Chapter 22
The morning air in the Noordeinde Palace was thick with the scent of beeswax and cold ambition. Casper had not slept. He had spent the remaining hours of the night in the King’s study, staring at the Succession Contingency papers until the ink seemed to bleed into the parchment like old wounds. He was a man of the land—he understood that certain seeds required specific conditions to grow, and he realized with a sinking gut that he had been trying to grow a marriage in a graveyard. By 10:00 AM, Casper had ordered the staff to clear the Sunroom. It was the only part of the palace that felt remotely alive, filled with ferns and citrus trees that defied the Hague’s winter. He had a table set with the things she liked—not the formal, heavy silver of the House of Orange, but rustic bread, wil
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