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“Odette!”
“Odette!”
“Odette!”
It was just my name alone. I lifted my hand up and waved back.
Carefully, Gale and I walked down the stairs, where Prime Minister Pierre-Louis Boulle, a middle-aged man with gray hair on the side yet black on the top and a thick mustache, stood and his wife, Josseline, who was slightly younger with bright blond hair, also dressed in a spring colored coat, greeted us.
“Bienvenue à Paris!” he greeted Gale as his wife came up to me, curtsied, and kissed the side of my cheek.
“We are so happy to have you, Your Grace,” she said to me.
“Merci.” I smiled back when her husband came over.
“Bienvenue à la reine, Odette,” he said, shaking my hand.
I smiled though all I got was Odette and welcome. I think he understood that because he said, “Come. Everyone is waiting at the parade.”
I looked at Gale. He looked back at me.
Both of us were thinking the same thing.
What parade?
Chapter 21
You would have thought we were the king and queen of France. I expected it to be busy, but I had no idea we would barely even get to sleep. Everyone wanted us to come everywhere because where we went, people came. And not a few people…hundreds of people. All there for a chance to say hello or get a picture with Odette. People would hold on to her and just begin to sob…like she was honestly Christ. It was so bad, Iskandar had placed another bodyguard around her for fear if she came too close, they’d pull her into the crowd. And Odette was doing exactly as I told her…exactly as she always did. She made them love her. Here I was, Queen Odette’s husband.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Prime Minister Boulle asked me in French as he looked out at the crowd on the streets on our way to the Eiffel Tower for another damn photo op.
“Does what bother me?” I questioned, waving once in a while to the people…though I’m sure they were checking more for Odette. She and Josseline had gone early for a Women of Paris brunch and were now coming to meet us.
“Seeing them cheer and fall over themselves for a woman.” The way he said woman caught my attention, and when I glanced over, I saw a scowl on his pale face. “It is all foolish to me…and a bit disrespectful, don’t you think? After all, you are the monarch. She is not supposed to outshine you.”
I was starting to get the feeling that I disliked prime ministers in general. But I had to be very careful…politically correct with my words. “You must admit, Prime Minister, she is…not like other queens.”
“Yes. Yes. It’s new. However, it stands to me that you should be more celebrated. She is only a queen because of you,” he said, looking at me, waiting for me to nod and agree with his very bad attempt at flattery. “Don’t you ever feel like she is trying to take over and push you to the side?”
“No. It’s quite hard to push a king to the side. If I go, she comes with me.”
He lifted his finger as I must have hit on some key point. “That is the difference between us. You are king by blood. Prime ministers are kings by election. And to be elected, your wife must be at your side, not a celebrity on their own.”
Ah…so he was projecting his insecurity onto me. I had noticed his wife seemed to have more people enthralled with her than him, but what could I say when my wife’s name was being chanted in the streets?
“So, all of this”—he waved his hand to show me his side of the car window, where ‘Welcome Odette’ signs were everywhere—“really, man to man, does not bother you?”
I truly thought about it, watched the families taking photos in front of banners of her, and shook my head. “Prime Minister, I grew up my whole entire life in the shadow of my elder brother, believing I would always stay there. I learned to be content with that. So now, whenever my wife casts a shadow, it feels more comfortable sometimes than being out in the sun myself.”
That was the truth. I had Arthur to thank…again. It seemed I would forever be in debt to him.
“Ah, we are here…and the women have beat us to it,” he said as we stopped in front of the tower. There, Odette was dressed in bright yellow. Like the sun.
“Salut, Odette!”
“Tu es belle, Odette!”
It was the first thing I heard when I stepped out of the car, but the first thing I saw was her face when she walked over to me. She was smiling, of course, she looked beautiful, of course, but there was this look she had in her eye…it felt sad, and I didn’t understand it. This was her favorite city, wasn’t it? People were in love with her here, calling out to her, praising her. I was with her. What could possibly be wrong? Was it just my imagination?
