A Queen from the North Read online

  A Queen from the North

  By Racheline Maltese and Erin McRae

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Avian30

  New York, New York

  A Queen from the North by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

  Copyright 2017

  www.Avian30.com

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

  First Avian30 Printing: May 2017

  Printed in the USA

  Table of Contents

  Authors’ Note

  ON TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF IMOGENE’S DEATH, ENGLAND MOURNS ITS PRINCESS

  IS ARTHUR, PRINCE OF HEARTBREAK, FINALLY OUT OF MOURNING?

  PARADE OF MARRIAGEABLE WOMEN VISIT BUCKINGHAM

  A NEW PARAMOUR FOR THE PRINCE?

  PAPS PURSUE POTENTIAL PRINCESS TO PUB

  STARGAZING OR STARCHASING? ROYAL LOVERS SIGHTED AT THE OBSERVATORY

  PRINCESS IS FOR THE BIRDS - GEORGINA CELEBRATES HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY AT SWAN SANCTUARY

  A PIOUS PRINCESS FOR THE PLAYBOY PRINCE?

  PRAYING FOR A PROPOSAL

  ROYAL QUARREL? NO SIGHTINGS OF PRINCE ARTHUR AND HIS LADY

  PRINCE ARTHUR AND LADY AMELIA PLAY HOUSE AT ST. JAMES’S

  RAVEN GONE WALKABOUT? BIRD MISSING FROM TOWER OF LONDON

  PINING FOR HER PRINCE

  PRINCE ARTHUR WINS AUSTRALIA’S HEART

  THE PRINCE OF WALES STOLE MY GIRLFRIEND!

  PRINCESS PRIMPS AT PRIVATE RETREAT WITH QUEEN

  PALACE PARAMOURS REUNITED

  A KING FOR EVERY COUNTRY…EVEN YORK

  PALL CAST OVER ROYAL NUPTIALS

  WEDDING JOY TURNS TO FUNERAL MOURNING

  QUEEN IN WAITING…AND WAITING…AND WAITING

  KING GREGORY I PREPARES FOR HIS FIRST CHRISTMAS ADDRESS

  ENGLAND ERUPTS IN RESPONSE TO KING’S PROCLAMATION

  CANADA CELEBRATES ROYAL COUPLE

  ALL EYES TURN TO LONDON AS THE NUPTIALS OF THE CENTURY APPROACH

  ROYAL WEDDING BELLS…FINALLY!

  A UNITED ENGLAND CELEBRATES

  More by These Authors

  Authors’ Note

  A Queen from the North is in many ways a very different book than we first set out to write. Some of that is because of what the story demanded; some of that is the world we live in.

  Racheline and I were already tinkering with a number of ideas related to royal romance when I took a trip to England with my father in the fall of 2015. While we began our tour in London, our main goal was York, an ancient walled city and set amidst a stunning countryside.

  I fell in love with York and with Yorkshire. The huddled half-timbered buildings of the Shambles; the surrounding walls where one can easily see medieval piled on Viking piled on Roman construction; the soaring Minster Abbey; the breathtaking natural beauty of the Dales. But what struck me most — being a history geek with a fascination for how cultures manifest and endure strife — was York’s history. York’s history is not just the history of the United Kingdom. It’s also the history of ancient Rome and the Vikings, and looming large over all of it was the five-hundred-year old struggle between York and Lancaster.

  I was in a gift shop one afternoon when I overheard another patron ask the shop attendant about the jewelry on display. Necklaces bore the white rose of York, the red rose of Lancaster, or the blended red-and-white Tudor rose, as anyone’s allegiances or aesthetics might prefer.

  “Oh, yes.” the attendant said of the Tudor rose. “We only sell that because we have to. We’re much more about the white rose here. And definitely not about the red.”

  When we returned to our guest lodgings that night, I wrote Racheline: I know what our royals book should be about.

  For all that this book was inspired by the past, it is not a reflection of real history. It contains a number of significant and deliberate departures from our world.

  Some parts of the world will look familiar. Others will very much not. Prince Arthur’s father, King Henry XII, is descended in direct line from Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn — though our Anne still lost her head.

  There are no Stuarts or Hanovers or Windsors here. Scotland and Wales are joined with England to form the Unified Kingdom, but Ireland — from which my own family came to the U.S. — never suffered the depredations of English rule and has always been free and independent. They are ruled by their own High King who is twelve years old, but that story is for a later book in this series.

  The Commonwealth still exists in our alternate universe, but the feelings of some of those countries — namely Canada — toward the monarchy are not necessarily what they are in our world.

  Most critically, however, in this world the Wars of the Roses never truly ended. The Tudor unification attempted by Henry VIII fell apart after his death, and battles and political struggles between York and Lancaster persisted for centuries. The north — centered around York — and the south — centered around London — are locked in an eternal conflict that’s left York very much the loser.

  This is also a world without Brexit. Several drafts of this book had already been completed when the UK voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. For all that this book contains the political machinations of the alternate universe we created, none of what we have written here is intended to be an allegory for the actual United Kingdom’s current political circumstances.

