The Heir (The Selection #4)(70)

I made a face. “I’ve had worse.”

“True.” She swallowed. “What did you need?”

I glanced at Miss Lucy. “Of course,” she answered to my unspoken request. “I’m around all day if you need me.” She curtsied to Mom, kissed me on my head, and left. It was such a tender gesture.

“She’s so good to me,” I said. “The boys, too. Sometimes I feel like I ended up with several mothers.”

I smiled at Mom, and she nodded. “I kept the people I love close, and they have fawned over you since the moment they knew you were coming.”

“I really wish she had children,” I said sadly.

“Me, too.” Mom swallowed. “I guess by now it’s common knowledge that she’s faced a long struggle with no success. I’d do nearly anything to be able to help her.”

“Have you tried?” I felt like there was little the Schreaves couldn’t accomplish.

Mom blinked a few times, trying not to cry. “I shouldn’t tell you this; it’s private. But, yes, I’ve done everything I could. I even went so far as to offer to be a surrogate and carry a baby for her.” She pressed her lips together. “It was the one time I regretted being queen. It appears my body isn’t always mine, and there are certain things I’m not allowed to do.”

“Says who?” I demanded.

“Everyone, Eadlyn. It’s not exactly a traditional thing to do, and our advisers thought the people would be upset by it. Some even argued that any baby I carried would have to be in line for the throne. It was ridiculous, so I had to let it go.”

I was quiet for a minute, watching my mother recover from a heartbreak years old, and one that wasn’t even her own in a way.

“How do you do that?”

“What?”

“It’s like you’re always giving pieces of yourself away. How do you have anything left for you? I feel exhausted watching you sometimes.”

She smiled. “When you know who matters most to you, giving things up, even yourself, doesn’t really feel like a sacrifice. There are a handful of people who I’d lay down my life for without a second thought. And then there are the people of Illéa, our subjects, who I lay my life down for in a different way.”

She lowered her eyes and touched up her already immaculate dress. “You probably have people you’d sacrifice for and you don’t know it. But you will, one day.”

For a second I wondered if we were actually related. All the people she was thinking about—Dad, Ahren, Miss Lucy, Aunt May—were important to me, too. But mostly I needed them to help me, not the other way around.

“Anyway,” she said, “what was it that you needed?”

“Oh, so Dad has deemed that the remaining boys aren’t complete lunatics, so I’m focusing on dates this week,” I answered, leaning forward. “I’m looking for ideas that would be easy but look great on camera.”

“Ah.” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling in thought. “I’m not sure how useful I can be in that department. Nearly all the dates I had with your father during my Selection were walks around the garden.”

“Seriously? How did you two even get together? That’s so boring!”

She laughed. “Well, it gave us a lot of opportunities to talk. Or to argue, and the majority of our time spent with each other was filled with one or the other.”

I squinted. “You guys fought?”

“All. The. Time.” For some reason that brought a smile to her face.

“Honestly, the more and more I hear about your Selection, the less sense it makes. I can’t even imagine you and Dad fighting.”

“I know. There were a lot of things we needed to work through, and truthfully, we liked having someone who’d be honest with us, even when it was hard to take.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want someone honest in my life as well—if I ever chose to get married, anyway—but he’d need to find a better way of delivering his words if he wanted a chance of sticking around.

“Okay, dates,” she said, sitting back in her chair and thinking. “I was never good at archery, but if there’s someone who is skilled at that, it might look nice.”

“I think I can do that. Oh, and I’ve already done horseback riding, so that’s out.”

“Right. Cooking, too.” She smiled to herself as if she couldn’t believe I’d allowed that date to happen.

“And it turned out disastrous.”

“Well, Kile and Henri did great! And Fox wasn’t terrible.”

“True,” I amended. I found myself thinking about Henri and me cooking alone in the kitchen, the date no one knew about.

“Sweetheart, I think instead of going for something flashy, you might try simpler dates. Have tea, take a walk in the gardens. Meals are always a good standard; you can’t eat too many times. It might look better than you riding a horse anyway.”

I’d been trying to avoid anything that might be too personal. But those types of dates gave the impression of closeness, which was something I thought the public wanted. Maybe she was right. If I went in with a list of safe topics and questions, perhaps it wouldn’t feel so bad anyway.

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll probably give that a go.”