since he’d started covering for his absentee father?
Well, he could evidently toss out a random guillotine reference and get an offer to have it appear.
He dug his fingers into the base of his skull. Even though it was pointless. Right now, a jackhammer could go to town on his neck muscles and the headache still wouldn’t go away. Protocol-overload headaches tended to stick around.
“No, ah, Sir Lionel.” Probably. Could be Sir Lorenzo. All of his father’s courtiers and advisors sort of blended together into a giant bowing and scraping Transformer. With another tip of the hat to Kelsey for turning him onto that action schlock-fest. “Thanks for being on the ball, but a rusty guillotine would probably set the wrong tone for the state dinner.”
Crap squared.
That was what they were discussing still, wasn’t it?
Because before the state dinner meeting, there’d been one about the Harvest Festival. Another just around security for the state dinner. A meeting with envoys from three African tribes that wanted to hold their mediation in his neutral country. Two different foundations. Daily security briefing. Three speeches to review. And a draft itinerary for a trip to Australia that wouldn’t happen until spring.
Christian wanted to pay attention. To give every meeting and suggestion due consideration. But he’d hit overload, oh, about seven weeks ago. Which had been one week into starting to take on his father’s duties.
Because his father had gone AWOL.
Not physically. He stayed in his suite here in the palace. Wouldn’t come out. Wouldn’t talk to even his children. Wouldn’t show up for a single official duty. All because—according to the court physician’s best guess—he was stuck in a sort of PTSD from having his missing daughter reappear after twenty-four years, and then almost losing her again to an assassination attempt only a few weeks later.
The world didn’t stop turning, though. And their country sure as hell didn’t stop needing a leader. Despite having a fully functioning Parliament and a spanking new prime minister, they still needed a king.
Or, at the very least, for Christian to act like the king.
“If you’d rather, Your Highness, we could take up these discussions with someone else in the royal family. Your aunt, Duchess Mathilde, perhaps? Or Princess Genevieve?”
Christian noticed that his ferocious grandmother didn’t get suggested. Ha! They were cowards. He’d sic the grand duchess on them as punishment for boring him to the brink of, well, guillotine ramblings.
It was an exit strategy that would probably turn out for the better, overall. “That’s an excellent thought. You know, my grandmother has more state dinners notched on her tiara than anyone else in the palace. Why don’t you get on her calendar?” Then he turned around in time to watch them, yes, blanch.
“Certainly, Your Highness. As you wish.” Two of them bowed and scraped and hightailed it out.
That left him with Sir Kai. Who crossed his arms and stared down the prince from steely gray eyes.
“That was mean. Punitive, I dare say.”
Christian didn’t see the point in lying to his private secretary. He trusted him to know everything—and figure out how to spit-polish his screw-ups whenever necessary.
Nothing wrong with sidestepping the truth, though. “You can’t deny that my grandmother could do a state dinner blindfolded.”
“Oh, she knows everything about them. And will run roughshod over those two to get it done exactly to her specifications.”
Christian shrugged as he dropped down onto the blue velvet couch. “Works for me. Seeing as how I have no thoughts on seating arrangements, music, the menu, the flowers, or the fucking order of toasts.”
Kai arched a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “You don’t usually swear in meetings.”
“Well, I’m not in a fucking meeting anymore, am I? I’m just stuck here with you.”
“A thousand thanks, Your Highness,” the older man said drily. “I feel so seen. So necessary. Appreciated.”
Christian didn’t have that many people he could wholly let down his guard around. His immediate family—not the innumerable hanger-on cousins, great-uncles, etc., who’d gladly elbow each other out of the way for a photo op with anyone higher up the line of succession. His best friend, Elias. Kai. Probably less than a dozen, all told.
So when he did drop the layers of formality and protocol and propriety…well, sometimes he went too far.
His temper got shorter, his patience thinner, with every day this facade of a cover-up continued.
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Sorry. You don’t deserve to catch the shit mood I’m trying to slough off.”
“I’ll survive. As a matter of fact, I do believe ‘mood receptacle’ is