A quick note about…

The Drunken Poker Game That Got Out of Hand

 

Twenty-five years ago, Duke Alfred Olsen, King Diarmuid’s best friend, and Diarmuid got very drunk one night while playing poker. As they often did. This night however, Diarmuid was out of money. You might ask how a king runs out of money. And that is a fair question. That no one has been able to answer and that Diarmuid won’t address even to this day.

But, as the story goes, because he had nothing left to bid, Diarmuid needed ‘something of value’ to stay in the game.

So he bet one of his grandsons. 

Yes, a grandson.

Not even a specific one. He had three and any one of them would do. Of course, the one that would be King someday was most valuable.

And what did Alfred intend to do with this grandson if he was to win?

Marry him to off to one of Alfred’s granddaughters, of course. He has two.

And Alfred did win.

And Alfred’s oldest granddaughter, Linnea, was informed at age four that she would grow up to be a princess and then, someday, a queen!

Linnea embraced this news as any four-year-old would—as if it was gospel—and grew up to be a sophisticated, polished, intelligent, beautiful woman who will make an excellent queen.

 

But what she didn’t know until she was seventeen and her would-be fiancé fled the country, was that the entire agreement—all fifteen words of it, including their signatures— is written out on the back of a playbill, and the words are smudged by spilled whiskey. 

Still, the family lawyer has informed everyone who asks (and that is a great many people) that it’s completely legal and enforceable since the men both signed it in front of witnesses. Of course, that lawyer is also a very good friend of Alfred’s and owes him money from another poker game. And is the son of a judge.

The most important fact in all of this, however, is that in Cara, there’s no need for lawyers and judges. King Diarmuid is the law. So the “contract” is enforceable in the stupid, archaic way that anything having to do with royal families is enforceable: with expectations heaped onto everyone from an early age, much manipulation, a lot of money, and a pretty good dose of guilt.

So now that Declan has left Cara, and Torin is set to be the next king, he and Linnea are “engaged”. At least as far as both families are concerned.

Whether Torin and Linnea like it or not.