About twenty minutes after Carter and I had come into the playroom, where the television's volume was low and we were doing more talking than watching, a couple maids came into the room. They set up a table and then let us know that dinner would be coming in just under ten minutes. Carter told them thank you before the maids disappeared once the table had been set. I watched as Carter stood up and then held out his hand.

After taking his hand, Carter helped me up and then led me over to the table. He let go of my hand when we reached one of the chairs, which were across from one another and tucked underneath a small square table. I had never thought that the royal family had extra tables stored somewhere in their palace, but maybe they didn't always use the grand dining room that I had yet to see.

"Thank you," I said to Carter as he pulled my chair out and then let me sit down before helping me push in my chair. He went over to the second chair, pulled it out, and then sat down in it as he said, "Of course."

"Are your siblings' rooms nearby yours?" I asked him. He nodded his head as he took the napkin off of the table and then spread it over his lap. I did the same as he replied, "Their rooms aren't right next to mine, which is nice because sometimes they can be loud, but they're close enough that I don't have to go too far to find them."

"How old are they again? One of them is five, right?" I asked. If I were Emma, then I would know for sure, but since I wasn't, I couldn't exactly remember how old Carter's siblings were. I just knew that they were younger than him and that they weren't close in age.

"Yes, Amanda is the one who is five and Brian is ten. I'm sure you can relate to your younger sister more than I can, but I know we both can't relate to our younger brothers. I think they would like each other though. Brian's not one to get into too much mischief, that's my parents doing, but I'm sure two ten year old boys could find something in common," Carter said smiling at me.

I gave him a smile back and then said, "Sometimes I can relate to Jade and then there are other times I can't. Twenty and sixteen are two different ages, but I definitely can't relate to my younger brother. He's not interested in anything I'm interested in. Logan gets along with any kid that's around his age though. He seems to always find something in common with them."

"Did I get his age right?" Carter asked me. I shook my head and then said, "Logan's twelve, but he could still be ten in some people's eyes."

The maids came back just then, but there were more than just two of them this time. Both Carter and I fell silent as we watched them bring in dinner. All the dishes that they sat down on the table were covered with silver lids. And those lids didn't come off until the maids had sat everything in their place. It was obvious that the maids had done this many times before. None of them got in the way of any of the others. And they were quick.

That was probably the queen's doing. She didn't want to be in the same room as anyone who was below her so the servants came in and did what they needed to do unless the queen actually wanted them to stay in the room, like the one servant who had served us tea.

"If you need anything your highness, then please don't hesitate to ask," a maid, who I was guessing was the oldest, said to Carter. Her hair was slightly graying and she was rounder than the others. She gave off a motherly kind of vibe as I watched her.

It didn't seem like any of the other maids resented that she was older nor did it seem like the older maid resented the younger ones. From the short time they were in the room, I noticed they had smiled at one another and seemed to work well with one another without even needing to say a word.

"Thank you. We'll let you know if we need anything," Carter said smiling and giving the woman a nod. She turned her head towards the others, gave them a nod before all of the maids grabbed two lids with their two hands and then disappeared out of the room.

"That was kind of impressive," I said as I picked up a fork to stab one of the chickens on a large platter. It had mushrooms surrounding it so once I had taken a chicken, I scooped up some mushrooms as best I could with the fork I was using.

"What do you mean?" Carter asked as his eyebrows scrunched together.

"They didn't mess up once," I replied.

"I don't think that should surprise you. My mother only keeps the best," Carter said as he reached for a chicken after I had handed him over a fork.

"I'm actually quite surprised they didn't serve the food onto our plates," I replied.

"If we were eating with my parents, then you would have gotten a plate with food already on it, but since we're not, we get to choose how much we want and what we want to eat," Carter said smiling at me. I smiled back at him, reaching for the spoon that was stuck in the mash potatoes.

After dishing out some mash potatoes onto my plate, I handed the spoon over to Carter, who in return put more mash potatoes onto his plate than I had, and then grabbed the spoon for the green beans that the maids had brought in. There was also some bread on the table, which I took some of once I had enough green beans on my plate. Once I had buttered my bread, I started eating. Carter had already started eating his dinner by the time I took the first bite. It was definitely not surprise that the food was great.

