Introduction

Good people of Ledonia! Hold on to your fascinators because your ever-devoted royal correspondent is reporting on the most spectacular display of royal ridiculousness in recent memory!

I’m calling it The Scene of Aquatic Chaos, aka man-child Max getting up and personal with royal carp.

Every royal watcher’s favorite, Prince Maximilien, has provided us with enough entertainment to fuel my column for the next century. And trust me, darlings, this story is positively dripping with drama (quite literally, as you’ll soon discover).

It’s a perfectly civilized palace garden party. Cucumber sandwiches, pots of tea, children politely enjoying a slip ‘n slide, and our beloved royal family mingling with distinguished guests beneath the afternoon sun. 

So far, so regal.

But then our himbo Max decided to transform this genteel gathering into something resembling a nature documentary gone spectacularly wrong.

After what sources describe as “a martini or two”, our Prince McHottie Junior apparently lost a bet with his friends. The stakes? A fully clothed journey down the children’s slip ‘n slide.

Now, one might think a twenty-seven-year-old prince would possess enough rudimentary knowledge of physics to calculate that about two hundred pounds of royal muscle hurtling down a children’s water slide might produce some unexpected results. 

One would be mistaken.

What followed, according to multiple horrified witnesses, was nothing short of aquatic pandemonium. Our dear prince launched himself torpedo-style down the slide, landing in an 18th-century decorative fishpond, the very same pond that houses descendants of ceremonial carp gifted by the Thai King to the country of Ledonia over 200 years ago.

The result? Seven fish sent airborne in a spectacular display, captured in my trending TikTok (link below), featuring a child’s call of “Cannonball”. Because let’s face it, no quote says ‘dignified monarchy’ like a fully grown man in a pond.

Fear not, fish lovers among us. Every dislodged fish was scooped off the lawn and returned to the pond unscathed.

So, here’s to you, man-child Max, himbo extraordinaire, for reminding us that even princes are human, that aristocratic carp can fly, and even the most sophisticated garden parties can become disasters worthy of trending TikTok fame.

Your ever-devoted royal correspondent,

Fabiana Fontaine xx

#ManChildMax

#RoyalCannonball 

#SpiceUpTheGardenParty

 

Chapter 1

Max

The thing about being the last-born in a family full to the brim of famous royals is that you may start out as everyone’s favorite adorable toddler, but somehow you end up as the country’s most documented cautionary tale about what happens when privilege meets poor decision-making.

I’m that person. Me, Prince Maximilien, fourth-born child of King Frederic and Queen Astrid of Ledonia, and about ninth in line to the throne these days, last time I checked.

I’m “the problem” that needs to be fixed, allegedly. The wild child. The party boy.

The man-child.

I have journalist Fabiana Fontaine to thank for that little gem. But don’t even get me started on her.

As far as I can see it, I’m just living life within my gilded cage as best I can. Not that anyone ever asks for my opinion. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve got an image problem that needs to be fixed, STAT.

The palace PR team has devised three possible solutions:

1. Being forced to smile through a televised cake-tasting segment on Ledonia’s Best Bake-Off to show I am, and I quote, “one of the people”

2. Taking part in a documentary series about my life to show the country that I’m a regular guy who just happened to make a poor decision (or twenty)

3. Enter an arranged engagement with some pre-approved aristocrat to show I’m a new man with serious life goals and a penchant for tweed

I told them I’d rather fight a bear.

Bare handed.

And blindfolded.

I mean, what kind of options are those? None of them appeals in the slightest. A few little slip-ups that somehow managed to make it into the press thanks to that Fontaine woman, and suddenly I have an image problem?

Please.

My antics barely rate on my brother’s scandal-o-meter. Alex was the one who had an image problem before he fell in love with the woman he’s now married to and cleaned up his act. He had women coming out of his ears. Not literally, of course, but you get the picture.

I’m a freaking monk in comparison.

