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“I saw it when you did, Arabella,” she replied shortly.
The plan was for us to spend New Year’s Day…together, as we were, and then Elspeth and Arabella were supposed to go back to Donaè Castle in the north. Then Elspeth would go to the summer estate in Evaebury to spend some quality time with King Lionel. However, this morning, Queen Arabella announced she would be staying in the palace here for a little longer. Which made Elspeth stay as well…which meant the palace was now very full with one king, three queens, and a princess. It wouldn’t be so bad if Queen Arabella…wasn’t so…opinionated. Gale couldn’t find it in him to kick her out…the only other person left to do it was me, and I was not going to touch that landmine.
So here we all were.
She was so hard to deal with that even my mother had refused to stay till New Year’s. She said she might steal her cane or put sleeping pills in her tea. I let her go quickly because I knew there was only a single thread holding her back and it could snap at any moment.
“I can tell you from experience this is going to be a problem,” she went on despite the fact that all of us were so tired of it. Not that she noticed or cared. “The people do not want to see their queen judge them.”
Marcus, one of the twins, came forward with a drink for her. “Grandmama, she wasn’t judging them…more like…”
“Explaining her feelings to them,” his twin brother said from the window as he read the chronicle of King Edgar.
“The queen explains herself to no one but the king.” She huffed.
I felt Gale tap my finger, and when I looked at him, he tapped the rim of his glass twice. His code for, he was about to abandon me! I gripped his hand and smiled, blinking slowly. He was not going to make some excuse to leave me here with her.
He stared back tiredly, almost begging, but I wasn’t going for it.
“Sir—” The door opened and in came Balduin as if he’d called out with an invisible whistle.
“Yes, Balduin?” Gale said, quickly rising from his chair with joy. “What is it? Where am I needed?”
“Here,” I cut in. And then looked over the couch. “What couldn’t possibly wait?”
He looked at me. “The prime minister has come, ma’am.”
Dammit.
“Our weekly meeting isn’t until tomorrow,” Gale said to him, not looking as thrilled to escape now.
“It might be about that video.” Queen Arabella huffed, this time fixing her jewels.
“I doubt it, Grandmama,” Gale said to her and then looked at me. Leaning over, he kissed the side of my cheek before whispering, “Make an escape fast.”
He didn’t tell me how to do that, though, as he walked around the couch to the door.
“We’ll leave you ladies alone,” Marcus and Antoni said, bowing to me first and then Elspeth and Arabella before they took their chance to escape while the door was open.
Which left Eliza, Florence, Elspeth, Arabella, and me all alone in the living room. I wished I had chosen to go out with Sophia and Lydia, but I wanted to make sure to see the documentary live. I’d seen a bit of it, of course, but still. I wanted to see it as the country saw it.
“So, what are we to do about this?” Queen Arabella lifted her teacup. She really was not going to let this go.
“I don’t think there is much we can do but wait, Arabella,” Elspeth said, lifting her teacup as well.
Because the old woman turned her gaze to me. “This is why you should be coming to me, dear. We could have nipped this in the bud very early.”
Again, I bit my cheek. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Well, now I am worried,” she replied.
This woman was raising my blood pressure.
“Grandmama, let’s think of something positive, like how amazing their trip looked,” Eliza added joyfully before looking at me. “I lost count of how many times the cameras caught you both giving each other long glances across rooms.”
“Him catching you and trying to teach you how to ski was cute.” Florence nodded. “Did you manage to learn?”
“I managed to learn how to fall gracefully.”