Like Carter said, his mother only wanted the best and I knew that came to everything that was in her palace. If she actually wanted to do everything herself, then I knew that she wouldn't have any servants at all, but she was a woman who loved being waited on, which meant that she had to deal with people who weren't her kind.

There was probably a very good amount of people who were good people that worked in the palace even though they didn't come from a wealthy family. Just because they had less and came from less, didn't mean they weren't good people. But that didn't matter to someone like Carter's mother. And I didn't think it would ever matter to her. I couldn't see a woman like her changing. Ever. It would take one enormous wake up call to make her see eye to eye with people who weren't brought up the same way.

She may not have always been royalty, but she did come from a very wealthy family. There was no way she was going to go down the ladder when she had been used to a certain lifestyle all her life.

"Do you want to go home after we finish dinner?" Carter asked us a few minutes after we had both started eating our dinner. It sounded like he was hoping that I was going to say no.

I did want to go home, but that was only because I didn't want to have to deal with the queen. That was something that I couldn't avoid forever, but there was a good chance that I wasn't going to see her again for the rest of the night.

Plus, I was really hoping to meet Carter's siblings, spend some more time with Carter and maybe even get a tour of the palace. This place was so big and I was curious to see every single room in the palace. And what they're used for.

"No, I want to stay. We just won't run into your mother, right?" I asked him.

Carter shook his head as he was cutting up his chicken so he could eat more of it and said, "She's probably on the other side of the palace right now. I don't go on my parents' side of the palace unless I absolutely have to. My mother probably won't be seen around the palace until you're gone anyways. At least that's what I'm guessing. Even though she planned this dinner, she wasn't looking forward to it and I'm sure she was happy that we went off to have dinner on our own instead of having it with her and my father. I'd hear her complaining about it sometimes."

"Does that mean you can't give me a tour of the palace?" I asked him.

"I could show you most of the palace, but there's no way I can show my parents' floor of the palace or any rooms that belong to my mother. She'd throw a fit," Carter said before putting a piece of chicken in his mouth and then starting to chew it up.

"That's fine. And maybe by the time we're done your siblings will be back and I can meet them before they have to go to bed," I replied smiling at him.

He smiled back and then said, "Of course. I'll have Diane let us know when they're back. I can't imagine that they'll be gone for too much longer. My mother doesn't let them go out that much either especially since there's a park built in the backyard for them, but since you're here I guess she made an exception."

"How big is this palace?" I asked him.

"Way too big," he replied.

Carter's answer was probably a whole lot different than his mother's answer would be. It was still hard to believe sometimes that Carter didn't end up the way his parents did. I hadn't quite figured out what had made sure that he hadn't ended up like either of his parents. They had raised him and had taught him everything so why wasn't he just like his parents? Why was he sitting here with me and not some princess or some other wealthy young woman? Unless Carter hadn't actually been raised by his parents.

Sure, they probably made decisions about what was going to happen with Carter's life, but maybe they hadn't been the ones who had tucked him in at night or scolded him for doing something wrong. It wasn't hard to imagine that his parents hadn't hired a nanny to take care of their children. The queen and king weren't the ones who had taken their two youngest children to the park today. And I was pretty sure that they never did that.

***

Almost an hour later after Carter and I had finished dinner and he had talked to Diane, Carter took my hand and then led me back down the hallway we had come. We went back to the hallway where his room was located once we reached it and Carter let me look in every room that was down that hallway, telling me before I had entered the first one that they were all bedrooms, most of them unused unless there were guests staying at the palace. Despite the fact that the king and queen's floor of the palace was above us, there were quite a few grand rooms that any one of them could be used by the king and queen.

But then I guess that would mean that the king and queen would have to want to be near their children. Carter wasn't sure if it had always been like this. One floor belonging to the heirs to the throne and the other floor belonging to the king and queen. He just knew that's how it had always been for him and his family.

"How many floors are there to the palace? It looks like there might be more than three, but it's hard to tell from the outside," I asked Carter as we left the bedroom wing, as he called it, and headed towards the staircase. He had told me that we were going back to the first floor so I could see everything that was downstairs.

"Three. Top floor belongs to my parents," he replied as we reached the grand staircase and started walking down it.

"At least with your parents having their own floor, that means that you and your siblings get your own floor as well," I said. He chuckled and then said, "It used to be just my floor before Brian and Amanda came along."

