The Royal Treatment (6 page)

“L
ook, Eddie—”

“Ed
mund.”

“—don’t take this the wrong way or anything—”

He sighed. “I am bracing myself, because you always say that before coming out with something thoroughly offensive.”

“Cracked my code, eh? Anyway, I’m going to be the princess, right? So who cares what fork I use when? I mean, I’ll be…” She snorted a giggle through her nose. He fervently hoped she would get over the habit of laughing like a loon whenever she contemplated her future station. “…royalty, and all.”

“Exactly why you must set an example.”

“Me?” He noted she nearly fell out of her chair in surprise. “Set an example?”

“I admit,” he said, admiring the way the sunlight bounced off her shoulder-length waves, making the blond strands look like beaten gold, “it pains me to speak of it.”

It was fortunate she had excellent hair, because there was a truly unpleasant expression on her face at the moment. In fact, her dimples had entirely disappeared. They were, he privately thought, her best feature. They made her look mischievous and charming at the same time. “Edmund, I’ve got a real news flash for you. People don’t give a crap what fork royalty uses.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Ed—they totally don’t.”

They glared at each other and then Edmund, who had battled the king for years, switched tactics. “Of course, if you want people to disparage His Highness because he chose a commoner who refused to rise above her station—”

“Whoa,
whoa.
You’re saying David will have to eat shit if I’m not a good princess?”

“In a word, yes.”

“Well, son of a bitch!”

“On the contrary, my mother was an extraordinarily patient and kind woman.”

“Uh-huh.” She grabbed a hank of hair and chewed on it. A loathsome habit he needed to break her of before she appeared in front of television cameras. “Hey, Edmund, can I ask you something?”

“You mean, something else?”

“Yeah, yeah. How come you’re doing this? Aren’t there, like, a zillion underlings here in the palace who could be doing this? Tell me you wouldn’t rather be just about anywhere else.” She added in a mutter he heard perfectly well, “God knows I would.”

“I lost the coin toss,” he said, striving for the right note of cool disdain. She really was quite something. He had seen instantly why the king had been charmed, and why David had dropped his I-don’t-care-who-I-marry pose. She would be a splendid queen, if he could get her to lend an attentive ear.

And naturally, such a vitally important job could not go to just anyone. He would oversee her education himself. Even if it killed him. “Now. Again—oyster fork, soup spoon, marrow scoop, fish knife, entrée knife, main course knife, salad knife—”

“—fruit knife, dessert spoon, dessert fork, and a partridge in a pear tree!”

He stared at her, completely surprised. “Oh. Oh! Well, that’s very good. Ah…if you understood all along, then why…?”

“Well, I’ll tell you…I just can’t resist yanking your chain.” She tipped her chair back (French Louis XIV, circa 1860, listed for $972 Alaskan at Sotheby’s) and grinned at him. “What do you think of that, Eds?”

“Edmund.”

“Whatever. What’s next on my agenda from hell?”

“You have a history lesson in thirty minutes with our palace historian.”

The legs hit the carpet with a thump. “History lessons?”

“If you are to be a member of the royal family, it’s important you know something of Alaskan history.”

“Can’t you just pick up that fruit fork and stick it in my eye instead?”

“It would be improper before dessert is served, my lady. After history, you’ll be meeting with Horrance, your wedding gown designer. We try to use local artisans whenever possible,” he added, pretending she was remotely interested in an explanation, “to aid the economy.”

“Super. As long as he doesn’t stick any pins in my ass. Then?”

“Then lunch with the prince and the king. Then a meeting with the caterer. Then the florist. Then—”

“Eds, how come
I
have to do all this stuff? (A) where’s David, and (B)
you’d
be so much better at it.”

“(A) David is in Allen Hall, doing the morning feeding, and he will be joining you, and (B) that’s very true, but it’s not my wedding, is it, my lady?”

“Don’t call me that, I hate that. Call me Chris.”

He looked down his nose at her. “I think not.”

“Fine, Chris-teen-uh then. Anything but My Dork-o Lady.”

“My lady jests, pretending she will not have a title all her life.”