And really, all I did was lose a bet with a couple of my friends after a martini or two at a boring garden party. Now Fabiana Fontaine has got the entire country calling me a man-child.

Isn’t name-calling the height of immaturity? It’s like we’re back in the school playground and she’s sneering at me by the swings, throwing insults my way to impress her gaggle of friends.

And sure, in hindsight I can see diving on the children’s slip ’n slide in my linen suit while balancing a martini in one hand wasn’t the smartest decision of the day. But to be fair to me, overshooting and landing in an 18th Century decorative fishpond, sending carp flying into the air as they flapped their fins in desperation was never part of the plan. I thought I’d come to a stop at the bottom of the slide, just like the children had, not get launched like a torpedo as some nearby child yelled, “Cannonball!”

It’s now become a trending TikTok sound, along with Fabiana Fontaine’s video, of course.

How did she even get the footage? It’s not like she was an invited guest.

I blow out a breath.

“So? What’s it going to be, Maximilien?”

I look at my father’s grim face, his mouth down turned, his nostrils flared. He’s got one eye twitching in irritation, and I know I’ve taken things too far this time.

“Look, Father. Be reasonable. It’s not me who’s the problem here. It’s that Fabiana Fontaine woman. She’s the one who broke the story. Not that there really was a story.”

“No story? We nearly lost seven carp thanks to your little show. Those fish are descendants of those given to our family by the Thai King over 250 years ago,” Father says, his nostrils flaring to widths never witnessed before.

“I feel bad about the fish. Really, I do. But in my defense, I never thought I would end up in the pond. None of the children did.”

“None of the children are twenty-seven years old and weigh 200 pounds, my dear boy.”

“205,” I correct. “I’ve been lifting more weights recently.”

Father glares at me, and I’m pretty sure some smoke begins to emit from his nostrils.

“What your father is trying to say, darling, is that not only did you re-home the carp to the lawn, but you could have hurt yourself,” Mummy says in a far more conciliatory tone.

“Yes, that and the fact you made a spectacle of yourself that’s now headline news across our country,” Father adds.

“As I said, blame Fabiana Fontaine,” I grind out, my dislike for that woman growing in intensity with each passing minute. Which I didn’t think was possible. I’ve hated her for years, even before she tried to blow Amelia and Ethan’s cover in Monteluce five years ago. “Why did she have to make a big deal of my minor mishap? It’s hardly newsworthy. Prince falls into pond.  Big deal,” I say.

“And now you’ve become a meme, I’m told,” Father says.

“Do you even know what a meme is, Father?” I ask.

“Of course I do,” he sniffs, but we both know he doesn’t.

“Amelia keeps sending us videos of people falling into toddler’s swimming pools with the child calling ‘cannonball!’ She thinks it’s all rather amusing,” Mummy says, and a hint of a smile quirks her lips.

“We, on the other hand, do not,” Father adds, as if that’s not blindingly obvious by the mere fact I’ve been summoned for this very conversation. “You have become the laughingstock of our family, Max.”

I take exception to the term. “Laughingstock? Isn’t that going a bit far? Look, I get that it wasn’t the right thing to do at a garden party, but in my defense—”

“You have no defense, son. You messed up again, and now you need to fix it,” Father says.

“What do you mean ‘again?“It’s not as if I make a habit of diving onto slip ‘n slides, you know,” I say in protest.

“Oh, this isn’t your first mess, my boy,” Father quips. “There was the time you were photographed partying on Prince Nicholas’s yacht with popstar twins, wearing nothing but your swim trunks and drinking from a champagne bottle,” Father says, continuing to catalog my less than stellar decision-making over the last couple of years.

“Doesn’t everyone need to cut loose every now and then?”

“Not while dancing to a very inappropriate remix of the Ledonian national anthem, my dear boy,” Father grumbles.

“Trixie and Tallulah hit number one with that song.” My protest falls on deaf ears as my parents continue to count off my failings, all with alarmingly accurate details.