  While I brought the strife between York and Lancaster to this book, Racheline brought witchcraft, insisting that the universe next door to us must always contain magic as we only fear it exists in ours.

  A Queen from the North is, on some level, a story about alchemy — both on the page and in our process of writing it. We hope you enjoy your sojourn in the Unified Kingdom. We suggest you mind the birds.

  Erin McRae (& Racheline Maltese)

  May 2017

  One for sorrow,

  Two for joy,

  Three for a girl,

  Four for a boy,

  Five for silver,

  Six for gold,

  Seven for a secret,

  Never to be told.

  Eight for a wish,

  Nine for a kiss,

  Ten for a bird,

  You must not miss.

  — 16th Century British Traditional

  Chapter 1

  ON TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF IMOGENE’S DEATH, ENGLAND MOURNS ITS PRINCESS

  15 September

  Year 20 of the Reign of King Henry XII

  Arthur stared out the window of the car and watched the countryside pass in a blur of autumn colors. Visiting his late wife’s grave was always sad, but the ritual unsettled him far more now than when she had first passed. Then, he had been too mired in his own sorrow to notice what else went on around him. Now, ten years on, he resented the public intrusion into his life and the requirement that he perform a grief that, while yet deeply personal, had been dulled by time. But the public still desperately cared. Perhaps because he had never remarried; perhaps because his people, who had loved Imogene and adored their relationship, hoped he never would.

  “Your Highness, may I address something to you?” Georgina, his sixteen-year-old niece, asked from beside him.

  He snorted softly. “Since when do you talk to me like that?” Certainly, she had not been so formal an hour ago when she declared she would return from the burial site in his car and not the one shared by her sister, Princess Hyacinth, and her mother, Princess Violet.

  “I am trying to get you to take me seriously,” the girl, milk-pale and prim blond with a witch’s green eyes, declared. She took after Violet, Arthur’s sister. Arthur himself was taller and broader, with brown eyes and dark brown hair already going gray at the temples. In part because of conversations like this one.

  “I always take you seriously, George. You know that.”

  “You have to get remarried.”

  Arthur turned his head to look out the window again. One of the prerogatives of being first in line to the throne was that he didn’t have to acknowledge things people said if he didn’t want to.

  “I am serious.”

  “Yes, you’ve just said.”

  “Look, Arthur, the way I see it —”

  He turned his head and raised an eyebrow to her. He hardly expected her to use titles or call him sir in private, but at least an uncle would do; some indication that at nearly forty he deserved a bare modicum of respect. But Georgina, who had demanded to be called George since she was eight, was bold, brash, and a teenager — a combination which God had ordained would always skirt the edge of terrible.

  Arthur’s gaze was enough to make her falter for a moment, but she continued. “The way I see it, you have three choices.”

  “And those would be?”

  “You get over yourself, get married, produce an heir —”

  “Yes, I am familiar with the concept.”

  “Never remarry and become a tragic, mythological figure —”

  “Well on my way already, don’t you think?”

  George soldiered on. “Or embrace full-on loserdom, change your name, move to America, and have lots of sex with women who will sell the story
to the papers.”

  Arthur was glad the privacy partition between them and the driver was closed. “That’s startlingly specific.”

  George had the poor grace to look pleased with herself.

  “Well,” Arthur said, as if he was indulging a child much younger than this princess, “what do you suggest I do?”

  “You need to get married. Urgently.”

  “Why is that?” Arthur was willing to listen to her. At least for now.

  “Because, as you know, when I turn eighteen and you don’t have an heir, my mother is going to announce that she’s taking herself out of the line of succession. Which makes me next in line after you.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t want it.” George sat up straighter, as if to indicate her distaste for the weight of the crown.

  “You’re the only young woman in the kingdom who would say that.”

  “I’m not suited to be queen, and you know it. Find a woman who is, and the country will be happier. I’ll be happier. And so will you be. You want a companion, not the friendship of your strange niece who plays hostess for you.”

  “And?” Arthur prompted once more. The look on George’s face said she wasn’t done.

  She leant toward him and dropped her voice to little more than a whisper. “I had a dream.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s been a while,” he said amiably, as if George were an ordinary child with run-of-the-mill nightmares.

  “Yes.”

  “Which one was it?” he asked as the car accelerated past rolling hills and old stone fences back to the congestion of London.

  “The one where all the ravens were dead.”

  Chapter 2

  IS ARTHUR, PRINCE OF HEARTBREAK, FINALLY OUT OF MOURNING?

  25 December

  Year 20 of the Reign of King Henry XII

  What I expected to happen over the holiday:

  1) Get my acceptance letter from MIT

  2) Gary to propose

  3) Be welcomed into the loving arms of my family for Christmas.

  What actually happened over the holiday:

  1) Got rejected from MIT and got waitlisted at UC Santa Barbara.

  2) Gary dumped me.

