel nods. “He is.”

“Not as old as you, my dear,” Alexander retorts.

Samuel smiles behind his wire-rim glasses. No fakeness, no secrets, no pretending there.

I sigh.

“Oh, no, my lady, don’t give up just yet. You’ve not yet seen the glory of the monarch’s apartments.”

I should probably cringe, but I’m actually hoping the apartments have been just as neglected as the rest of the castle.

I don’t like for show. I like real. And I desperately need Papaya to know the difference between appearances bought by money and unconditional love.

Was Brantley one of those rich, arrogant assholes who was just using her? I don’t know. But I know that something would’ve gone wrong between the two of them.

And that when it did, she’d most likely be the one suffering the consequences the rest of her life.

Because that’s how the world works.

Alexander produces a key and steers us from a dusty hallway draped in painter’s cloths as he unlocks a thick wooden door. He swings it open, ushers in Meemaw, Papaya, and me, and we all stop.

And not just because this is apparently the air conditioned part of the castle, and it’s so freaking cold in here that my nipples have just turned to nipplesicles.

“Holy shi—”

Meemaw silences Papaya with a hand over her mouth. The two share no blood—Meemaw being my daddy’s mama—but she’s still an extra authority figure.

Mostly.

“Fuckin’ A,” Meemaw breathes as she looks up.

A chandelier the size of my house back home in Alabama is dangling from the ceiling three stories up. But it’s not a normal chandelier.

Instead of clear crystal baubles, hearts in varying shades of pink dangle from the silver chains. And rather than being round, or even square, the entire monstrosity is a work of nested hearts, so that it resembles an exploding firework of love.

Meemaw whips out her phone and starts snapping pictures.

“I wonder how high it can swing,” Papaya says reverently.

“Not very high,” Alexander reports. “Samuel already took it for a spin, and I’m rather afraid we weren’t able to secure it properly back into the ceiling.”

“Is he always like this?” I ask Samuel.

“Oh, no,” Samuel replies, also in that stuffy Stöllandic accent, though he accompanies the words with a faint smile of his own. His brown hair is neatly trimmed, and the lines at his eyes suggest he has a few years on Alexander. “He’s often quite worse.”

“Wow, is that really how bulls mate?” Papaya asks.

I tear my gaze from the ceiling and realize we’re in some kind of entry hall lined with paintings.

Including paintings of bulls giving each other blow jobs.

“It is if they’re—oof.” Meemaw rubs her side and gives me the eyebrow of what the fuck? “She’s fourteen. You think she doesn’t know about sex?”

“If my room is decorated like this, there’s no reason at all Fred can’t stay in it with me,” Papaya declares. She’s getting the stubborn tilt to her jaw again.

I know that tilt.

We both got it from our mama.

“I’ve picked a special room just for you,” Alexander tells her. “The bars on the windows are quite lovely, and it locks from the outside. I’ve also hidden some liverwurst behind the radiator. You should be right at home.”

“Hardy-har-har. When do I get to meet people my age?”

“Most definitely not until you say please.”

She rolls her eyes.

I silently swear I’m going to make Alexander peach cobbler, even if I have to special order the peaches from Georgia. I can’t bake much, but I can make anything out of peaches.

Shut up.

I have to have some reason for liking my name.

“Who’s hungry?” I ask, though I’m suddenly feeling less hungry and way, way more sleepy. Which isn’t good, because I haven’t seen a single royal guard yet, and god only knows where Papaya will disappear to if I let myself close my eyes for a thirty-minute nap.

After a shower.

Oh, fuck.

Do I even have clean clothes? After all the discussion about what was coming in the plane and what was being packed for later, I don’t actually know if I’ll have clean underwear before my winter wardrobe gets here.

And by winter wardrobe, I mean jeans and sweats and lightweight sweaters.

“Are you quite all right, my lady?” Alexander asks.

“If one more person my ladys me, I’m going to hit something.”

“She probably means you or Viktor,” Papaya supplies helpfully. “Though she’s the one who decided we needed to move all the way around the freaking world, so I don’t think she should get to complain about what people call her here.”

The two men share a look.

“Hangry,” they say together.

“Come, come,” Alexander adds. “Our private kitchen is this way, and it’s newly stocked with turnips and fermented salmon.”

All three of us Alabama women gasp and gape.

Alexander laughs. “Oh, Viktor must be having quite the time of his life with you three. I jest, of course. We stocked up on chocolates and cheese when we were down in the valley yesterday. Samuel, if you’ll show our dear Meemaw and Papaya to the kitchen, I’ll have the lovely Peach set up in her chamber for a shower.”

“You’re forgiven,” I tell him. “But only if the water’s hot.”

“The pipes are only on the verge of bursting, my lady. We most likely have another three to four days before we lose our last vestiges of modern society within these crumbling walls.”

I think he’s joking.

But I don’t actually trust that he is.

Papaya and Meemaw are following Samuel to a back hallway. “I should go with them,” I say.

“Samuel is well aware of your sister’s proclivities,” Alexander assures me. “She’s quite safe, and she shan’t get far even if she should attempt to escape. Come. I believe your luggage beat you here, and I cannot wait to see your face when you see your bedroom.”

That doesn’t sound promising.

But I can’t deny the appeal of a shower.

And ten minutes to myself.

“Are you sure—”

He stops me with a squeeze of my arm. “My lady, our family is in your debt. Rest assured Papaya shall be quite safe and meticulously watched over. You’re not alone here. And you should feel free to be as genuinely you as you need to be.”

Okay, that’s suspicious. “Me isn’t very queenly.”

He smiles, and I see hints of Viktor. “You shall find your way and your causes, I’ve no doubt. If you’d like suggestions on where an intelligent business woman might start in Amoria, I’ve several. But first, let us get you settled. You look as though you might collapse of exhaustion, and that’s hardly the first thing the staff should need to see of you.”

He does have a point. And I could use clean clothes and a little time to myself.

Just a few minutes.

Before I have to pretend to be a woman who knows what the hell she’s doing again.