Courted: Gowns & Crowns, Book 1 (25 page)

“Don’t talk to me about lockdown,” her father grumped, his sudden return to his taciturn self serving to calm her nerves. “After those idiots talked to your mother this morning, I’ve told everyone to leave us the hell alone.”

Em frowned. “Idiots?”

“Oh, some fools calling her, trying to find out more about you. I think it was Channel 2. You know how lousy their news is. Wouldn’t be surprised if they quoted the
National Enquirer
as their confidential source.”

“She—Mom didn’t say anything, did she? Was she upset?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. I got to her quick enough. And
that
pissed me off, tell you the truth. If I’d known I could move that fast without that damned walker slowing me down, I’d’ve thrown the fool thing away months ago.”

Em pursed her lips into a smile that somehow seemed her only barrier to tears. They’d been quietly urging her father to take more control of his exercise plan, to get out and walk, but he’d not been up to doing much more than stare at Mom, as if he could will her brain to mend more quickly than it was. And her mother
was
improving, she was. She could speak now, though her words were still slurred, and she could eat on her own. She could also walk, though she got so dizzy that walking any distance made her ill.

But she still wasn’t anywhere near recovered. She just wasn’t fully present anymore, not the way she used to be. Not the way Em had always known her. And that was the hardest part for her father as well. “Well, I’m glad you’re getting around better as well. Is the nurse still okay? You don’t need me?”

“Of course I need you. I’ll never stop needing you,” her father snapped, and Em blinked, a strange, sharp reaction welling up inside her. She flashed to the image she’d just seen in the solarium, Kristos and his mother. Did Kristos’s mom need him the way her father needed her? What would the queen do to ensure her son’s safety?

Her father drew her attention back. “The nurse is fine, brainiac pain in the ass is what she is, and, yes, I
know you’re listening
.” Her father pitched his voice to be heard by whoever else was in the room with him. “Knows more than any one girl should except your mother, or at least how, how she—”

“You be nice to the nurse,” Em said quickly, her words smoothing over the catch in her father’s voice. “She probably knows more about how you’re recovering than
you
do, and you’d do well to take notes. I’ll be home all too soon, and then you’ll be back to your regular physical therapists.”

“Well, at least they’re less pushy.” He paused. “When are you coming home, Em? Your mother misses you.”

She hesitated, hearing the transparent need in her father’s voice as guilt stabbed at her. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about daydreams of Kristos, no matter how he’d looked at her, or how she’d felt when she’d seen him in the solarium just now. Or on the video. Or at Estral Falls. How could she think of doing anything but head back home? The piece she’d just played was an old favorite, not her audition piece. She hadn’t mastered that in longer than she could remember. Besides, her music wasn’t more important than her parents. Her fantasies about Kristos weren’t either. “Is she awake now?”

“Nah. She tried walking a little while ago. Wore her out.”

Em closed her eyes. Her mother used to walk all the time before the accident, long treks through the wooded trails near their home. It was her way to unwind, to think, to give her brain permission to walk around too, she always said. “I’m glad she was up, though. The doctors said—”

“I know what the doctors said. When are you back? Monday?”

“A week from Monday.” Em said the words a little more firmly than she intended and immediately felt bad. “As long as there’s no emergency?”

“No, no, don’t mind us.” Her father’s disappointment sharpened his voice, and Em winced, knowing what was coming next. “You keep jet-setting with your friends. Just don’t forget where you came from, okay? We need you back here.”

She hung up the phone, feeling more unsettled than she had before. What had she expected her father to say?
Go ahead, enjoy your friends, we’re holding down the fort?
That wasn’t fair of her to expect. He’d given up the main caregiving role to her easily when she’d offered, preferring to shuttle with his walker between his work at the local library, then home.

That library was saving him now, more so than anything she could do. It was how he and her mother had met, all those years ago: a mutual love of books. Em had no idea how he was with his patrons, but at home he’d only recently begun to reengage, and if he was moving without his walker, finally, then he
was
improving. Even if he wasn’t ready to admit it.

Truth be told, it was exhausting to think about going home—which certainly wouldn’t be winning her any Daughter of the Year awards.

“Miss Andrews?”

The aide’s soft words prompted her out of her distraction. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“The queen has moved to a sitting room. She is most insistent that you come as soon as you are ready.”

Em couldn’t see any reason to forestall the talk, but when she walked into the charmingly decorated room, she was still surprised. The queen was there, of course, but so were three women of indeterminate years, all of whom were glaring at her.

Involuntarily, she took a step back—only to be urged forward by the aide.

“I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury of time like we did with your friends,” Catherine said, waving her to join her in the center of the room. A small wooden bench, only a few inches high, stood there. The queen took her hand and pulled her up on it. “We’re going to have to find a dress that fits based on your measurements.”

“My—oh, I’m a size—”

“American sizes don’t exactly equate here, dear.” Catherine’s words were overly polite, and Em shut up. “It’s easier for them to know your various measurements and find something that might work. Not as posh, I’m afraid, as the dressing gala your friends enjoyed yesterday, but I’ve quite underestimated everything that needs to get done in the next day.”

“Of course, I completely understand.” Em turned this way and that, the women completely willing to press her thin clothing against her legs and waist and bust to get more accurate measurements. “Really, I hate to be a bother at all.”

“I’m sure,” Catherine said mildly, and Em glanced down at her. The queen really did look a bit harried, but at Em’s attention, she gave her another approving nod. “Don’t you worry about me, dear. All of this is rather more emotional than I expected, I suppose.”