  3) Mother declared me the problem child of the family at a formal Christmas dinner for forty of our closest friends and neighbors.

  If that isn’t in the running for worst Christmas ever I’m not sure what would be, but I’m definitely all right with not finding out.

  Charlie says I can go to Kempton with him tomorrow for the races. Jo keeps telling us which parts of her body she’s not interested in freezing off in order to socialize with any number of people she doesn’t actually like. Mainly, though, Jo is allergic to horses. She says they make her sneeze, and everyone always forgets.

  So, I’m going instead. Because being my brother’s date at one of the biggest jumps races of the year is not the height of pathetic.

  *

  Amelia sat and stared out the window of the train as it rumbled smoothly from York through the northern countryside toward London. She and her brother Charlie had left at an ungodly hour, and the landscape sweeping by outside was still dark.

  Tired as she was, the quiet murmur of the other passengers was soothing. As the train moved further south and more people got on, the ambient accents shifted from Scottish and Yorkshire to the sharper — to Amelia’s ear, at least — accents of the midlands and south.

  England, Scotland, and Wales comprised the Unified Kingdom, a political entity that had existed since the eighteenth century. To the west, Ireland was a separate country whose ruling family occasionally intermarried with English royalty and otherwise watched the political turmoil of their cousins across the Irish Sea with amused and benign judgment.

  Amelia couldn’t help but feel a mix of envy and resentment toward them. And toward the Scots. They were part of the Unified Kingdom, but they had not only their own distinct voices but their own country. Even Wales was its own country, and Wales was nearly as poor as Yorkshire.

  The Yorkish people, her people, were as distinct as the Scots or the Welsh. But rather than be recognized as a country within the Unified Kingdom in its own right, Yorkshire and the entire north — all the counties between the Midlands and the Scottish border — were seen as a backwater. Not worth government money or even a kind word in the myths and legends that drove the nation’s tourism-based economy. Even the worst off of the south always fared better.

  It wasn’t a new issue, and it wasn’t one Amelia had any power to solve, even if she was an earl’s daughter. Her parents had never been disloyal to the Crown and had never advocated separation from the south, unlike some of their neighbors. This was, she knew, probably wise. Without acquiescence, she suspected Yorkshire would have even less than it already did. Still, Amelia wished it were possible for her, or them, to do more. She stewed on that as the train made its way southwards. Doing so was better than stewing on the mess of her own life.

  “How are you holding up?” Charlie interrupted her brooding. He set his book on the table between them and gave Amelia his concerned big-brother look.

  Amelia sighed in lieu of answering.

  “That bad?”

  “On the brightest of bright sides, I think Father’s relieved his only daughter isn’t going to be marrying a commoner.”

  “You know he doesn’t care about things like that.”

  “Oh yes. Because Gary was from perfectly respectable new money. And marrying into perfectly respectable new money is all I’m expected to achieve. Hurrah for me, youngest daughter of a minor earl.”

  “Mother’s favorite oops.” Charlie teased her.

  Amelia made a face. With two older brothers, she was the youngest of the family and the only girl. Charlie, her eldest brother, was forty, a solicitor happily married with two children, the eight-year-old twins Meg and Freddie. As Viscount Brockett and heir to the earldom, he’d been absolutely supposed to marry someone with a title. Probably a distant cousin. Preferably a duchess or a countess, but at least someone with Lady before their name. Instead he’d married Jo, a black woman from a Yorkish family that could trace its roots to the city’s Roman founding.

  Nick, Amelia’s second brother, was thirty-five and resolutely single, despite Jo and their mother’s attempts to set him up with any remotely eligible young man. At least his career in the City working for whichever investment bank didn’t have the most scandals that week was going well.

  Which left Amelia, the youngest child and, as of today, the failure of the family.

  “So,” Amelia said to Charlie. “I got rejected from my first choice school. My boyfriend of two years dumped me without warning or explanation. My mother announced both of these facts to the entire neighborhood. I’m twenty-two, and I will be starting my last term with no boyfriend and no career prospects. Happy New Year to me.”

  “You might still get into Santa Barbara.” Charlie was ever eager to be encouraging.

  “Charlie?” Amelia did not want to talk about backup schools right now.

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, dear sister.”

  They exchanged sleepy smiles over the table. Charlie had always been her favorite. He often played a more substantial role in her life than their father, and he always took Amelia seriously. Even if she was the youngest. And even now that her life had gone completely to pieces.

  *

  Snow had fallen the day before, and by the time the sun came up Amelia could see the white drifts still left in the hollows of the fields from the train window. Everything seemed picturesque and peaceful, even if the sky was overcast. It was England, after all.

  When they alighted from the train onto the crowded platform at the racecourse station, Amelia shivered. Charlie stopped and solemnly adjusted the fur hat on her head so that it covered her ears better. Amelia didn’t try to restrain herself from huffing as she brushed a strand of chestnut-colored hair out of her eyes.

  “While I am a miserable failure of a human being, I am not a child.”