“Didn’t you auction off a kiss as well?” Mummy asks, even though it’s clear she already knows the answer. “To that female TV presenter who gushed about your ‘superior lip action’ on national television?”

“That was for charity. I raised a lot of money with that one kiss. And besides, Lorena Samboni was rather a good kisser, so all in all, it wasn’t a bad outcome.”

My parents are not listening.

“And then there was the time you donned a Hawaiian shirt and mustache, borrowing your friend’s yellow Ferrari to visit your sister while she was hiding out at a Malveauxian lake with an actor,” Father says.

“By ‘actor’ you mean Ethan Roberts, aka her husband?” I say pointedly.

“The fact of the matter is you were in a yellow Ferrari. You may as well have circled Amelia’s location on maps and personally handed them out to the paparazzi!” Father says.

I hold my hands out, palms up, willing this rather too lengthy list of my poor choices to end.  “All right, I get it. I’m a mess-up of epic proportions. I should be thrown in the dungeon and fed gruel and water for the rest of my life. Not that I know what gruel is, exactly, but I’m sure it’s appropriately horrible.”

“Sadly, that option isn’t open to us in the 21st century,” Father says with a smirk on his face that makes me wonder if he means every word.

“What your father means, darling, is that we’ve laid out the options to you. You need a reputation rehab, as Amelia puts it, and you need it immediately.”

Thanks for the support, Ami.

Father fixes me with his stare. “Son, you’re no longer a rebellious teen. Your brother and sisters are all happily married with families of their own, working on their various enterprises and experiencing much success, not once diving on a child’s slide and landing in a pond. Isn’t it time you grew up?”

I chew my lip. Don’t get me wrong, part of me agrees with them, as much as I won’t admit it. As the last born, I’ve led a carefree existence without the pressure of being the first-born son, without the discipline of being my sister, Sofia, and without the need to do much at all. Playing the fool, taking my friends up on their dares, never worrying about the consequences of my actions, has been a way for me to enjoy my life. To try to forget that everything I do is recorded and analyzed.

When you’re the last-born in the Ledonian royal family, there’s no set role for you. You’re never going to be the monarch, but you can’t have a career outside of the military. You need to support charities, but you can’t stand out too much or it looks like you’re making it all about yourself.

Some days I wonder if I’m just an expensive insurance policy with a pulse, kept around in case something happens to the others, but otherwise expected simply to smile, wave, and try not to embarrass the family name too spectacularly.

I’m even failing at that.

I clasp my hands in my lap and level my parents with my gaze. “You win. I’ll do one of the things you suggest.”

Mummy beams. “An arranged marriage would be marvelous! I can think of several young ladies of the aristocracy who would be more than happy to marry you.”

I shake my head. “I’m not doing that one.”

“Are you quite certain?” she asks.

“Quite.”

“The baking show?” she suggests.

“The only time I go to the kitchen is to chat with the staff and eat cake.”

“The only option left is the documentary.”

I let out a defeated sigh. “I suppose.”

“That’s settled then,” Father declares. “The documentary it is. We’ll invite Ms. Fontaine to work on it with you.”

That got my attention.

“Wait,” I say, my brows pulling together. “What does Fabiana Fontaine got to do with making a documentary?”

“Absolutely everything, my boy,” Father replies, regarding me as though I’m a cucumber sandwich short of a garden party. “She’s the one who writes about you with razor-sharp precision. Convince her you’re not the hooligan the Ledonian people think you are, and you’ll win the country over.”

“Hooligan? That’s hardly fair.”

“We’ll invite her to the palace with immediate effect. And you, my dear boy, will smile and acquiesce with every bone in your body, charming her so that she thinks you’re the best thing since monarchy was invented.”

“But Fabiana Fontaine? Are you serious? She’s the worst,” I complain.

“Ms. Fontaine is the perfect person for this role, my dear boy. She’s the one writing these stories about you. Wouldn’t it be wonderfully clever to show her the real Maximilien?”

