“And you never did?” Daffy said. Both sisters grew up in the halls of the palace. For a while anyway. Before the great departure.
“Marry Prince Gus?” Leslie Ann moved away from a seagull that touched down a little too close. “Where is this tome? I want to read it.”
“Don’t tell me you never had visions of marrying one of the Blue princes?” Daffy faced her friend. “Half the girls in my class wanted to be my friend so I’d invite them to the palace after school.” Where she went every afternoon while Mum worked. She’d been the queen’s private secretary before taking on the direction of the Royal Trust.
“You’d get a jolly laugh, I tell you.” Ella pressed her hands to her cheeks and batted her eyelashes. “‘I just love him so much. He’s sooooo cute.’”
“Now I have to read it,” Leslie Ann said. “What a great feature idea. An exposé on all the girls who grew up with Prince John or Prince Gus as their dream date. I’d use your diary as a starting point.”
“I’ve never been so glad in my life the diary is gone.” Daffy turned away from the flocking seagulls who sought for something she didn’t possess. “I was ten when I started the diary, and Gus was my friend. Not some cute chap I admired from afar.”
Was being the operative word. She’d not spoken to him in eighteen years, except in passing. A “Your Royal Highness” here, a “Prince Gus” there. She saw him when she helped serve at state dinners. Then once or twice a year after university when Mum had transitioned from the queen’s personal secretary to the head of the Royal Trust.
“You mean My Life with the Prince doesn’t exist?” Leslie Ann again.
“Not anymore.” Daffy said. Thank God. There was more in that book than a dreamy-eyed ten-year-old’s fairytale. “Now what should we do with our day? Our first day at the beach?”
“I’d always wondered about the missing pages, Daff.” Ella refused to let the topic alone. “Torn out. Then toward the middle, you stopped writing. You didn’t finish your love story.”
“Because there was no ending. It was all make-believe.” And the torn-out pages? Hidden between the endpaper and the leather cover. “How do you remember so much? You were only eight.”
“I’m brilliant. I remember everything.”
True. There was no denying her little sister’s savvy intelligence. A graduate of the prestigious Byhurst College with honors in engineering, she was now a software developer with an international tech company based in Lauchtenland’s capital, Port Fressa.
“Ella.” Leslie Ann shivered as the sun went behind a cloud. Her barely there bikini provided no warmth. “Obviously Daffy doesn’t want the book. So if you ever find it, give it to me.”
“Lucky for me Mum threw it away in one of her big clean outs.” Daffy headed for their beach chairs, hoping the sun would burn off the chill by lunch time. “Why would you want to do a story on it, Leslie Ann? Besides embarrass ten-year-old me? No one cares about Daffy Caron.”
“I would never embarrass you, Daff. But think of how every girl wants to be a princess at one point in her life. You actually had access to the palace. To the House of Blue. Or…” Leslie paused and stared off, thinking. “I could do a piece on Prince Gus’s love life. We could write his happily ever after ending. If your diary came true, what would his life look like today? Maybe married with a baby in his arms? The poor chap was left at the altar. A year later, goes through a second broken engagement. All while the world watches.”
“Leave it be, Les.” Reclining in a wooden Adirondack, Daffy draped a towel over her legs and dug her feet into the cool sand. “You’ll only remind him of his pain. Besides, you’re the one who started rumors something must be wrong with him for losing two amazing women.”
“It was a valid question.” Leslie Ann chose a chair and sat, legs outstretched toward the emerging sunlight. “I’m a journalist. I’m paid to think deep.” Both Ella and Daffy laughed. For real. Not the fake kind. “Besides, we don’t even know where the man is so how could I remind him of his pain? No one’s seen His Royal Highness in over a year. He’s pulled a Prince Harry and run away from the royal family.”
“Run away from the press is more like it.” Daffy couldn’t resist defending the man. So what they weren’t chummy anymore, he was still her friend. “The media showed no mercy when Coral Winthrop never showed up for their wedding. And you sacrificed him on your altar of headlines and money when Lady Robbi broke off their engagement.”
“Can you blame us? It was downright scandalous.” Leslie Ann dug in her rucksack for her phone. “I think I’ll text my boss about this. And, Ella, I’m serious. If you find Daff’s diary, hand it over.”
“She won’t, but even if she does, you’ll be gravely disappointed, Les.” Daffy closed her eyes and sank into the peaceful sunlight and the repeating drum of the crashing waves. When the wind wasn’t blowing, the sunlight was glorious, almost hot. “Besides writing how cute he was, I only dared dream of holding his hand.”
Well, maybe there was the one teeny-tiny kissing scene. All very G-rated. Something like, “The prince scooped her up in his arms and kissed her on the cheek.” What did she know of kissing at ten? And she was done discussing her journal.
After she was banned from the palace—another story no one else needed to know—she wrote her final entry and tossed the book under her mattress. Then in a drawer. Then in a box in the back of her closet.
She’d forgotten about it as best she could—with time, lots and lots of time—and went happily, successfully, through secondary school, A-levels, and university. Somewhere in the midst of all those days, months, and years, maybe during Mum’s great decluttering of ’09, the box with the diary became rubbish.
A few years ago, she’d decided to look for it and that’s when Mum broke the news. “We figured if you wanted it, you’d have taken it with you.”
More than a decade later, Daffy was grateful. Because there was more in that diary than a silly prince romance.
There was a secret. She and Mum were the only ones who knew. And there was no one more loyal to the queen than Morwena Caron. Based on her reaction to Daffy’s inquiry, Mum had also done a splendid job of forgetting the diary’s contents.
Losing a few mementos along with the little book was the price she gladly paid.
Her thoughts intertwined with bits and pieces of Ella and Les’s conversation. What was Ella saying? Something about the Space Center.
“If I get this close and don’t go, my colleagues will never let me live it down.”
“Sounds good.” Daffy mumbled, drifting toward a warm, beachy rest.
My Life with the Prince.
Gus. With his tangle of dark hair, almond-shaped blue eyes, world-renowned smile. She could see him. Breathe him in. The Pudgy Prince grew into Prince Charming. And—
“Did I tell you?” Leslie Ann’s voice interrupted. “I’ll be presenting outside Clouver Abbey the day of Prince John’s wedding?”
“Only the entire plane ride over.” Ella.