Royals and Rebels 3: The Heartbreak Prince

Six: Cecelia Porter

Six

Cecelia Porter

Summer was a series of events. I much rather would have stayed in my room, but it seemed that wasn’t an option. There were at least three garden parties the Queen would be hosting, not to mention at least ten social events that some if not all members of the royal family had to be part of. Since I was now ‘Lady Cecelia’ instead of just ‘Cecelia’ that included me.

It meant that I would have to endure the Princes, and their society friends, and being in a world I was never supposed to belong in. It meant having to get a whole new wardrobe, learning things like what fork to use, and proper posture. It meant spending time with my sister as I learned all of these things so she could make certain that I was learning it all.

Among these skills I was apparently supposed to master, was waltzing. “No,” I said sternly in the ballroom that I’d been dragged to early that morning. “Absolutely not. I am not an extra in a BBC period drama. I’ve no use for waltzing. I’ll sit. Or I’ll fake sick. But no, I’m not doing that.”

“Cee, you don’t have a choice,” said Delilah, “look, I know how frustrating all of this can be. But it’s the Queen’s request that you learn this, and you’re staying here at her leisure.”

I hated being reminded of that. And people were always reminding me. Delilah, Derek, Henry. As if I asked to have my parents killed. I much rather would have been in our old apartment in Brixton. In the same neighborhood. Wasting a summer away with my friends instead of doing the hell that was etiquette lessons.

“Fine,” I grumbled, “are you to be my waltzing partner then?”

She smiled. “Well, actually, that’s the fun of it. Marlowe volunteered.”

Now, I was scowling. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Marlowe volunteered?”

“Yes,” she said. “Isn’t that nice? Quite unlike him, actually. Usually he hates being involved with things unless they’re about him.”

“Can’t Henry do it?” I groaned. “Henry, I can at least stand.”

“Henry’s off doing some charity thing with Derek,” Delilah explained, “anyway, Vivian wouldn’t like it very much if she knew that the two of you were learning to waltz. She’s…territorial.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you like her, exactly? She’s been nothing but nice to me.”

“She’s fine, I suppose,” said Delilah, “but the Queen mentioned there’s been a few incidents where she’s cried wolf, and it’s put them through the ringer.”

“Incidents like what?” I asked.

“Well, like a pregnancy for one,” Delilah answered, “but as quickly as she told Henry about the baby, it was mysteriously gone. There have been…well….”

“What?” I pressed. “If I’m going to go to school with them, I should know about them shouldn’t I?”

She bit her lip. “She’s tried to kill herself at least three times, that we know of. That’s why Henry is so keen to stay with her, because he’s worried about what might happen if they’re not together.”

“Oh,” I said, “that’s….”

“Sad?” she said. “That’s why I was so happy when I saw the two of you were getting on, because I thought it meant maybe he might have a chance at being in a normal, healthy relationship. But….I doubt that anything will happen between you two.”

I squinted at her. “And with Marlowe?”

Delilah smiled. “Can’t a girl hope for a fairy tale for her sister?’

I sighed. “Del, you might want to consider that not everyone’s fairy tale involves Prince Charming.”

There was the sound of coughing, and I glanced over at the ballroom entrance where Marlowe stood. “Well, it’s a terribly good thing I’m not Prince Charming,” he said with a smirk.

I flashed back to the first night we met, at Derek’s party. He’d shown me a series of paintings I was obsessed with in the Queens Gallery, and he’d kissed me there. I remembered the feel of his body pressing against mine, the taste of his lips. It would have been so easy to get swept up in him.

But if I did, I’d never leave this world. And I wanted a world of my own.

“So, you’re still owning the title of The Heartbreak Prince?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “but I’ve thought about changing it. To the Prince of Hearts.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Yes, well, I’ve had cause to believe in true love recently.”

Delilah smiled. “Oh? Is there a reason for that?”

“Yes,” he said, “and I’m staring right at her.” He looked at me as I said this, and I shook my head.

“What are you trying to do?” I said.

“I’m making my intentions clear,” he said.

I clenched my jaw. “Your highness, while this is flattering, but…I’ve already made my intentions clear. I do not wish to date you.”

“I know,” he said, stepping forward into the ballroom, “and I’m perfectly fine with that. However, at some point, you are going to want to fall in love with someone. When that time comes, I will be there. I’m also going to make certain that the world knows that I’m in love with you.”

I groaned. I looked at Delilah. “He’s like the plague. Can’t you do something?”

Delilah smiled, looking pleased as punch. In that moment, I had never hated my sister more. Or Marlowe, for that matter.

“No,” she said, “because frankly, I want one of the boys to end up with you.”

“You’re both terrible,” I said.

Marlowe grinned. “Music, maestro?”

Delilah walked over to a record player that had been placed in the middle of the room. John Strauss’s Vienna Blood played. “We’ll show you how to do it first, and then you follow,” she said.

The two of them positioned themselves.

“The waltz was first introduced in the 1830s by a man named Joseph Lerner,” said Marlowe, “It was once known as Vienna’s Forbidden Dance, and in the regency era, socialites had to be given permission to do it because it was so scandalous. They called it riotous and indecent because it allowed for such close touching.”

At the word touching, Marlowe looked directly at me even though he had positioned himself in front of my sister so they could begin to teach me the dance. It had been three days since the incident at the club, and it had sparked in him something different that I couldn’t quite understand.

“I’m positioning my left hand over his shoulder, and he is taking my right hand in his,” said Delilah.

“And I’m positioning my left hand under her armpit, and then taking her right hand in mine,” said Marlowe.

Together, they began doing the intricate step pattern along with the music. They ran through the full thing once, then when it was over, Marlowe looked directly at me. “It’s your turn, Lady Cecelia,” he said with a wry smile.

