The Wild Heir(40)

“Speaking of the rest of you,” I tell them, “both you and Lady Jane have your own quarters in the servants’ house next door. For the sake of Ella and I getting to know each other, there should be a rule that you aren’t to pop by here after eleven at night.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ella says, getting to her feet. “You make it sound like there will be something going on here for them to interrupt.”

I give her a quick smile. “Well, don’t count that out.”

“Sir,” Ottar says to me, this time in Norwegian, “I don’t say this to be a cockblocker, but I think it would be best that her lady-in-waiting be able to stay here for the princess’ piece of mind.”

“You’re always trying to be a cockblocker, Ottar,” I tell him, also in Norwegian.

“Wait a minute,” Ella speaks up. “What are you both talking about?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly in English.

“That should be a rule too,” she says. “English only. No Norwegian. I don’t want to hear your secret language and you can bet I’m going to be Googling what kuk means.”

“You won’t be surprised,” I tell her dryly. “Okay, fine. No Norwegian. We wouldn’t want you to feel stupid.”

She shakes her head slightly and sighs. “Anything else with these rules or is that it?”

“Not really. I’m sure you’ll get used to see the royal guards walking about. My personal bodyguard is Einar, so you’ll probably see him a lot. I don’t know where he is right now. Probably hiding where no one can see him.”

“I’m right here,” Einar says from behind me, making me jump.

“Jesus,” I yelp, seeing him sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room. “How long have you been there?”

He doesn’t say anything. Also he’s wearing those damn sunglasses inside.

I shake my head at him and then face Ella. “So that’s Einar.”

He nods at her.

“There are also a few cooks and cleaners,” Ottar tells her. “But they’ll mostly be staying in the other house.”

I clap my hands together. “So there we have it. That’s how the next two weeks are going to go. I can’t promise that we’ll be friends by the end of it, let alone engaged, but I can promise you that you’re about to get really, really bored.”

Ella and Jane exchange a look. “And where do I sleep?” Ella asks. “It’s not going to be with you.”

“I wasn’t offering,” I tell her. “And you can sleep in any of the bedrooms upstairs. Maybe avoid the ones that are haunted.”

“Haunted?” she asks, eyes wide. “Which ones are haunted?”

I shrug. “I can’t remember. You’ll find out soon, I’m sure. Okay, I’m off to take a shower.” I walk past the fruit bowl and toss the half-bitten wax apple back into it before heading upstairs. “Don’t eat the fruit. It’s fake.”



To say that my first day with Ella is awkward as fuck is an understatement. She does her best to avoid me, spending her time with Jane by her side, and even when we pass each other in the halls, she barely looks at me.

Which makes me wonder why bother going through with this two-week plan at all if she’s not going to make the effort? Why didn’t she just say she wasn’t interested when she had the chance? No one would have held her accountable to anything, except for her father, and that’s her business, not mine.

I keep thinking this as we have dinner together. I was planning on it being just us two originally, but when she was insistent that Lady Jane eat with us, I insisted that Ottar and Einar join us too. The more the merrier, the more to take the pressure off both of us.

She didn’t say much during the meal, which meant most of the conversation was dominated by Jane and Ottar, who seemed to get along like long lost relatives. I know I have a tendency to float away and become locked in my head and couldn’t help wondering if Ella was doing the same. She just picked at her food, lost in her thoughts.

It could be that Ella is shy for the most part. I’ve seen her be bold, especially with me. But this has taken her out of her element. She’s no longer in university, living on campus. She’s no longer a student. Instead she’s here, at this isolated estate in a foreign country, where she’s to remain for the next two weeks as she decides whether she wants to marry me or not.

I mean. Fuck.

I actually feel sorry for her. I certainly feel sorry for myself for being in the same stupid situation, but at least this is my home and it’s my life that she’s come into. She’s got Jane here and that’s it.

Though it makes me wonder if it’s the same thing back in Scotland. Is she the life of the party? Does she have a large group of friends? Is she involved in sports teams or does she tutor other students or was she seeing someone before all of this shit blew up? Does she moonlight as an exotic dancer with the name Pantyless Princess?

I know nothing about her.

And if I don’t do something about this, I’ll still know nothing about her by the time she leaves.

And as much as my ego hates being taken down a notch or two, I have to man up here and provoke her a little more than I had intended.

Once dinner is over, she immediately retires to her room while I try to place a call to my friend Viktor, the Crown Prince of Sweden. I haven’t told him yet about the developments in my life and I could honestly use a friend and some advice from someone outside of this royal family, and Ottar doesn’t count. He’s under my father’s payroll, after all.