“Also, it really creeps me out when you talk about me in the third person. Seriously. Don’t do that.”

For the first time all morning, Edmund cracked a smile. “Nobody likes it. Thus, I do it as often as I can.”

“Well, how would Edmund like it if I talked about him in the third person? Doesn’t Edmund think that’s fucked up?”

“No. Edmund doesn’t. Now, if my lady has tired of etiquette lessons, why don’t we cover something you might find more relevant?”

“Yeah, why don’t we? What’s on your fiendish mind, Eds?”

“Only this.” He paused delicately. Christina’s eyebrows arched, disappearing under her bangs, a gratifying sign of her full attention. “You must always be wary of the name Domonov.”

“That’s Queen Dara’s maiden name.”

He could not mask his surprise. “You know?”

She yawned behind her palm.
“Us
magazine.”

“Ah. Well, contrary to the lurid interpretations of the American press—”

“Whoa, whoa, easy on the America bashing, pal.” “—Her Majesty the Queen was not a bloodthirsty cannibal with a stone for a heart.”

“I think ‘bloodthirsty cannibal’ is redundant.” “At any rate, the queen’s family is slightly…unreasonable…on the subject of His Highness Prince Nicholas.”

Her eyebrows arched still higher. “Oh-ho.” “Furthermore, they have no love for their king and have tried many times to strike at him, any way they can.”

She frowned. “Um, okay, that sucks, but how come Al doesn’t toss them in the clink?”

Privately, Edmund thought that was an excellent question. “The king would, but as he is still very fond of his late consort, his heart is soft toward her family and the Domonov in question is soon released. Also, the king may have said something along the lines of, ‘I can take care of my own damn self—I don’t need the courts to help me.’”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. So, okay, anybody introduces themself to me as Mr. Domonov, I kick his ass. Got it.”

“It’s not entirely that sim—”

“Later, Eds. I have to go check something out. Thanks for the Princess 101 stuff. I guess.” She waved distractedly over her shoulder and practically ran out of the drawing room.

C
hristina screeched to a halt in front of Queen Dara’s portrait and once again studied the proud, amazingly beautiful features. Then she sidled down a few feet and looked at the painting of the king’s grandmother.

The queen’s family is slightly unreasonable on the subject of His Highness Prince Nicholas.

Idiotic notion. They believed the rumors of all the lovers the queen took. Believed Nicholas belonged only to the queen, that there was none of the king in him. And wanted to steal him for themselves. It was sad, because grief did horrible things to people, but it was stupid, too.

“Morons,” she said to the empty gallery. “Anybody can see the kid looks exactly like his great-grandma. On his
father’s
side.”

You must always be wary of the name Domonov.

“Okay, okay!” Amazing. The guy was twenty-three rooms and two floors away, and he was still droning in her head.

She heard footsteps and whipped around, already feeling the goofy grin on her face, a grin which instantly dropped off when she saw the visitor wasn’t David.

“Oh. It’s you.”

“Nice! I could have you deported, kiddo.” King Alexander snapped his fingers, which, she couldn’t help but notice, were filthy. Gardening? More fishing? Digging in the dirt with his youngest son? Who the hell knew? With this guy, it could be anything. “Like that!”

“Sure. Like you’re going to let me get away that easily.”

“True enough,” he said cheerfully, wiping his dirty palms on his blue-jeaned thighs. “You’re stuck here. We all are!”

“I was just looking at your family’s portraits.”

“Yeah.” The king stopped and squinted at Queen Dara’s likeness. “Boy oh boy, what a woman. When they made her they broke the mold. Then they beat the living shit out of the mold-maker.”

She burst out laughing.

“Well, it’s true. And if it isn’t, it oughtta be. She was—you have no idea.” The king ran his fingers through his hair, leaving a smudge of dirt on his forehead. He looked distracted and sad. Her heart broke a little, seeing him like that. Plenty of women had tried to entice the royal widower. Everyone had failed. He so obviously still carried a torch for the dead queen. “Some days I wanted her to be at my side all day long, and others I had to actually resist the urge to strangle her.”

