patient and kind woman.”
“Uh-huh.” She grabbed a hank of hair and chewed on it. A loathsome habit he needed to break her of before she appeared in front of television cameras. “Hey, Edmund, can I ask you something?”
“You mean, something else?”
“Yeah, yeah. How come you’re doing this? Aren’t there, like, a zillion underlings here in the palace who could be doing this? Tell me you wouldn’t rather be just about anywhere else.” She added in a mutter he heard perfectly well, “God knows I would.”
“I lost the coin toss,” he said, striving for the right note of cool disdain. She really was quite something. He had seen instantly why the king had been charmed, and why David had dropped his I-don’t-care-who-I-marry pose. She would be a splendid queen, if he could get her to lend an attentive ear.
And naturally, such a vitally important job could not go to just anyone. He would oversee her education himself. Even if it killed him. “Now. Again—oyster fork, soup spoon, marrow scoop, fish knife, entrée knife, main course knife, salad knife—”
“—fruit knife, dessert spoon, dessert fork, and a partridge in a pear tree!”
He stared at her, completely surprised. “Oh. Oh! Well, that’s very good. Ah…if you understood all along, then why…?”
“Well, I’ll tell you…I just can’t resist yanking your chain.” She tipped her chair back (French Louis XIV, circa 1860, listed for $972 Alaskan at Sotheby’s) and grinned at him. “What do you think of that, Eds?”
“Edmund.”
“Whatever. What’s next on my agenda from hell?”
“You have a history lesson in thirty minutes with our palace historian.”
The legs hit the carpet with a thump. “History lessons?”
“If you are to be a member of the royal family, it’s important you know something of Alaskan history.”
“Can’t you just pick up that fruit fork and stick it in my eye instead?”
“It would be improper before dessert is served, my lady. After history, you’ll be meeting with Horrance, your wedding gown designer. We try to use local artisans whenever possible,” he added, pretending she was remotely interested in an explanation, “to aid the economy.”
“Super. As long as he doesn’t stick any pins in my ass. Then?”
“Then lunch with the prince and the king. Then a meeting with the caterer. Then the florist. Then—”
“Eds, how come I have to do all this stuff? (A) where’s David, and (B) you’d be so much better at it.”
“(A) David is in Allen Hall, doing the morning feeding, and he will be joining you, and (B) that’s very true, but it’s not my wedding, is it, my lady?”
“Don’t call me that, I hate that. Call me Chris.”
He looked down his nose at her. “I think not.”
“Fine, Chris-teen-uh then. Anything but My Dork-o Lady.”
“My lady jests, pretending she will not have a title all her life.”
“Also, it really creeps me out when you talk about me in the third person. Seriously. Don’t do that.”
For the first time all morning, Edmund cracked a smile. “Nobody likes it. Thus, I do it as often as I can.”
“Well, how would Edmund like it if I talked about him in the third person? Doesn’t Edmund think that’s fucked up?”
“No. Edmund doesn’t. Now, if my lady has tired of etiquette lessons, why don’t we cover something you might find more relevant?”
“Yeah, why don’t we? What’s on your fiendish mind, Eds?”
“Only this.” He paused delicately. Christina’s eyebrows arched, disappearing under her bangs, a gratifying sign of her full attention. “You must always be wary of the name Domonov.”
“That’s Queen Dara’s maiden name.”
He could not mask his surprise. “You know?”
She yawned behind her palm. “Us magazine.”
“Ah. Well, contrary to the lurid interpretations of the American press—”
“Whoa, whoa, easy on the America bashing, pal.” “—Her Majesty the Queen was not a bloodthirsty cannibal with a stone for a heart.”
“I think ‘bloodthirsty cannibal’ is redundant.” “At any rate, the queen’s family is slightly…unreasonable…on the subject of His Highness Prince Nicholas.”
Her eyebrows arched still higher. “Oh-ho.” “Furthermore, they have no love for their king and have tried many times to strike at him, any way they can.”
She frowned. “Um, okay, that sucks, but how come Al doesn’t toss them in the clink?”
Privately, Edmund thought that was an excellent question. “The king would, but as he is still very fond of his late consort, his heart is soft toward her family and the Domonov in question is soon released. Also, the king may have said something along the lines of, ‘I can take care of my own damn self—I don’t need the courts to help me.’”
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