“But Father—” I complain, sounding exactly like a whining seven-year-old who’s been sent to his room for being naughty.

“You’ll change her opinion of you, Max. You have to,” Father says plainly.

I cross my arms over my chest, slumping back in my seat. “She hates me.”

“Darling, listen to yourself. She doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t even know you,” Mummy soothes, her hand on my arm.

Father rises to his full six feet, his features hard and uncompromising. “Can I trust you with this, Max?”

And just like that, any fight I have left in me is sucked right out. There’s no point in arguing with him.

I never win.

“You can trust me, Father,” I reply, my tone flat.

 

Chapter 2

Valentina

 

Living in a house that’s slowly collapsing around you, eventually, you stop noticing the small disasters. The shutter that hangs at a jaunty angle like a wonky eyelid? It adds character. The electrical outlet in the kitchen that occasionally shoots sparks when you plug in the kettle? Ambiance. The stack of final notices by the front door that’s reached architectural proportions? Abstract decor.

Okay, maybe the last example is taking it a step too far.

Over the years. I’ve become remarkably skilled at creative problem-solving. It’s why I excel in my profession. When you’ve spent years figuring out how to shower when the hot water heater subscribes to the “heat erratically” school of thought, writing commentary about people who’ve never had to choose between hot showers and food becomes surprisingly therapeutic.

“Morning, Nona,” I say as I push through her door and step into the darkened room. “I’ve brought your morning coffee and a slice of toast.”

“Thank you, my love,” she replies as she pushes herself up in her statuesque four-poster bed, a relic of an aristocratic past. “Breakfast in bed. What a treat!”

“Anything for my favorite grandmother on a Sunday morning,” I say as I place the breakfast tray on the dressing table and pull the heavy drapes back to let the morning sun pour in.

“I’m your only living grandmother,” she replies with a smile.

“And being alive gives you a distinct advantage in my affections.” I place the tray across her lap and lower myself onto the end of her bed.

She eyes the envelopes on the tray, her white brows pulled together. “More final demand notices, I suppose.”

“We’ll need to pay the electricity bill, but the others will have to wait. Now, you enjoy breakfast. I’m going to get some writing in before I tackle that leaking tap under the kitchen sink.”

“It’s leaking again?”

“Nona, the whole place is falling around our ears. The leaking kitchen tap is the first task on my rather lengthy to-do list for today.”

“You’re such an angel, my darling Val. What would I do without you?”

I smile at my grandmother. “Hold house parties with frat boys?”

“I mean it.”

“I’m just trying to hold it all together, Nona. That’s all.”

She takes a s sip of her tea. “Lovely cup of tea, Val. While you write, I’m going to tackle the weeds in the garden.”

“Just be careful. I don’t want you breaking a hip or something.”

“I might be getting old, but I’m not frail, thank you.”

“You’ve still got it, Nona.” I place a kiss on her forehead. “See you downstairs?”

“In a bit. I’m going to revel in the luxury of breakfast in bed.” She reaches for me, her crepey hand clasping my wrist. “You don’t deserve to have to live this way, Val.”

“Nona, we’ve been through this. It’s not your fault what happened, and we’re fine. Right?”

“Your father always said he was innocent.”

This old tune.

“The evidence was overwhelming. We both know that.”

“What I would do if I met that man in a dark alley…”

I choke out a laugh. “Because the King of Ledonia is always lurking around in dark alleys.”

“It’s an expression, darling. He’s to blame for all this.”

I let out a deep sigh. Nona will always defend her son’s honor, disregarding the evidence against him. Not me. I’ve accepted it. What happened is done. History. And we all know you can’t change history.

I place my hand over hers. “Drink your tea before it gets cold.”

I leave her door ajar and make my way back down the creaking stairs, avoiding the broken step my foot went through last week. I make a mental note to search for a piece of wood in the garden shed later to patch it up.

