Page 98 of Songs and Spun Gold
“Then I shall join him there and take him with me when I go. Please stay with Katy as long as she has need of you.” With a nod to each of them, the prince strode off.
Her cousin looked torn. He clearly wished to race after the prince and demand an accounting, but he didn’t want to leave Katy with her tear-stained cheeks. “What’s wrong?” he asked in a low, dangerous voice. “What did he do to you?”
Katy shook her head as she stepped into him, wrapping her arms around his torso. His own wrapped around her in automatic response. “He asked me to marry him,” she whispered into his chest. “He gave me the means to walk away, and then he asked me to marry him.”
“And that’s...a bad thing?” he asked. The confusion was evident in his voice as he rubbed her back.
“The worst.” She loved his desire to make it right, but, “Itwould have been so much easier if he had simply let things be.” If he hadn’t made the choice truly hers.
“But why?”
She shook her head, unable to confess even to Otto. He would be ashamed of her, just as the prince would hate her for what she had agreed to.
He would find out someday. They all would, unless the stranger was lying or she found a way around it.
The easiest solution would be the option Axel had given her: refuse to marry him and accept the aid of his friend. It was practical. It would only cost Axel himself.
She could marry him anyway and hope to figure something out before their first child was born. If she failed, it would only cost their child.
Only.
Either one would cost more than she could bear to give.
CHAPTER 28
Axel
Katy was quiet on the drive home the next day. They hadn’t left until after lunch, which meant a full morning of Axel sitting on the rocks overlooking the waterfall. If she had said yes, he would have happily spent that time with her and her family. If she had said no, he would have pushed his misery to the side and helped with arrangements for moving them.
But since she had asked for time... She had said from the start that she couldn’t marry him, and now he’d given her a way to avoid it. Asking for time was her way of letting him down easy. As such, he couldn’t insert himself into her family dynamics. And since he wasn’t needed for packing, he preferred to be alone so he didn’t have to hide his feelings.
Katy spent most of the trip staring out the window next to her. Axel spent most of it watching her. He tried to act interested in the scenery, but his attention was on the young woman across from him, her hair in a simple bun and a pretty dress gracing her sturdy form.
He should never have asked. He should have let her go and left it at that. Even if she wouldn’t be staying in Flussendorf, he’d seen how happy she was with her friends, how contented with her family. How quickly she had returned to dressing like a miller’s daughter. He’d been foolish when he hoped that she was adapting to her new life. Hoped that she was beginning towant that life with him.
He tried to distance himself over the next several days, giving her the space to make her decision and giving himself the space to accept it. He kept their routines, inviting her to the music room every morning, but he stood behind her instead of sitting beside her on the bench, and he avoided the songs with close dancing.
Why didn’t she just answer and get it over with?
The day before her birthday, she disappeared for the whole afternoon, vanishing from his study while he was in a meeting. He spent the rest of the day staring out his window, his work forgotten on his lap.
The next morning, Axel dressed quickly, but he took care to inspect his appearance before trotting out to the gardens. He glanced longingly at her door as he left the royal wing, but it was too early to knock.
When enough time had passed, he lightly tapped on her door. As usual, she opened it herself, even though her maid, Britta, was standing a few steps off.
Despite his melancholy, he couldn’t help a smile at her half-done hair. “Happy birthday, Katy,” he said softly, offering her a bouquet of freshly cut lilac blossoms.
She accepted them with a pleased expression. “They’re beautiful! Thank you, Axel.” Grabbing his hand, she tugged him into the room. “Britta, can you work some of these into my hair?”
Axel relished the feel of her hand in his, but he restrained himself from holding too tightly. Her enthusiasm may have dropped her into old habits, but that didn’t mean he was suddenly more important to her than returning to her family. “Aren’t they a bit big?” he asked skeptically.
“We’ll take one and break it into smaller pieces,” the maid replied briskly. “Never fear, Your Highness, Miss Katrin will belovely with your offering.”
Dropping his hand, Katy scurried back to her bedroom with Britta in tow. “This dress is the wrong color, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but we could—”
Their voices grew muffled when they closed the door behind themselves. Left alone, he meandered over to the window and leaned against the sill, letting his forehead drop against the glass.