Em tilted her head, suspecting immediately what really bothered the queen. When the women finally withdrew, she stepped down from her small bench and took the extra step toward Catherine, stopping uncertainly so that she didn’t commit some new transgression against the royal family. “You miss your oldest son, and your youngest son is here, yet he doesn’t seem to be happy,” she said quietly. “Of course it’s emotional.”

“Well. I should make a note not to attempt any negotiations anytime soon, if I’m as easy to read as that.” Still, the queen didn’t deny her guess. “Aristotle had done all the work in advance of this event, you know. He had met with the families, helped shorten the list of eligible girls.” Catherine continued on blithely, and thank God she wasn’t looking at Em so she couldn’t see her react to the idea of Kristos getting paired off so blatantly.
Eligible girls? Is that really a thing?

Of course it was a thing. Kristos was a prince, for heaven’s sake.
You don’t think Kate Middleton wasn’t thoroughly vetted before William was allowed to pursue his relationship with her?
There were the women that a young prince could be friends with, and the women that he could marry. And those lists most definitely did not always overlap.

But Catherine was continuing. “Kristos would rather face an enemy soldier than a social event, but he’s a good man, and he will come around. It’s just—well, it doesn’t seem as if any of us are quite ready yet.”

“But you have to be,” Em guessed again.

The queen’s glance shifted to her, and she nodded. “We have to be. And not only because of the media. Kristos taking up his position will add strength to the front Garronia can present in every aspect of government—the military, industry, reform—all of it. Dallying any more than a year would be perceived as weakness. And we all have a job to do.”

Em nodded in understanding, but with each of the queen’s words, she felt worse. Kristos did have a job to do: to take up his work as prince and help do whatever needed to be done to stabilize the country and keep the populace happy. And Em had her job to do too. One on a much smaller scale, maybe, but still her job. She needed to continue to help her father and mother, and officially decline her last chance at a scholarship. And she needed to let Kristos go. As hard as that idea was starting to be.

Still, maybe she could—
would
find some way to continue her music, at least. The stolen moments today with the violin had affected her more than she’d thought they would. She shouldn’t give up everything, right? Her father and mother had been broken, but they were coming back. Maybe she could find a way back as well. Maybe giving up one path to her dream didn’t mean giving up the dream itself. Not completely. Not forever. Or maybe…

“Em, are you listening?”

She blinked back at Catherine, feeling the blush rise in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. Your words struck a chord,” she said. “We do have our jobs to do, but while I’m here, surely I can help you. Is there anything at all I and my friends could do?”

The queen’s smile was radiant. And ever so slightly dangerous, Em thought.

“I’m so glad you asked.”

Kristos schooled his features to be pleasant. Engaged. Interested even, though the next item on his packed itinerary promised to be anything but tolerable. While the Accession Ball tomorrow was apparently his first official social duty, there were an entire series of
unofficial
social requirements running up to that. His life was becoming more and more like one of those reality TV shows both Americans and the Brits were so fond of.

For this evening’s event, the two generations of power—current and future—were enjoying a small gathering, one which was traditionally held at the house of the Minister of the Council, but which instead was being hosted at the castle to avoid the media who were still circling the walls, earnestly trying to sniff out their next story.

Not that the change in plans hadn’t fostered its own fluttering on the part of the news agencies. Speculation was running rampant about secret doings going on at the castle, and as much as the Crown disavowed any of it, the Americans were inevitably brought up.

Though he’d still refused to read the dossiers on the women, Kristos watched every telecast with interest, intrigued to learn such a fractured view of Emmaline’s friends—particularly Lauren, who had quite captured the entertainment world’s talking heads as she was the daughter of a wealthy financier in New York, and had an MBA under her belt as well…but no apparent plans to do anything with it.

Thinking of the relish with which the anchors had related Lauren’s somewhat checkered past, Kristos shook his head. His own rebellion, if you could call it that, had taken him into Garronia’s
military
, for God’s sake, not into every nightclub in Europe. His parents needed to get some perspective.

Nevertheless, he’d agreed to attend this evening’s social and be on his best behavior. He was even now rehearsing his various speeches, in fact, having been instructed that he should be “warming the hearts of the people he’d be asking to follow him into the twenty-first century in a few short years.” Great change could only come after great trust, his father had told him. It was time for him to start building that trust.

Too bad heartwarming speeches were
not
his forte. Everyone seemed to have conveniently forgotten that fact.

Kristos entered the room quietly, slipping into the back as his father was wrapping up his welcoming remarks to the families who had joined them here. Unlike tomorrow’s ball, there were no foreign dignitaries present. It was a meeting intended only for the trusted allies of the royal family.

Despite himself, his heart swelled with pride as he looked at the group of aristocrats gathered within the salon. The men here were not the idle rich, though some had every right to rest upon their laurels. But they were men of business, first and foremost. Bankers to fishermen, restaurateurs to landowners, they’d made their living with their hands and their brains and their hearts.

“I give your mother three minutes before she spots you.” The whispered voice at his side had him turning in surprise. Dimitri stood with his hands behind his back in full military splendor, looking dressed for a parade. Even his shoes were polished.

“How did you get roped into this?”

“A friendly face for the Americans. Your mother’s idea.” Dimitri glanced at him, then raised his brows. “You didn’t know?” He nodded toward the front of the room, and Kristos turned.

A man leaned over, and he had a clear view of Emmaline’s friend Lauren, laughing with one of his father’s closest friends. Between her and Emmaline sat an aide, while at the table opposite, Nicki and Francesca sat with their heads bent toward another aide. Interpreters. He frowned. Didn’t Lauren speak credible Garronois?