Mallory did a quick zip around the room, picking up a wrap, a clutch, the iPad, and the phone. “Here you go. Remember, I’m only a text or a call away if you need me. Or, more importantly, if someone is wearing a really hideous outfit and you need me to snark about it on your behalf.”
“I wish you could come with me.” Kelsey froze, mere steps from the door. She gave each of these official appearances the same combination of disdain and fear that used to mark the first day of a new school year. The fact that people looked up to her, wanted to just be in the room with her, still didn’t sit right at all. And that snowballed into the fear that they’d be let down once they did meet her. Disappointed in what was, until May, an average American woman.
Gah. She wanted to be there to back up Kelsey. They’d always been an inseparable team. But Mallory forced lightness into her voice and a reassuring smile onto her lips. “This isn’t a huge event. No entourage needed, I promise, or you bet I’d be exactly one and a half steps behind and a little to your left.”
“But what will you do tonight?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
Another night holed up in her suite watching Netflix? She’d done enough of that recovering after her injury. If she went down to the family dining room, she’d be alone with Kelsey’s real family. Her aunt was nice, but her grandmother was downright scary. And even though it was just family, meals with them felt formal and forced.
Life in a palace was definitely not the fairy-tale existence she’d always pictured.
“If I told you, you’d be jealous. You might try and weasel your way out of going to have the awesomeness of hanging with me. So get out of here. Princess Kelsey won’t ever be late on my watch.” With a hug, she shooed her sister down the hallway.
It was only a few steps farther—relatively— into her own suite of rooms. As soon as Mallory shut the door behind her, the quiet hit like a wall. The pale blue-tasseled canopy that matched the floor-to-ceiling drapes muffled all sound. It couldn’t be more different than the squawks and honks and yells that had punctuated their brief time in Manhattan.
She might as well be in a damask, tasseled coffin.
At least her hospital bed had the beeps of the IV and the pulse-ox monitor. Sheesh.
This couldn’t be the sum total of her nights alone for the next six months. That was how long she’d promised Kelsey to stay and give living in this country a go. If she would’ve been brave enough to take on Manhattan? She could darn well take on the capital city of a European country the size of Maine.
Mallory grabbed her cell phone off its charger and dialed the communications center for the Royal Protection Service. “Klaus, let’s blow this pop stand.”
“I don’t understand, Miss Wishner. You want to blow something up? Unless it’s a balloon, we frown on that sort of thing.”
Moncriano took in most of its income from tourism, so the citizens were amazingly fluent in English. Except for idioms. And pop-culture references. Which Mallory never remembered until she’d said something that sounded ridiculous when translated literally.
“Ah, no. But I do want to leave the palace.”
…
Prince Christian Leopold Michael Victor prowled the circumference of his office like it were a kennel.
There was an American movie—History of the World: Part I—Kelsey had made him watch. Mel Brooks as King Louis of France buried his face in the boobs of every woman at court. Then he’d look up and say, “It’s good to be the king.” Sure, King Louis lost his head to the guillotine, but before that, he’d had a good run.
It was, however, not good to be the prince acting as king. Not now. Not here.
In fact, it sucked giant monkey balls.
“Does France still use their guillotines?” he mused. “I mean, scientifically? It does seem faster and more humane than hanging.” Moncriano had banned capital punishment over a century ago, so he wasn’t exactly up to speed on the subject.
“Your Highness? Do you mean that you want to borrow a guillotine from France? To display, perhaps?”
Christian squeezed his eyes shut. Crap. The three people in the room hadn’t magically disappeared. Worse, they hung on his every damn word. When he’d just been a prince, they’d only hung on maybe every fourth word. But ever