"That must have been fun as a kid, having a floor all to yourself," I said watching him carefully.

I had brought up his childhood a couple times, but he had never elaborated that much on it to tell me what it had been like. Without too much information about his childhood, I was having a hard time figuring out why he hadn't ended up like his parents or if his childhood had been good or not. I was hoping that there were some happy memories there, but with the way he wasn't giving that much away, I had a good feeling that he didn't like thinking about his childhood that much because he didn't have that many happy memories from his childhood.

The only thing that he had mentioned to me, which had been just after we met, was that his parents used to take him out a lot more than they do now. And then they eventually stopped. I couldn't remember though if he had ever said why, but there was a good possibility that he didn't even know the answer to that question.

"It was fun for awhile, but then it kind of got lonely. I didn't have any siblings to play with for a long time and then by the time that I did get a sibling, I was just about nine. By the time Brian was old enough to play games, like hide and seek, I had outgrown those games and had become interested in things that he wasn't interested in. I still played with him every once in awhile, but it wasn't like I had hoped it would be. How much older is Zach?"

"He's three years older than me. Almost four. If I had been born after November 14th, then he'd be four years older than me," I replied.

"I missed your birthday," Carter said stopping and looking over at me.

"That wasn't your fault," I replied. To be honest, I hadn't really minded that Carter hadn't been there for my birthday. I had never expected him to show up because I knew his mother would never give him the chance. That didn't mean that I wouldn't have wanted him there.

I definitely would have been happy if Carter had been able to show up for my birthday, but many months had passed by since I had last seen him so I hadn't expected him to show up for my birthday.

"I could have sent you something. It wasn't like there wasn't a way to do that," he said with a guilty look on his face as I stopped too and turned to face him.

"Wouldn't your mother have known if you had tried to contact me?" I asked him.

"Yeah, but I don't think she would have read too much into a birthday card or maybe she would have, but I could still have sent you one," he responded.

"Well, I am going to have another birthday next year so you can make it up to me then," I said.

"I'll definitely do that," Carter said smiling at me and then leaning in to give me a kiss.

When he pulled away, I smiled back at him before saying, "Speaking of birthdays, what did you want to do for yours? You haven't mentioned anything about that. And it's getting really close to your birthday since March is almost over now. There are like, what six days to your birthday? It's the twenty-sixth of March, right? I think today's the twentieth."

"Yes, there's six days until my birthday. And usually there's a ball held for birthdays of royalty so that's probably going to be how I spend my birthday," Carter said slowly. He sounded kind of unsure if he was actually having a ball to celebrate his birthday.

"Oh," I said. That was probably something Emma would have mentioned to me many times before when Carter's birthday had come around. I knew that also meant that since his birthday was only a few days away, this ball had been in the works for awhile. Which also meant that the invitations had already gone out. Probably long before Carter had come back in my life.

"My mother hasn't said anything about whether or not you're allowed to come. Maybe that thought hasn't even crossed her mind. I know this dinner only happened was because she wanted the media to think that she and my father were being somewhat civil about me and you dating and they needed to show that you had met them. I actually haven't heard anything about the ball and she's usually talking about it by now," Carter said as if the last thought had just come to him.

Carter's mother probably wasn't going to win any mother of year awards anytime soon, but I knew that the queen wouldn't pass up the chance to throw a ball. There was always talk around town when a ball was coming up. Those who got to go, loved gossiping about how grand and exciting they were. They would also mention how the queen loved showing off whenever she threw a ball because sometimes those balls didn't really have a reason as to why they were being thrown. Sometimes the queen just wanted to throw a ball because she felt like it.

So, when there was an actual reason to throw a ball, like her son's twenty-first birthday, you'd think that there would be one being planned and everyone would be talking about it. And I didn't think that I had heard anything about a ball being talked around me.

"Would your mother ever pass up the chance to give a ball? From what I've heard, she loves throwing balls even if there's not an occasion to do it," I said as Carter put his arm around my waist to guide me towards a doorway that we had stopped nearby after coming down the grand staircase. We had turned around after coming down the staircase but had stopped to talk when Carter realized that he had missed my birthday.

"No, she wouldn't. Maybe she is planning one and she just hasn't said anything about it yet. I know she's not one for surprises, but there's no way she wouldn't plan a ball for my birthday even if it meant you had to come. It would look bad if she didn't throw one," Carter said.

