“Please take a seat Adelaide,” my grandmother said when I entered the room, gesturing to a couch that looked older than the house and somehow more pristine than the ones you see in a showroom. I crossed the floor and sat down, folding my hands in my lap and trying to ignore my still pounding head as I waited for her to speak.

Her fingertips brushed over a cream coloured linen envelope with a deep red seal and she pressed her lips together. A door closed in the hallway. Probably Ezrah making his way into the bathroom to fix the ‘small leak’ my grandmother had sent him off to fix. Given her jittery attitude, I had the feeling the news I was about to receive wouldn’t be the most fun.

“So, what is it you wanted to speak to me about?” I really just wanted to go back to my bed and sleep for another four hours until things stopped hurting.

“I had hoped to give you more time to settle into this life before I brought this up. But I fear my hand may have been forced by how things are progressing between you and Mr. Bellamy.”

“Mr. Bellamy? You mean Ezrah? Nothing’s progressing except he’s offered to fix the creaking floorboards in my room. I was going to show him where they were and then have him set it up with you.”

Okay, that last part was a little bit of a lie. I was totally going to let him fix it right then because I can’t stand not being able to get out of bed without the whole neighbourhood knowing.

“I’ve seen how the two of you are getting closer in the last weeks,” she continued.

“There is nothing going on. Maybe we’re friends.” I emphasized the word maybe. “But now you have me very worried about what this next twist in my terrible existence is going to be. Like what new ingredient do I have to bake into this weird inheritance pie?”

“Yes, well. Regardless of what is happening with Mr. Bellamy, I feel you deserve the information before either one of you ends up hurt.”

“How could this possibly hurt either one of us? What is happening?” I was trying to keep composed, but it was becoming more difficult by the minute. Is all this build up really necessary?

“I have something for you.” She smoothed the letter out and handed it to me. I flipped it over in my hands and saw my name on the front in some of the nicest calligraphy I’d ever seen outside of a museum.

“It’s a letter?” I looked up at her to find her back turned as she shuffled through a drawer beside the couch she was sitting on. “But it’s not from either of my parents so I don’t know what kind of bomb you could possibly drop on me. Are you about to tell me I was adopted? Do I secretly have a great-grandfather who’s in line for the throne or something?”

“Not quite,” she said, turning around holding a small box. “But you aren’t far off.” She took a deep breath and her shoes made a clunk sound each time she stepped toward me.

Silently, she handed me the deep blue box. Her mouth opened as though she had something to say so I waited, watching her until she turned around and stood in the doorway with her back to me.

My body was itching with the uncertainty and pulsating with the anxiety so I flipped open the box to see the most beautiful engagement ring I had ever seen. It was a delicate, thin band of metal with a cluster of gems in the centre: a diamond surrounded by emeralds and smaller diamonds in a sort of oblong shape moving from a large center toward a single gem on each side, as though the large gem were trying to blend into the slender band by stretching itself out as a raindrop does when it falls from the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. “But whose was it? And why am I receiving it now? And what does this have to do with Ezrah? We met like a month ago, Grandmother, I’m not about to go off and get engaged.”

“You already are,” she spat out, still refusing to look at me. “You already are engaged.” She turned toward me and her face contorted, whether out of pain or confusion or what else, I could not tell.

“I am engaged? I can’t be engaged.”

“That ring is yours. Your parents arranged the whole thing shortly after you were born, I’m afraid. I didn’t find out myself until the will was discussed with me not two years ago. You were supposed to find out last summer. We invented a conference to get your here.”

“I remember,” I whispered. I remembered it all. “But how could they do this and not tell me?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you do, dear. I wish I could explain more. I know that letter is from the young man but I haven’t read it so when you do, you will know everything I know and then some. I’m sorry, I thought you needed to know.” She moved toward me and then stopped, as though wondering if her presence would be welcomed.

I couldn’t care less whether she sat beside me or not. My brain was outright refusing to process the information she had just shared. There was no way I had understood correctly. Absolutely no way.

And yet, my finger slid under the seal marked with a coat of arms and then unfolded the letter into my lap.

My dearest Adelaide, it began. Your dearest? You don’t know me! Unless you do.

“Grandmother?” I looked up from the letter for a moment to locate her pacing in front of a small window near the fireplace. “Who is it exactly that I am engaged to?”

“Does the letter not say?” she asked, crossing the floor to sit beside me on the delicate couch. “I assumed it would. His name is Edward, Duke of Kendal.” She mumbled the last part, but I think I caught most of it.

“A duke?” Something between a laugh and the sound a goose makes slipped from between my lips. I guess Ezrah was right, I certainly would get to meet a Duke one day.

“Yes. A duke. And--”

“And does the duke have a last name?” I asked, flipping the letter over in my hand, unable to locate anything beyond the name Edward.

“No.”

“How can a person not have a last name?”

And then it hit me. Growing up in Canada I’d been somewhat removed from the realities of the English nobility, but not from the monarchy. And I knew there was one group of people who did not have last names.

“His grandfather is the king.”

“But he’s not, like, in line for the whole thing, right?”

She didn’t have to say anything.

“So this Edward is…” I didn’t have to say anything either.

“He is second in line to the throne, yes. A prince.”

“Then why does he want to marry me?” I still have no idea why that was my first thought. Perhaps there were more shocking things that occurred that day, but that one seemed to be the only one I was equipped to handle.

There’s no way I’m actually engaged. Is there?