Chapter Forty-One

When Crown Prince Sebastian walked in with his wife, Crown Princess Ella, the woman he'd hand-picked to rule at his side when he became king, he spotted his beloved sister, Princess Francisca, putting down her pile of gifts. There were presents for him, Ella, and the twins, but nothing for Queen Catarina herself.
"Frankie. Didn't expect to see you here."
'Frankie' had been Prince Sebastian's special nickname for Francisca. No one else had even been allowed to call her that, as everyone else called her 'Fran' or 'Franny.' Her mother, Queen Catarina, referred to her by her given name, Francisca, or more properly, Francisca Maria-Eloise.
"Wouldn't miss this for the world."


Prince Sebastian detected a sarcastic tone to Francisca's last words.
"You and Ella practically begged me to come. Don't forget, tonight I had my own gathering planned."
Crown Princess Ella and Princess Francisca had forged an uneasy alliance since her wedding to Francisca's brother. Francisca's very presence at this gathering was mostly due to Ella's intervention. She stood by her husband's side as he confronted his sister.
"You know what, Frankie, I love you to death and I've protected you all these years. There's still nothing I wouldn't do for you. But I've been thinking, as I know you and Ella have been talking, and I've been thinking that, you know, since I've got my own two children now, that changes your perspective on things. What you did, Frankie, was the most selfish thing anyone could possibly do."
Francisca shook her head. "I -- I'm not sure what you mean."
"Frankie, when you ran away, the night before your debutante ball. When you took off into the woods. Nobody knew where you were, till you told me. And I kept your secret, Frankie, for years. Faithfully. Even when mom kept pressing me about it. I still wouldn't tell her where you were. To this day I still haven't told her where you're living."
"Good. I don't want her to know just yet."
"Frankie, when are you going to come clean?"
"When I'm good and ready."
"The question I've been asking myself, Frankie, is why? Why did you do this?"
"Because I didn't want anybody deciding how I should live my life."



"You know, Frankie, it's all about you, isn't it? Have you ever thought to consider how your actions affect other people? You put me in a difficult position, but you didn't hurt me. You thought you were hurting mom? You didn't hurt her either. You know who got hurt? Alex and Ana, those two young ladies in the dining room setting the table. They didn't deserve any of this, they were completely innocent. All this happened before they were even born. They didn't get the same mom that we got. They got a completely different person as their parent. And you are the cause of that. You should be on your knees thanking them and begging them for forgiveness, because they took the heat. They were also deprived of the influence that their older sister might have had on them. Honestly it's a miracle they've turned out as well as they have."
"Look, I've got to get going, I've got guests waiting at my own house --"
"No, you're not going anywhere, Frankie. You are going to stand there and you are going to listen!"


Francisca feigned a yawn. "Look, I didn't come here to dredge up the past."
Finally Ella interrupted them. "We have to deal with our past in order to forge a brighter future. In my own personal experience, I had to forgive my stepmother for doing what she did to me. Fran, could you at least try?"
"I have a life outside of this family, a real life. I go to work, at a real job, and I live a real life. I have friends, real friends, outside of this family and its bubble. This, this whole thing, this is not a real life. Nobody lives like this."
"We all live real lives here, Frankie, in the real world. I'd like to know what world you've been living in for the past twenty years."
"This one! And in it, I've met REAL people with REAL problems."
"Are you referring to that pregnant woman who was living with you at one point? It was a good deed you did for her, Frankie, but what about everyone else? What was your motivation anyway? Think I don't deal with real people?"
"Of course not, not here in the palace. Try looking around you for a change."
"I'm not in the palace all the time, am I? Ask Alex, who gets up at the crack of dawn every morning, who climbed a mountain in twelve-degree weather, drifts blowing in her face, to help sort out MREs and other supplies for earthquake victims. She could have died. You know why she did it? Because she's thinking of people other than herself, Frankie. Ask Ana, who's been working her butt off to make sure that the Hidden Springs Heritage Festival goes off without a hitch, even though common sense would probably tell her to cancel, or at least postpone, it. Know why she's doing it? Because she's thinking of people other than herself. Frankie, you grew up with every advantage possible, even more so than they did, even. Remember, you were the next queen. You were being groomed for the throne, not me, and not the twins. When you left, you left me holding the bag, and you left me with the responsibility. Those two young ladies in there, they've got more guts in their pinkie fingers than you've shown in your entire body, in your entire life. They're taking the responsibility that you ran from, Frankie. They don't have to do it. They could live the lives of proper little socialites, not having a care in the world, and they've chosen the exact opposite. They've chosen to serve. They're more mature than you have shown yourself to be, Frankie. And that disappoints me more than anything. You already destroyed this family once. I'm not going to let you do it again. Frankie, I want you to prove me wrong, while there's still time. I've covered for you long enough. It's past time for you to grow up and take your place in this family."
"Are you finished with your little speech, Sebastian?"
"Frankie, did you hear a word I said?"



Hearing the shouting, Anastasia walked into the living room, rubbing her fingers on her temples and covering her ears. "Will you two stop this?" she muttered, unsure if anyone heard her. "You're giving me a headache."