A Royal Engagement: The Young Royals Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

truth," Meredith said with a sigh, "And one of these days his roving eye is going to get him into trouble."
    Alex checked her watch, "As much as I am enjoying hearing about your charming, but devilish brother, I'm afraid we need to go.   The Bishop will be waiting for us."
    I stood wearily to my feet and smoothed my skirt.   I was dreading this meeting and not just because I had a peculiar dislike for the Bishop.   Having to make funeral arrangements was just one more thing that brought home the fact that my brother and father were gone.
    When I had woken in my childhood bedroom this morning after a night where I slept like a log, I had a moment where I forgot that they were gone.   In my newly woken state, I had recognised my room and had immediately thought of walking down the stairs into the dining room to hear my fathers deep voice and booming laugh.   And then I remembered that I would never hear those two things again.
    I was going to miss him and Jacob terribly and I knew that right now I hadn't even begun to grieve properly.   I was holding it together to get through the next few weeks of Royal engagements and then I would finally be able to let myself fall apart.   But it would only be a short reprieve.   I didn't have the luxury of mourning that common people had.   I needed to start to govern, although in what capacity that might be, I was still unsure.   Merveille had a constitutional monarchy, which meant the Parliament pretty much handled the everyday running of the country.   I had no idea what my duties were to be or even if I would be allowed to do them.

    The brisk spring air streamed through my hair, tugging at my braid and freeing wayward strands from it's tight confines as I galloped through the green field.   It felt good to have the raw power of horse flesh under me and the freedom to ride far and fast.   Meredith, Jamie and Alex trailed me on their own mounts, and Carlos and Aiden followed on ATVs, but I had pulled ahead of them all with my need for a small slice of solitude.
    Meeting with the Bishop had been harder than I thought and I had almost allowed my grief to overrule my years of etiquette training and snap at the disagreeable man.   I hardly think that it is my job to decide on who sat where or what refreshments would be served.   There was a whole staff of people to look after those minor details.   Both my father and my brother had had staff better suited to such tasks.
    And what would happen to those staff now?
    It was yet another question to which I didn't have the answer.
    When we had arrived back at the palace, the walls had felt like they were closing in on me and I needed to get out.   I needed fresh air and a semblance of escaping, just for a while.   The pain of realising that I would be burying my father tomorrow and my brother the day after was almost too much to bear.   I'd made a beeline for the stables and now here I was, riding hell for leather across the lush, rolling hills of the palace grounds.
    I pulled my horse to a stop as I reached the top of a hill and looked down towards a boundary fence.   On the other side of the fence there was a paddock filled with unfamiliar looking cows.   I thought I knew all breeds of cows in, if not Merveille, then at least Calanais.   It was what our small country was famous for and what ensured our coffers stayed full.
    Our fortune was made on the back of a cow, well a cow's milk more precisely.   The Merveille Guernsey produced a milk that was highly prized by both the chocolatiers of Switzerland and the cheesemakers of France and Italy.   But the cows in the field over the boundary fence were not Merveille Guernseys, although they were similar.
    I heard the others approach and stayed where I was until they pulled up beside me.   Jamie and Meredith had both been away from Merveille for the last four years with me and Alex had grown up in another country altogether, so I didn't think that any of them would have the