Page 59 of Royal Reluctance

“I know.” Hettie gives a rueful laugh. “We have to make sure we don’t have any magazines or anything with her picture in the house.”

“Might be tough,” I mutter, thinking how often Lyra seems to find the spotlight. She’s like Gunnar in that way—loves the attention—only Lyra’s questionable choices often land her on the tabloid covers.

Hettie glances behind us at the castle growing a little smaller with every step. “The world does love the Laandian royal family.”

“Has Abigail been with you the whole time?” I ask, as usual wanting to get off the topic of my family.

“She wouldn’t let me go on my own, and when I found out about Tema, she wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

“I wish you didn’t have to. I wish you told me.” The sudden pain has me catching my breath.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she sounds sincere. “I wanted to, so many times, but…”

“Why didn’t you? You find out you’re pregnant and—” A horrible thought occurs and my gut twists.

“There was no doubt that she was yours,” Hettie says firmly.

“But you still didn’t want to tell me.”

Hettie sighs. The only sounds are the crunch of snow beneath our boots, the caw of a crow in a nearby tree. “The day I found out I was pregnant, my grandfather came home with a magazine. We lived with him for the first two years, and he was a huge help, but he couldn’t understand—he thought I should have forgotten about you the moment we flew out of Laandian airspace. Clearly, he didn’t understand the concept of love much.”

“Probably hated seeing you hurting. If you were,” I add, clearly fishing for information.

And Hettie knows it. “I was,” she says softly. “And you’re defending the man who told me to get over you.” I shrug and Hettie watches me for a long moment before continuing. “He brought home the magazine because it had a picture of you. You were with a group of girls from high school. Crystal. Amy.”

“Ah.” I’m beginning to see where this is going. “You never liked them.”

“They never liked me much either. You were holding hands with Sophie Laz.”

Spencer’s youngest sister. I have a vague memory of when it was that Hettie might be talking about. “When was this?”

“About three months after I left. I told myself that the missed periods were because my body was adjusting, but when I started throwing up every day, Abigail made me take a test. It was positive. Obviously. We talked about it all night, and I was going to call you. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I planned on telling you. And then I saw the picture and you had moved on—”

“Hettie, no. That night—” I blow out my own cloud of steam. “I barely remember that night. It was Sophie Laz’s eighteenthbirthday and she was at Kalle’s celebrating with some friends. Neither Kalle or Edie were there, and I was drunk. Stupid drunk. So drunk that I let Crystal and those girls do shots with me. So many shots. The rest is blurry, but I remember one of your brothers was there, and said something to me about you. I got in his face, demanded to know where you went.”

“Which brother?” she asks.

“I think it was Reggie, before he—” I cut myself off.

“Went back to jail,” she finishes coolly. “You can say it. Reggie is the second of my brothers who went to jail. My lovely, rule-abiding family.”

I’m not about to get into that with her. “Yeah, well, the girls were being stupid, and Sophie left her own party and dragged me out of there by the hand before I got into a fight. There must have been someone outside with a camera. After Mom died, there were always reporters in town taking pictures of how we were doing. Obviously, that one showed that I wasn’t doing well.”

“No.”

“I went back to Wabush after that. Nothing happened with anyone from here.” Which may imply that something happened with someone not from here. “I mean—”

“I thought…” She heaves a sigh. “I thought a lot of things.”

“Yeah. Like what?”

We walk for long minutes and I let Hattie take her time to find the right words. The castle grows smaller in the distance, and I start to breathe again.

There’s something about being here that makes everything tight. Everything harder, even breathing. I love my family, but I don’t love who we are.

I never have.

“I thought about telling you every day,” Hettie finally admits. “I’d plan out conversations with you—ones where you were mad, and others when you were happy. But it was the little voice in my head that kept telling me that you’d want Tema but not me.” Her voice catches, and if her hands weren’t stuffed in her pockets, I would take one of them in mine. “I thought if I told you about her, you’d want her to come back here, live in the castle, but you wouldn’t want me.” I stop walking, fixated by the raw vulnerability in her voice, her face. “I thought when I left, you stopped loving me. And I couldn’t take the chance of you taking away my baby.”

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