With my morning brew in hand, I sit down at my desk and crack open my laptop. I’m greeted with an avalanche of emails. This morning’s entertainment provides my daily glimpse into the collective psyche of humanity. Nestled between the usual lottery winnings notifications and urgent pleas from African royalty requiring my immediate financial assistance—does that tired ploy ever work?—I discover a gem. Someone claims they made sourdough last week, and the crust formed what they swear is Prince Maximilien’s face.

Well, at least that’s amusing.

The attached photograph looks remarkably like a poorly formed loaf of bread to me, but if I squint and tilt my head at just the right angle, I can almost make out a rather happy-looking Prince Max. Which, to be fair, captures his default expression nicely.

I could make a fun TikTok with this.

Next there’s an email entitled “Royal Aliens.” T. K. Ross presents a theory that the royal crest includes a constellation of stars not visible from Earth, which he firmly believes shows their extraterrestrial origins, and he fears they may soon summon their cosmic relatives to enslave us all.

Filing that one in the bin.

Not that I’m in a position to complain. I make my living from information, fed to me by a cultivated network of sources who trust me with their gossip, T. K. Ross notwithstanding. My sources come from all walks of life, but one thing they all have in common is access to the royal family, which is why I’m always the one to break the stories first.

From upstairs comes the sound of Nona’s voice, raised in what I prefer to think of as “spirited discussion” with someone about a bill. It’s probably the electric company, though it could be the council about property taxes, or the heating oil supplier.

Our house—Nona’s house, technically—is the image you’d see if you looked up “faded grandeur” in the dictionary. It boasts no less than twelve bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a library, and the most useful of rooms in 21st Century Ledonia: a ballroom complete with a sprung floor.

Not a lot of use for that one.

The heating works in two bedrooms, the plumbing is questionable in all but one of the bathrooms, and even that’s a lottery if you’ll get a water torrent or a mere dribble. The library roof has developed what we optimistically call “ventilation,” requiring a host of buckets to catch drips every time it rains.

The lap of luxury? More like the lap of disrepair.

My workspace occupies what was once an elegant study, complete with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with musty books, and a window overlooking gardens that have long-since been claimed by a terrorist organization of weeds. Nona will need industrial-grade machinery to locate the plants this morning—and a medical degree to resuscitate them.

The house reflects our family’s trajectory rather poetically—once grand, now crumbling, hanging onto dignity through sheer stubborn determination.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the same thing.

As I pad across the study floor, the photograph on the mantelpiece catches my eye. My father, looking impossibly young and happy, captured during what I didn’t know at the time was our golden period.

I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was fifteen years ago now. My world ended with a knock on my dormitory door. The headmistress wore the expression adults adopt when they’re about to obliterate a child’s world with a handful of words.

“I’m afraid there’s been some trouble with your father, Valentina,” Mrs. Walters had said, her expression more pinched than usual. And that was saying a lot. The woman closely resembled a prune.

The “trouble” was splashed across every newspaper and media site in the land the very next day, labelling my father as a traitor. Using his position to steal money from royal charities. My sweet, kind, quirky dad, who, with my mother passing away when I was only four years old, had done what he could to be both dad and mum to me. He sent me care packages to my boarding school as regular as clockwork every week, always sneaking in some extra chocolate. He taught me how to ride a bike, how to throw a cricket ball, and how I should expect to be treated by a boy.

I still have the letter he sent me, telling me he was innocent. I believed him. Of course I did. He was my dad. But the evidence against him was too strong, and over the years, I’ve lost my previous conviction. I love my dad, but everything pointed to him having done it.

We email. Stilted, careful messages where he asks about Nona and I tell him she’s fine. I’ve never told him I’m working as a journalist, that I write about the royal family. Some truths are easier left unsaid.

The last email came two months ago. He called me “piccola”, his childhood nickname for me. Little one. It still has the power to make my chest ache.