“I’ve heard she was…uh…”

“Well, she was. But she was exciting, and beautiful, and things were never dull when she was around. You know what happened? How she died?”

“Uh…” Some of the more lurid headlines popped into her brain:
Alaskan queen killed in car wreck en route to lover’s hideaway. Queen Dara dead in crash outside lover’s house.
“Well…”

“She was on her way to her hairdresser and wasn’t paying attention, and got in a crash.”

“Oh. That’s…uh…a little different from—”

“She was on her way,” the king said with deadly quiet, “to the hairdresser.”

“Sure. Everybody knows that.”

His shoulders relaxed. “I s’pose I should have insisted she use a driver, but that shit didn’t help Princess Diana, did it?”

“I guess not.” She paused, then added, “I still remember exactly where I was when I heard Diana was dead. I was so upset…didn’t cry, but…I just couldn’t believe it, and I was so bummed. Which was weird, because I’d never met her. But I was really sad about it, for a long time.”

“Well, I
did
meet her. And you never met a more charming lady. She was about the only one at Buckingham who didn’t make me feel like I had straw in my hair and cowshit on my heels.”

“Is
that
what’s under your fingernails?”

They laughed together, like family.

“—and while our ancestors were happy to make new lives for themselves in the formidable Alaskan wilderness, Russian law forbade permanent settlement by Russian citizens.”

“Bummer,” Christina said, concealing a yawn behind her palm.

“It was, really, because a man would bring his family over, start trading in fur or logging or what-have-you, and then, when he started to make headway against the wilderness, when his family was settled, when they had made a life for themselves, they would have to pick up and leave.”

“So David’s great-great-grandpa decided that sucked the root?”

“Yes. In fact, it was as close to a bloodless coup as possible. Russia had offered Alaska for sale to America—”

“Oh, wait, I know this part—America was hip-deep in the Civil War, and the last thing they wanted was to cough up a bunch of dough for a new state. They were having enough trouble controlling the states they already had.”

“Quite right. And Alaska hadn’t worked out for Mother Russia as they had expected. The primary goal of taking Alaska was to feed Russia. But farming was difficult—crops didn’t take, or were devoured by mice and squirrels, or the Russians weren’t terribly enthusiastic farmers. Meanwhile, the natives, while befriending the Russians actually living and working the land, resented the mother country—”

“Understandably. They were here first.”

“Well, yes. Something the royal family has kept in mind—”

“Is that why all the native Alaskans—the
true
natives—get all that money from the government?”

“Yes. And they are allowed to continue the lifestyle of their forebears for as long as they wish. Millions of acres have been set aside for their use. But we’re getting off topic.”

“Typical white-guy attitude,” Christina commented.

“At any rate,” Edmund continued, annoyed, “when Kaarl Baranov rallied the troops, so to speak, and prepared to break away from Russia, Russia let them go with surprising ease.”

“No bloodshed?”

“Minimal bloodshed. But it was obvious Mother Russia’s heart wasn’t in it, and we—Alaska—quickly won. And rather than setting up a Tsar and Tsarina of Alaska, they decided to cut ties still further, and became King Kaarl and Queen Kathryn.”

“My,” Christina said. “What a long story.”

“My lady, we’ve only been talking—”

“We’ve?”

“—for five minutes.”

“Well, I’ve pretty much got the picture. And it sure explains a lot.”

“Explains…?”

“About the royal family. I mean, you have to admit, they’re an independent bunch.”

Edmund cracked a smile. “Yes. I have to admit that.”

P
rince David, intent on his late-morning observations of the residents of Allen Hall, never saw the arm that snaked around the doorway, effectively clotheslining him. In a flash he was on his back, and being dragged into a small, dark sitting room. He got a whiff of wildflowers and decided not to resist.

“The thing is,” his fiancée told him, straddling his chest, “I appreciate you buying the cow and all, but I think you ought to get some milk for free.”

“Are you feeling all right?” he gasped. One minute he’d been wandering the halls, minding his own business, the next—attacked!

“Oh, sure, it’s just—I’d be crazy to plan on spending—what?—fifty, sixty years with you? Without…you know. Sampling the merchandise.”

