A Great Prince: A Royal Bad Boy Romance Read Online Free Page B

black wings. “Your Majesty, Her Royal Highness is late for her riding lesson.” “Your Majesty is late for the opening of the new Central Bank building.” “His Majesty will be most disturbed to hear that you took Her Royal Highness swimming… in the pond!”
    And Francesca had her little duties, too. Royals were the original overscheduled children. She had tutors and carefully selected playmates who knew just when and how to lose a game to her; she had her visits to the Children’s Hospital and the Orphanage.
    And she had riding lessons, the one duty she never wanted to shirk. The Palace wanted her to learn to ride stiffly in the pomp-and-circumstance parades she’d be participating in for the rest of her life. But she wanted to learn to fly, to race.
    She loved the horses. The smell of them, the heat of them, the wild look in the eyes of the big ones, the ones she couldn’t ride yet. She would doodle during her math lessons, pretending to scribble algebra formulas when she was actually working on the geometry of a horse’s head, its body in motion.
    When she was seven years old, there was one day she would never forget. As long as she lived. As hard as she tried.
    “I want to ride that one,” she announced that day to Gustav, the stable manager.
    Gustav chuckled. “I bet you do, young mistress.” He started to saddle the princess’ pony, a sweet and docile creature that wouldn’t run if its tail was on fire.
    He could address the girl that way because they were alone. There was a Crown Equerry, a nobleman who “managed” the horses and stables, but Francesca Albertine rarely saw him. Gustav did all the work while the Baron von Waldberg took the credit. The advantage to this arrangement was that Gustav could tell the baron to stay the hell out of the way.
    “I’m sick of ponies!” she shouted. She was learning as little kids do that, sometimes, screaming gets you what you want. This was especially true in a royal household. “I want to ride a big horse!”
    “If you’re sick of it, then go home and don’t come back until you’re ready to do this my way,” Gustav said, dropping the saddle and walking away.
    “Wait!” Francesca cried. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
    Gustav turned and smiled. The princess wasn’t the only child he worked with here. The children of dukes, barons, and counts, and (even more powerful) the bankers and tax refugees, were brought here as a sign of royal favor and allowed to ride Burgenland’s best horses. And if there were two words he almost never heard together in his line of work, those words were “I’m” and “sorry.” The entitled little pricks had been raised to believe they need never be sorry for anything.
    But between Francesca Albertine’s mother and Sonia, the governess, they were raising her right. A child with manners, who would one day be queen and force others to have manners, too.
    “I accept your apology, Your Royal Highness. Now, shall we ride?”
    She mounted Theodora the pony, loving the dizzying height it gave her. Gustav led the animal by the reins, walking them out of the stable and into the paddock where Francesca Albertine repressed her impatience at still being walked around by a grownup. She was ready! She was ready to fly!
    But she could wait. She could! She was strong!
    “Great Princes don’t always get to do what they want,” her governess Sonia had told her some nights, tucking her into bed after an exhausting day on the Palace schedule. “Sometimes they have to do what’s right for the people.”
    “For the people or for the Palace?” she asked sleepily.
    Sonia couldn’t entirely hide the curl of her lips before Francesca saw it. “For the people, dear. In the end, it’s for the good of the people.”
     
    Gustav was pleased with her progress. The girl was learning patience. He was about to hand her the reins to a mare for the first time when the commotion began.
    Two of the little golf carts that were used by staff to get