“It’s just Cecelia,” I muttered.

He took me in his arms, the music played, and we began. With Marlowe as my partner, it was as if I’d somehow done the dance a million times. All I had to do was follow where he lead. Like the Carole King song.

I stared up at him. “You could have any other girl in the world. Why are you so fixated on me?”

“Because,” he said, “you speak the truth, and it’s very unlikely that any other girl in the world is going to do that to me. Also, I don’t want any other girl in the world. I want you. I also want the world to know that I want you.”

I frowned. “That’s going to make it impossible for me to date. No one is going to want to try to interfere with the Prince of England.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“What if I don’t love you?” I asked. “What if I never love you?”

“Oh you will,” he said, with such confidence it made it so that I pulled away from him.

I pulled away from him. “You are such an arrogant arse.”

“I’m aware,” he said, “but I’m an arrogant arse that knows what he wants. I’ll even make a deal with you.”

I raised an eyebrow, and folded my arms over my chest. “What’s the deal?”

“The two of us will try to identify the painter of The Broken Heart series,” he said, “if I manage to do it before you, you’ll marry me. If you do, you’re completely off the hook. I’ll let you go, and you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

I stared at him. “How long do I have?”

“Until we graduate college,” he said.

“Why the paintings?” I asked. “Why are you bringing something that I love into whatever this bizarre little ego trip is?”

“You said that the legend was that if the paintings true artist were found, it would give the finder true love,” he replied, “well I believe that you are my true love. That’s why I know that I’m going to find it.”

“Fine,” I said.

Delilah, who was standing off to the side, cleared her throat. “Can someone please explain to me what’s going on? We’ve gotten very distracted from waltzing.”

“No, we haven’t,” said Marlowe, “we’re just not waltzing with our feet anymore. Del, do you have a notebook in that little purse of yours?”

“Always,” she replied.

She grabbed her purse, which was sitting on the table with the record player. From it, she pulled a light, pink notebook with a diamond encrusted D in the middle for her first initial. Along with the notebook, she pulled out an expensive, looking pen.

“I want you to write this down,” said Marlowe, “I, Prince Marlowe of England, have until my college graduation to identify the painter of The Heartbreak Series of portraits. If I succeed, I will win my true love, Lady Cecelia Porter, and she will marry me. If I fail, and Lady Cecelia Porter discovers the identity of the artist first, I will let her go.”

Delilah wrote up the contract, then handed it to him. “Sign it,” she said, “it will make it official.”

I glowered at her. “Might I remind you, Del, you’re my sister. You’re supposed to be on my side. Don’t you know that?”

She shrugged. “I’m the future Queen of England. I’m on the monarchies side. I think that the two of you would be good for the monarchy.”

Marlowe signed the document, then handed it to me. “Your turn,” he said with a grin.

Scowling, I took it and signed it. “For the record, this doesn’t change anything between us. I am not your girlfriend. I am going to date, and have a social life, and I genuinely don’t care what you think about anything that I do. Do you understand?”

He smirked. “If you didn’t care what I thought, why didn’t you go out with Jude when he asked you?”

“Because, despite what you might think, I am not trash. Nor am I a social climber. If I date someone, it’s not going to be someone like you.”

He snorted. “Yeah, we’ll see what Gran has to say about that.”

I glanced at my sister. “That isn’t actually true, is it? The Queen can’t control my dating life.”

“As a ward of the palace, I’m afraid she does,” said Delilah, “and you know there’s no way I was going to let you be a ward of the state, so….”

Frowning, I glanced back at Marlowe. “Well, then if I am ever ready to date, maybe it’ll just be Quentin Segar that I get close to instead.”

Marlowe snorted. “Good luck with that. He’s terribly in love with my cousin Astrid, he just doesn’t have the guts to ask her out.”

“Astrid?” I tried to recall who that was, but no face came along with it.

“That’s the daughter of Princess Ophelia,” Delilah said.

“Oh.”

Princess Ophelia had died on a trip to Coleum a few years ago, after getting caught in the middle of a riot. Coleum was the same country were the revolutionary terrorists that had killed my parents were from. I’d known she had a daughter, but she wasn’t involved in public royal life very much. Apparently, she had a condition that made it difficult for her, and so she was excused from such things.

“She was at Derek’s birthday party,” Marlowe said, “she was the blond girl that sat with Daisy and me that evening.”

I remembered her, I realized. She’d been a pretty, quiet thing who had stayed next to the boys like glue.

I shook my head. “Fine. We’ll see what happens when school starts. But you….you really want to base our future on a painting?”  

“Yes,” he said.

“We might not be true love though. We might just be one night stand material.”

“No,” he said firmly. “We’re going to be the ones they write love songs about, Cecelia.”

Delilah clapped her hands together. “Oh, isn’t that romantic?”

Again, I thought back to the night that we first met kissing in the Queens Gallery.I wanted to do it again, right then and there, to feel that same rush that I had that evening. But I wasn’t going to. I refused to give into the boy with the crown just because he wanted me.

I was nothing more than a shiny toy he couldn’t have. When he didn’t find the painting, he’d get bored, and quite. I was nothing more than a waltz for him.

“Well,” I said, “may the best man win.”

I held out my hand, and he took it in his. Then, to my surprise, he kissed it. I breathed sharply. “What was that for?”

“A wish,” he said.

“I hate you,” I told him.

“I love you,” he replied.

I glanced at my sister. “Your majesty, might I be released because if I stand here for one, minute more, I will end up committing murder. In the form of the Prince of England.”

Delilah chuckled. “Yes, you may go. Marlowe, thank you for helping today.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

He bowed, and I left the room before he could say anything more to me that might make me want to strangle him to death.