Protecting The Princess - Nadine Millard
Prologue
“You shouldn’t be here, Your Highness.”
Harriet Liezel Farago Wesselbach, Crown Princess of Aldonia spun around at the sound of the voice behind her, clutching a hand to her speeding heart.
“I – I was – that is—”
She stumbled to a halt under the scrutiny of the family’s private butler, Ansel.
At only ten years old, Harriet was already well aware of what behaviours were acceptable for the Princess Royal.
It was just that occasionally she forgot.
Or chose to forget. She wasn’t usually caught though.
“Your Highness, your father does not want anyone privy to his talks with the duke. Especially his children.”
Harriet scowled up at the long-serving butler, who was honestly more like a family member than a servant. At least to Harriet.
“But if Christopher wanted to listen—”
“His Royal Highness is heir to the throne, Highness. And more importantly, he is eighteen.”
Harriet scowled but well, facts were facts, and everything Ansel said was true.
Heaving a sigh, she allowed him to guide her back to the private living quarters in the palace, away from where Father was conducting what sounded like a very tense meeting, if the shouting was anything to go by.
They hurried along the corridor surrounded by windows on both sides that led to the family’s private quarters.
Harriet loved it here. In the summer, the sun warmed her skin in the glass hallway. In the winter, she could see snow for miles around. In the rainy season, the rain lashed against the windows and she sat for hours listening to the sound, watching the stormy clouds stream by.
She stopped now to watch the new recruits in her father’s army march in formation around the courtyard.
Christopher was down there. She saw him, resplendent in his army blues, covered in medals and badges befitting the prince of the realm.
As she looked on, another figure arrived in the courtyard, bedecked in the blue jacket sans the medals and badges.
He skidded to a halt at the back of the last line of soldiers.
As Harriet watched, the formation ceased their marching and a tall, straight-backed figure stomped toward the straggler.
Even from up here she could tell the young man was in trouble. Harriet knew the feeling. She constantly seemed to find herself in trouble, too.
“Come along, Your Highness,” Ansel coaxed Harriet away from the window.
The captain, or whomever the large man was, had turned and strutted back to the front of the soldiers. It appeared the young man was safe for now.
Just as Harriet was moving away from the window, the young soldier looked up. She was surprised by how fair he was. Golden hair glinted in the spring sunlight under his hat, and his skin was fairer than a lot of Aldonians’, too.
He grinned up at her, delivering a flourishing bow, and Harriet giggled in response to his foolishness.
Before she could see if he would be taken to task for his antics, however, Ansel called out to her with practised patience.
Harriet dashed off ahead of the butler, wondering as she ran just who the golden-haired soldier could be. And why someone with such an apparent free spirit wanted to be a soldier, of all things.
Chapter One
Harriet Liezel Farago Wesselbach, Crown Princess of Aldonia, was bored.
There really was no other word for it.
Since her return from a winter in England where her older brother Alex had not only learned that he was to inherit a British earldom, but had also fallen in love and gotten married, she’d felt deflated.
While Alex had fallen in love, the most exciting thing Harriet had done was go to a ball.
The difference was stark and not at all pleasant to think on.
Whilst her oldest brother Christopher was in line to be king, and Alex was living a life of bucolic bliss rusticating in the English countryside, Harriet was wasting away in the gilded cage of Aldonia’s royal palace.
She had the best of everything. She wanted for nothing.
Well, nothing except real friendships, a normal life—love.
Heaving a sigh of irritation at her own maudlin thoughts, Harriet threw her gothic novel onto the window seat she was occupying and jumped to her feet.
She turned to look out the open window, enjoying the feel of the cool spring breeze on her skin.
Watching the goings on in the gardens below was always somewhat interesting; members of court and politicians conversing in small clusters, the occasional servant scurrying from one task to another.
And there were her parents, King Josef and Queen Anya, taking a walk amongst their favourite Aldonian tulips.
Harriet’s brow creased as she noticed her father’s gait was slower,