"Unless she decided to do something different for your birthday this year," I said shrugging my shoulders and looking around the room we had just entered.

"What do you mean?" Carter asked me as I looked around the dining room. It was probably a bit large for a dining room, but this was a house where royalty lived and everything was going to be more over the top than a normal house.

"Well maybe with me coming, she decided that it would be better to have a private celebration. I can't imagine that all your friends and your parents' friends would be happy to have me there. I'd only be one lower class woman, but I'm sure no one, but you of course, wants to have me there even if I'm dating you. Your parents may be going along with this for their own reasons, but that doesn't mean that everyone else in the upper class is going to go along with it," I replied as I walked over to a large cabinet with dishes in it.

There wasn't any dust in sight, but I had a feeling that these dishes were only for display not for dining. They looked old, but somehow they still looked new. The dishes were probably once used long ago until someone in the royal family decided that they needed to be preserved instead of kept being used. I felt Carter come over to stand next to me as I looked over all the details on each of the dishes. They all seemed to be different sceneries of nature. I had to admit they were quite pretty.

The dishes were probably also quite expensive so I was careful not to touch the cabinet at all. I'd probably never be allowed back in the palace if I broke something. It would be just the excuse the queen needed to never invite me back here.

"I don't know how my friends feel because I don't get to see them that often, but I know that my parents' friends don't agree with my parents' decision to let me date you. Then again, they probably don't exactly know why my parents agreed to let me date you because if they did then they probably would stand to be around you," Carter said. He had been keeping his voice low the whole time we had been walking around and I had been doing the same. It wouldn't be a surprise if there was someone trying to listen to our conversation.

"Why don't you get to see your friends that often?" I asked him confused. You'd think that Carter's parents would let other wealthy people come over, especially ones that were Carter's age so that he could mingle with people who were in the same social class as him instead of finding friends who weren't in the same social class as him.

"I don't really know. I only really see them at social events," he replied shrugging his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry that your parents have given you such a lonely life. I guess being a prince isn't all that it's cracked up to be, huh?" I said reaching out to touch his shoulder. He looked over at me and gave me a smile but didn't say anything. He didn't really need to.

I could tell that his parents had done quite a number on him, but I couldn't figure out why they had sheltered him so much. Were they protecting him from someone? Or where they just scared that people on the outside were going to influence him in a way they didn't want him to be influenced? The king and queen were a lot more complex than I had ever imagined. They also seemed to have a lot more secrets than you'd think a king and queen would have. Carter's parents just didn't shut him out from the world, they shut themselves out as well.

I didn't remember a lot about how things were when I was younger, but I knew that over the years things had changed with the king and queen. They, of course, still came out of the palace once in awhile, but it was a lot less than they used to. It was almost like they were afraid of letting the people get to know them.

Like they were worried that whatever they were hiding, it would show on their faces every time that they left the palace so they didn't leave unless they had to.

"You said your parents used to take you out more. When did that change?" I asked Carter as we left the dining room and headed into another sitting room. There were more couches in this room, but unlike the room we had first gone for tea, there were bookshelves in this room, filled with books and little objects.

Something I had noticed as we went through each room, any pictures that were in the room where only of the king and queen or they were a painting of some sort. It was almost like Carter and his siblings didn't exist. I hadn't seen a picture of them anywhere or one of the whole family.

"About a year after Amanda was born," Carter said.

"Did something happen one time when you were out with your parents? Did someone try to attack them or anything like that?" I asked him.

"What are you getting at?" he asked me. I shrugged my shoulders and then said, "I was just trying to figure out why your parents decided to shut you and your family away. I know that you and your family still make appearances, but it's not like it used to be, right?"

"No, it's definitely not like it used to be, but if you're thinking that they became more sheltered because someone made an attempt to assassinate one of them, then I don't know. I don't ever remember something like that happening when I was with them, but it could have happened when me and my siblings weren't with them," he replied shrugging his shoulders as well.

The only people who had the answer to why the king and queen had stopped so many appearances and letting their children have a normal life that any royalty had were the king and queen themselves. Unless there was someone, a servant perhaps, that had worked here when things had changed. It would have to be a servant who was willing to talk to me though. And I wasn't quite sure if one who knew the king and queen's secrets would be willing to talk to me. They were probably were very loyal to the king and queen.