“If I understand you,” he said carefully, “and I’m not at all sure I do, you’re proposing we—may I have my shorts back, please?”

“In a minute,” she said, and then she was nimbly unbuttoning his shirt and spreading it open.

“This is really too—” and then he forget where he was going with this as her soft, hot mouth touched his mouth, his throat, his nipples, and now she was actually licking his nipples, and he brought a hand up and fisted it in her hair, and she nipped lightly, which made him yelp, and then he was tugging at her shirt, her shorts, they were writhing together in the dark, his hands were everywhere, relishing the touch of her smooth, warm skin, her curls were in his face and he breathed deeply of her natural perfume. Being with her was like being in a dark garden.

He felt her hand clasp him—

“Oh,
my.
How many vitamins do you eat a day, Dave?”

—and groaned, felt her fingers slide up and down with delicious friction, and had trouble remembering the fact that ninety seconds ago he’d been wandering down the hallway, fully clothed and thinking about
Aptenodytes patagonicus.

She had straddled him again and was all smooth, nude skin. She was humming something and in a minute he placed it—it was Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love.”

She was still gripping him, and now she was easing herself down on top of him, and he instantly felt his I.Q. drop another thirty points.

“Wait,” he managed, feeling for her soft pelt. “It’s too soon, I don’t want to hurt—” He found her slick folds and realized she was more than ready for him. “Belay that,” he added, and she laughed, and eased down on him, and oh, it was—it was exquisite. He put a hand in the middle of her back, feeling her muscles flex, and sliding up into her was like sliding into the best dream he ever had.

It was a tight fit, but she didn’t seem to mind, and God knew
he
didn’t mind. He had thought it was the pinnacle, it was the finest, it simply could not get any better, and then she began to rock against him.

He pulled her down, found her soft, sweet mouth, and kissed her while she rocked, rocked, rocked, still humming that excellent tune.

He broke the kiss and groaned again, then managed, through gritted teeth, to say, “I have—very bad—news—”

“Oh, I know,” she teased, leaning back and tickling his balls. When she leaned that far back, her curls brushed the tops of his thighs, and he shivered. “That’s okay. My turn next time.”

“Deal,” he gasped, and then came so hard he felt his eyes roll back in his head.

“Y
ou tried to kill me,” he accused, when he had his breath back.

“Oh, sure,” she said. They were on their sides in the nameless, dark little room; he’d cuddled her against him like two spoons in a drawer. “That was my fiendish plan all along.”

“It’s the only explanation I can think of,” he said, and puffed against the back of her neck, parting the hair so he could kiss the exposed skin. “I hope you don’t think—that is to say, I enjoyed it very much—
very
much—but I wouldn’t want you to think—”

“Relax, Penguin Boy.”

“Please don’t call me that after coitus,” he grumbled.

“Please don’t ever call it coitus. And I’m well aware of what happened—didn’t I, what d’you call it—instigate the whole thing?”

“That’s true,” he said, cheering up. “I was just an innocent victim of your lust.”

“Right. Anyway, I know it was too fast for
me.
But not for you. Right?”

“Right. Next time,” he said, testing her.

“Right,” she said, yawning into his forearm. “Next time. Fuck the king.”

“I’d rather,” he said, “fuck you.”

“Such dirty language from a prince…I bet that’s the first time you ever said ‘fuck.’ Um, don’t we have a meeting or something?”

“Yes, but I have to check on the penguins first.”

“Ooooh, you’re getting me hot all over again. I love it when you talk about flightless waterfowl after boinking me! Now talk about dead fish.”

“Christina…”

“C’mon, I need to hear it!”

“You’re impossible,” he grumbled, sitting up and groping for his shirt.

“And you’re stuck with me,” she said, sounding indecently satisfied.

“Yes,” he said, feeling more than a little satisfied himself. “I suppose I am.”

A
t Lady Christina’s insistence, they combined the meetings with the florist, the caterer, the gown designer, the protocol officer, and about twelve other people into one efficient meeting.