I want to forgive him for leaving me behind. I want to believe he’s innocent like Nona does so vehemently. But mostly, I’m just angry that he chose exile over fighting for his name.

Over fighting for me.

He fled Ledonia in the dead of night, leaving behind a scandal that was talked about for years. I was thirteen, suddenly notorious, unwelcome in the world I’d been born into with one brush stroke that sent me to Nona in Villadorata.

The bullies at my new public high school had been creative with their taunts. “Disgraced Daddy’s little princess” was the kindest thing they’d call across the schoolyard. I won’t mention the others. I’d learned to keep my head down.

I adapted. I had to. There was no other choice.

So, I became someone new, someone no one could connect me to.

Change your name, and you can change your life’s trajectory.

The beauty of anonymity is freedom. I can attend events, cultivate sources, write commentary about behavior I understand all too well, and nobody connects me to anything except the byline I’ve created.

My phone rings. Unknown number. It usually means either somebody wants to sell me insurance I can’t afford, or someone has information.

I answer it using my alter ego, hoping for the latter.

“Good afternoon. This is Ronan Clementine, the Director of Communications for His Majesty, King Frederic.”

It’s clearly a prank call.

“Uncle Bertie, I’m busy, you know,” I reply, a smile in my voice.

The man at the other end of the line repeats, “I am not your uncle Bertie. As I said, I’m Ronan Clementine, Director of Communications at the palace. His Majesty requests your presence this afternoon at three o’clock.”

“You’re very good, Uncle Bertie. You sound just like you’ve got a carrot stuck—”

“Miss!” The prim and proper voice cuts me off. “I have been instructed to invite you to the palace today at three o’clock to meet with His Majesty.”

I narrow my eyes, moving the phone from one ear to the other. “You’re not my uncle?”

“I am not.”

“And this isn’t some kind of joke?”

“It’s deadly serious.”

“What does the King want to talk to me about?”

“His Majesty would like to meet with you regarding your recent articles about a particular member of the royal family. This afternoon at three. We’ve spoken with Judith Giovanni, and she gave us the green light to talk directly with you.”

My stomach hollows. They’ve cleared this with my boss.

As if declining an invitation from the King of Ledonia is something people do.

“We can send a car to your residence if you require transport.”

“No, no. That won’t be necessary,” I reply rather hurriedly. The last thing I want is for the royal family to connect the dots between my persona and the real me.

“That’s settled then. Mention your name at the gatehouse. The guards will let you in. Good afternoon.” The line goes dead, his words sliding over me like ice water.

I stare at my phone as though it’s personally betrayed me.

The King wants to talk with me at the palace, a place I haven’t set foot in as my true self since I was thirteen years old. Where my family name is probably still whispered about as a cautionary tale about trust and betrayal.

This is it. It’s all over. Someone’s figured it out. Someone’s connected the dots between my insider knowledge and my actual inside experience.

The King’s going to have me prosecuted. Exposed. The country will know who I really am.

My hands shake as I set the phone down on my desk. Years of building a new identity, of avoiding recognition, and it could all be about to crumble at the hands of the man who destroyed my father.

My phone rings once more, and I almost leap out of my skin.

“Judith, hi,” I say into my phone.

“You’ve spoken with the palace?” she asks.

“I have.”

“And?”

“I’m meeting with them this afternoon, but I’m not sure what they want with me.”

And I’m terrified they’ve worked me out.

“You won’t know by sitting at home on your thumbs. You need to meet with them and find out. You’ve been singled out. It’s an honor.”

Or an execution.

I look around at the water-stained wallpaper, the photograph of my dad and me in our golden moment.

I’ve done what I’ve done to try to survive, to eke out an existence amid the rubble of my family’s downfall.

It’s time to discover what the King wants with Fabiana Fontaine.

 

 

Do you want to read more? Royally Off-Limits is out on November 6th!

It’s $4.99 until release day when it will go up to full price.