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Princess Felicia is a striking woman with dark hair and blue eyes, tall and regal despite the relatively casual clothes she wears now.
She gives me a tight smile. “Congratulations on your nuptials!”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” Uncertain what to do, I bob an awkward curtsy.
“Am I interrupting your workout routine?”
“Not at all! I’ll be heading to the fitness center downstairs in forty minutes to prepare for tomorrow. But until then, I’m free.”
She appears satisfied. “I’ve come to relay a message from the girls.”
“The girls?”
“Gigi… I mean, Eugénie, Lucie, Sasha, and Elise were wondering if you’d like to join them for lunch the day after tomorrow before Sasha and Arnaud return to Cannes.”
I ache to reply,Really, Your Highness?None of the “girls” were available to deliver the message personally? None of their private assistants, maids, or bodyguards either? Failing that, I’m sure they have phones. Have they simultaneously lost them and their ability to look up my number and place a call?
I doubt that.I think you asked the “girls” to be their messenger. You’re here because you hope to sniff out why the future Duke of Arrago married the Trailer Witch.
You know what? We’re both in luck!Your visit aligns beautifully with my own quest.
I step aside and invite her to come in. “Please tell them I would’ve loved to, but the day after tomorrow Louis and I are meeting with Madame Bodden-Bock.”
“Elaine? You’re meeting with Carlo’s widow?”
Princess Felicia asks her bodyguard to wait outside and steps in almost fluorescent with curiosity.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I say.
“May I ask for what purpose?”
I lead her to the salon. Before leaving the suite this morning, Louis tossed his pillow and duvet on the double bed, and his sheet in the laundry to conceal the nature of our arrangement from the palace staff. The chambermaids have since cleaned the suite and made the bed.
I invite her to sit down. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”
“A coffee would be lovely.”
I dart to the coffee station by the wall and drop a capsule into the machine. “My goal is to revisit the palace fire case. Louis is helping me.”
“Ah.” Princess Felicia shifts her position. “I suspect I know why, but I’ll ask anyway. What are you hoping to discover?”
“I believe Jeannette was framed,” I say. “I hope to be able to prove it.”
The first cup is ready, and I carry it to the coffee table.
She studies me. “Even with most of your face hidden behind the hair and the glasses, the resemblance between you and Jeannette is obvious.”
“You knew my sister?” Startled, I sit down.
“I know everyone who works in the royal palace,” she says. “Name, position, appearance, family situation. My secretary keeps a calendar of their birthdays so that I can offer a small gift on that day. It’s a tiny but appreciated politeness that my mother-in-law, Gertrude, taught me after I married Benny.”
The way she says her late husband’s name suggests it was a love match. Prince Benjamin was the Reigning Prince Richard’s younger brother. With Richard childless and Benjamin now deceased, it’s Felicia and Benjamin’s oldest, Theodor, who’ll become our sovereign next.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Your Highness,” I say.
She flaps a hand. “It was seven years ago! Benny’s health had been deteriorating for a long time due to a mystery illness…”
“I know,” I say. “A good chunk of the country is blaming it on Jeannette.”
