Page 5 of The Duke's Virgin
“I should probably keep this short,” I muttered to myself, staring out over the throng of bodies already filling the dance floor.
My younger brother’s engagement ball. I was still having a hard time believing that he would be married soon.
He had always been the more social one, so it shouldn’t be such a surprise, but I had been so busy over the past few years that time had slipped away from me. How had he matured so quickly? When had it even started to happen?
I knew the answer, though.
I’d seen the change, practically overnight.
It had been just over two years ago at a funeral for one of my close friends. Brooding, I rested my hands on the balustrade and stared hard into the crowd without seeing a single soul. The death of the Heredity Prince of Liechtenstein had hit my brother harder than it had hit me.
Marcel and I had been friends. Geraint, though…well, he’d idolized Marcel. We were close, my brother and me, but there was something akin to hero worship about the way he’d always looked at Marcel.
Then just like that, Marcel was gone.
Maturity had come on my younger brother hard and fast after that. Of course, so had love.
He’d met Katrina Von Brandt before. The younger sister of the two Von Brandt brothers, the girl was bright, sweet, and cheerful, and had half of Europe eating out of her palm.
She hadn’t realized it, but within a few short hours, she’d had my little brother doing the same thing.
He’d waited nearly a year before approaching her, out of respect for her loss, but since then, the two of them had been all but attached at the hip.
Now, they were getting married.
I went to push away from the banister but stopped as an idea occurred to me. My brother as a father. I started to laugh, but the sound faded before it fully formed, and an odd, hollow ache settled in my chest instead.
Gazing down in the mass of bodies, I searched for him. It wasn’t hard to pick my brother out of the crowd, even with the mask. It helped that I had seen him leaving his quarters earlier and knew what he wore. Plus, his bride-to-be had a head of pale, almost white-gold hair that was unmistakable.
They swung by almost directly below me only seconds after I’d spotted them, her full, wide skirt swirling out around her.
As they moved away from me, lost to the rhythm of the music and each other, it was impossible to miss how ridiculously happy they looked together.
Watching them, I was certain of one thing. They’d want to make a happy little family, sooner rather than later. It seemed like every royal on the continent was required to produce a baby within a year of marriage.
My parents were no doubt looking at me discreetly and wondering when I would get with the program. Not that I was old. I hadn’t hit thirty yet, but I had no doubt they were starting to wonder.
At least if Geraint and Katrina got down to business, my parents would have a grandbaby to fuss over soon, there’d be another potential heir, and I would be off the hook for a while.
But they’d go back to it.
Back to wondering.
For the first time, I found myself doing the same thing.
“Stop it,” I muttered.
Sooner or later, I’d have to find a wife and produce an heir myself, unless I wanted to let Geraint’s future offspring become the next to inherit. Not that I minded the idea, but a country tended to look upon their leadership more securely if the current monarch had a direct heir.
Well, at least those few countries that still had monarchs.
Like mine. And even though I wasn’t in a hurry, sooner was probably better.
For now, though, I wanted to enjoy spending time wandering around, having a drink, and having not a fucking soul realize who in the hell I was.
Three
Stacia
