guess I’m confused,” Princess Christina said.
“Then it must be Wednesday,” Alex replied, not looking up from her travel itinerary.
“Ha, ha, Princess Sarcasto. Look, don’t get me wrong, I think a change of scenery is just the thing. Just exactly the right thing. God knows it always cheered me up.”
“Do you miss working for the cruise line?”
“No,” Christina replied shortly. “And don’t change the subject. You’re not a marine biologist. You’re not even—I mean, your specialty is—okay, this is kind of embarrassing, I’m trying to remember, I’m sure I read about this a couple of years ago—what did you do in college?”
“I have a degree in Nursing.”
“Oh. Right. Well, good for you. But you’re not going to a new hospital, right? I guess I’m saying, what’s the point of you going along on this little joyride?”
“Other than your sinister plan to remove me from the palace so you can further destroy royal protocol?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
“Working on Alaskan/American relations.”
“But America and Alaska get along.”
“Yes. And it’s like any relationship. It needs constant tending. Such tending is part of our job—your job, too, I might add. So I’ll go along and smile big and answer questions and oversee funds and smash champagne bottles on things. It’s a fluff trip. This looks fine, Jenny.” Alex scribbled her initials on the bottom of the pages and handed it back to the protocol officer.
“I’ll finalize the preps at once, Your Highness.”
“Jenny, my God! Are those slacks?” Christina, frozen in the act of popping a grape into her mouth, gaped.
The protocol officer, a woman Alex privately thought was an astonishingly efficient sloe-eyed beauty, blushed to her eyebrows. “I was taking Your Highness’s advice, but if Your Highness feels I am dressed inappropriately for palace duty—”
“Which one of us Highnesses are you talking to? And calm down, I was only teasing. Grape? Look, it’s okay. I’m sorry I even said anything, please relax.” Christina bullied the smaller brunette into a chair. “Breathe, okay? Hey, you look great. Doesn’t she look great, Alex?”
“You look great, Jenny,” she repeated obediently, using all of her poker experience not to smile. Jenny really did look a little stressed…but then, she always did. Palace life was not without anxiety, no matter what the job or title. “I like the pants.”
“Thank you, Highness.”
“You should wear green all the time,” Christina commented. The moment she released the other woman’s elbow, Jenny sprang back to her feet. “It makes your eyes look even bigger and darker. And you should take tranquilizers. All the time.”
“If you’d leave her alone, she wouldn’t need the tranks,” Alex commented, picking up The Palace Poop, the in-house newsletter advising everyone from the reigning king down to the groundskeepers of birthdays, anniversaries, scheduled softball games, and royal comings and goings. The newsletter had been Christina’s idea. “Dad told you to quit needling the officers.”
“What, ‘needling’? I’m just trying to get everyone to lighten up around here. Which is not very damned easy, by the way. I mean, look at you. All stiff and starched and dressed to the nines to eat pudding. And not even chocolate pudding. Tapioca. It’s eleven thirty in the morning on a Tuesday, and Jenny’s all dressed up—it’s still a suit, even if it’s slacks—to hand you some papers. Also, we’re totally pretending that you didn’t conk out at the christening this weekend. Lame.”
“Protocol,” Jenny corrected.
“And what’s that stuff on the speaker, Jenn?”
“Beethoven’s Fifth,” she answered, as both women knew she would—Jenny was a fiend for classical music.
“You call that lunchtime music?”
“How could you not recognize it?” Alex asked. “It’s one of the most famous pieces of music in the world.”
“It sucks. Put on some Stones.”
“Not even if you threatened to cut off my hands,” Jenny said, showing some backbone for a change.
“That’s more like it,” Christina said approvingly. “Everybody’s gotta relax around here. That’s all I’m saying.”
Alex wanted to say something bitchy yet cutting like “the Alaskan royal family got along fine before you got here” but, of course, that wasn’t exactly true. Instead, she held up her empty dessert plate. Instantly, a footman—footwoman, rather—took it from her. What was her name? Something that rhymed with Harry. Mary? Terry? No…it was so hard to remember the new ones…
“Thank you, Carrie.”
“You’re welcome, Your Highness. Something else?”
“No, that’s fine. Maybe a little more to drink.”
She and Chris were enjoying an early lunch; the rest of the family was out and about on various official duties. Alex knew she wouldn’t get rid of Christina for a bit; her sister-in-law was deep in Concern Mode.
“Where’s Dara?” she asked, changing the subject and smiling a thank-you as her glass of milk was refilled by another footman.
“With her dad in the penguin room. I guess they’re keeping an eye on a nest and it’s supposed to explode or hatch or whatever any second. It’s hard work, getting fish guts out of a toddler’s hair.”
Alex grinned. “Thankfully your problem, not mine. She slept late this morning.”
“Yeah…” Christina’s hazel eyes were narrow and she was chewing on her lower lip. Her blond hair, recently cut to ear-length, was typically disheveled and she wore her usual outfit of jeans and a white work shirt, no socks, beat-up loafers. Other than the grooms, she was the most casually dressed person on palace grounds “Yeah, that’s—I’m not gonna be distracted, by the way. Listen, not that I’m complaining, but don’t you think this sort of—of errand or whatever—would be a better job for David?”
Her oldest brother, the Crown Prince, was also Dr. Baranov, with a doctorate in marine biology. Christina was irritating, but right. Which, of course, only made her more irritating. “Yes.”
“Well, how come the king didn’t ask him to go?”
Alex almost didn’t answer. Jenny, who was sitting at the other end of the table to do paperwork (Baranov family protocol was a great deal looser than, say, Windsor family protocol) instantly looked twice as absorbed. Her posture gave off No, I’m not hearing a word, not a single word, don’t give me a thought vibrations, in the manner of skilled officials the world over.
Alex looked at the top of Jenny’s dark head for a long moment, thoughtfully tapped her fruit knife on the edge of the plate, then said, “Because David has a happy, fulfilled, wonderful life and he doesn’t want
