Page 63 of Songs and Spun Gold
“I’m sorry,” he repeated earnestly. “I was only supposed to beatthe show, notinit, so I gave you the name I gave the director and cast. My father would have a fit if he knew, so I couldn’t let anyone find out. Only you, the woman who told me the understudy was sick, and I know that I was Gunther.”
“And Otto,” she bit out, crossing her arms and transferring her glare to the guard. “You knew, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell me!”
“Guessed,” Otto corrected. He glanced at Axel. “I didn’tknowuntil the throne room.”
Axel sighed. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, “I should have known you’d figure it out. Speaking of the throne room, you called her Kat. Does that mean she’s…?”
“My little cousin, yes.”
“You look nothing alike.”
Shrugging, Otto replied, “Kat’s father is my mother’s younger brother, but she takes after her mother, a native of the desert region.”
“This is fascinating, but Otto,you could have told me!” Katy growled. “Even if it was only a guess, you could havetoldme.”
Her cousin shook his head. “No, I couldn’t have, Kat. What if I’d been wrong? I would have gotten your hopes up for nothing.” He gave her a sad smile. “I couldn’t do that to you.”
“This has nothing to do with hopes.” Katy dug her hands into her hair as she walked a hurried circle around an armchair. “If I’d known—”
“If you’d known—what?” Axel asked when she didn’t finish.
She tilted her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. “It wouldn’t have changed anything,” she said in a defeated voice as she dropped into the armchair. “But why didn’t you at least tell me yesterday? Did you not trust me enough to keep your secret?”
The anger in her voice had lessened, replaced by pain. “Of course, I did,” Axel said softly. He slowly walked over to her armchair and knelt beside it. “I could have told you while we were walking the first time, too. But I’d already told you my name was Gunther, and…it was nice to be a simple actor wandering about with a pretty girl. I didn’t want to be ‘the prince’ with you; I liked being just Ax—well, just Gunther. And since I didn’t expect to see you again, there didn’t seem to be any point in telling you. Then yesterday, we were both going to forget about each other. My name didn’t seem important.”
“You still should have told me,” she muttered. The heat was returning to her eyes as she shoved out of the chair and performed a shallow curtsy before spinning away from him. “Your Highness.”
The honorific shouldn’t have cut, but it did. She flung it at him like a knife, and it pierced deep into the part of him that had been longing for her presence since the first time he’d bidden her farewell.
“I told you she hates dishonesty,” Otto muttered under his breath.
“Last night was a little late, wasn’t it?” Axel snapped back. He buried his face in his hand. “Sorry, Otto. That was uncalled for.”
The guard didn’t answer. Axel stayed kneeling by the empty armchair, struggling to organize and rein in his emotions. He didn’t want to throw on his act with Katy; he’d only done it opening night in a feeble attempt to maintain his distance. She felt safe, so he wanted to be himself with her. But that didn’t mean that he wanted to assault her with the initial surge of his reactions like he’d just done to her cousin.
“I still can’t marry you, Gu—Your Highness,” Katy sniffed from the window to which she had retreated.
He lifted his head, not even trying to fight off the frown tugging at his lips or the furrow in his forehead. “Why not?” Quickly reviewing their interactions, he asked, “Is it because of what my mother said? You don’t have to worry about that, Katy;youare Heidi.”
“It’s Katrin,” she bit out. “If I am, why lie?”
He rose and slowly approached her. “I was afraid if anyone had seen us together, they might figure out that I’d been in the show. So I gave a false description of the girl I’d been out with to throw them off the scent, then made up a reason for why I’d never see her again since I couldn’t present her.”
“And the name?”
“Same reason. I knew you had a cousin in the guard, and I didn’t want him to put the pieces together when the story reached him.” He threw an annoyed look over his shoulder. “A lot of good that did me when I invited him to follow me around.”
Instead of responding to the jab, Otto simply maintained his guarding stance by the door as his eyes traveled back and forth between his cousin and his prince.
Katy wrapped her arms around her waist and gazed out the window at the courtyard. Axel stepped up next to her, reaching his left hand across her back to rest it lightly on her shoulder. She started to lean back into his arm, but then she stiffened.
“It doesn’t matter. I still can’t marry you.”
“But why?” Axel rubbed his thumb along the top of her shoulder as his grip tightened before he forced himself to relax. His voice turned pleading, but he kept it low, conscious of the third person in the room. “I’ve been struggling for months because I knew my father would never consent to our relationship. Now he’sorderingme to marry you. The method isn’t ideal, but he’s offering what I wanted. I thought—I thought you would want it, too.”
“It’s not a matter of wanting,” she whispered. Squeezing her eyes shut, her lips mashed into a frown as she curled into herself and leaned her left side against the window. His hand trailed across her back as she moved away. “Ican’t.”
Watching her silent tears proved to be more than he could bear. Hoping that she would accept it as she had the day before – back when she believed him to be a simple actor – he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She burrowed her head into his chest, making no protest when he rested his temple on the top of her head. Allowing his emotions to pour into his arms, he pulled her firmly against himself.