Well, as efficient as such a meeting can be…

“No, no,
no.
No wedding announcements.”

The royal protocol officer, a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Shania Twain, gaped at her. “But my lady…we have to…”

“Invitations are enough. Look, we all know announcements are just a greedy grab for more presents. And we’re going to get tons of stuff, anyway. Right?”

“But it’s not a—not a greedy—ah—greedy grab—”

Edmund’s hand dropped to the protocol officer’s shoulder. “It helps if you close your eyes and think of a happy place,” he said in her ear. Then, louder, “Very well, my lady. No announcements…except to the press.”

“Well…okay. They’re gonna find out anyway.” Christina stretched. She felt pleasantly sore. Tackling David had been educational
and
fun. The man had a dick on him that wouldn’t quit. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on it again. For compatibility’s sake, of course. Not because she craved his company or anything. “And
where
is David?”

“He’s coming, my lady.”

Again, you mean.
“Hip-deep in penguin crap, no doubt.”

“No doubt, my lady.”

“And while we’re on the subject—”

“Of penguin crap?”

“—who’s paying for this shindig? I’ve got my last paycheck, and that’s it.”

“I’m paying for it,” the king announced, entering the large meeting room. “Sorry I’m late. Last night’s pizza is
not
agreeing with me.”

Edmund closed his eyes, as if in great pain, and Christina giggled.

“I guess that’s my cue to protest,” she said, “but since this is a royal wedding, I guess a royal guy has to pay for it.”

“You just show up. If you do that, we’ll all be happy.”

“Really? That’s all I have to do?”

“Sit down, my lady,” Edmund said sternly. “The king exaggerates.”

The king slumped into the tattered blue La-Z-Boy at the head of the table, and hit the recline lever. His feet went up and he sighed. “So, where were we? And where’s David? Jenny, you don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine, Your Majesty,” the protocol officer replied, trying a game smile.

“Put your head between your knees,” the king ordered.

“It doesn’t help,” Edmund said. “Trust me.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Prince David said, hurrying in. He looked gorgeously out of breath, and flashed her a secret grin. She had to put a hand over her mouth so as not to grin back.

Gorgeously out of breath?
Had she really thought that? What was
with
her lately?

“What’d I miss?”

“No wedding announcements, just invitations,” Christina said. “And your dad’s got the runs.”

“That makes good sense. The first part, not the latter. Dad, how many times do I have to tell you to lay off the pizza?”

“You might be the crown prince, but you’re still a punk,” the king snapped. “I’ll eat what I like.”

“Fine, enjoy your week in the bathroom.” David took the seat next to the bride, bending to drop a careless kiss to her forehead as he did. It was not lost on Edmund that she blushed for a moment and her eyes got very bright.

“Well,” Jenny began, “I think we need to pin down the wording of the invitation. I was told that the lady’s parents are deceased?”

Christina nodded. “Completely deceased.”

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “Protocol dictates that only the living can issue invitations.”

“Well, duh. I don’t want my dead mom to be inviting people…yuck!”

“Perhaps the king can invite guests on behalf of both parties,” Edmund suggested. “It’s a little unorthodox, but…”

“That will be fine,” Jenny said gratefully, crossing an item off her list. “And I’ll meet with the engraver this afternoon, so—”

“What? Engraver? Come on, that’ll cost a fortune. What’s wrong with just using a printer?”

“Happy place, you’re in your happy place,” Edmund reminded Jenny.

Christina appealed to the king. “Seriously, Al, come on—d’you really want to spend a zillion dollars on the
invitations?
What’s the alternative to engraving?”

“Raised print,” Jenny said in the same tone someone would have said, “A cobra under the bed.”

“Well, do that. What’s wrong with that?”

“Chris, hon, I can afford it,” the king said gently. “It’s no problem.”

“I know
that,
but why throw your money away on something David and I don’t care about? Right, Dave? You don’t care, right?”

“I don’t care,” David admitted.

“All right, then. Next!”

The other wedding experts had managed to bunch themselves into the far corner of the meeting room, suspiciously close to the window. As they were meeting on the first floor, escape was plausible.