Page 68 of The Prince and the Puck
Lambert exhaled and looked between his parents, his sudden sigh pulling everyone’s attention. He blushed a bit and I wondered what had gotten him flustered when no one hadspoken a word. After a long moment, he blurted, “The thing is… I’m going to marry Celeste.”
Celeste smiled. “And I’m going to marry you,” she said softly. And in that moment, everything in the room changed.
The truth—all of it—was about to come out.
The king leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, before breaking into a deep, booming laugh.
Then, looking at his son, he said, “But don’t you see? This changes everything.”
CHAPTER 35
DECK
WUV AND MER-WUGE.
For the next two weeks,my brother’s image was revamped from the inside out, and the bulk of the effort happened in our private quarters, where my mother and father got a whole different view of their oldest son.
They talked—something maybe they hadn’t spent much time doing before I’d come home and pressed the issue—and Lambert revealed the truth about his relationship with Celeste, and why he’d been willing to be seen as the Playboy Prince for so long.
His image began improving rapidly outside the palace as well.
After the Royal Day of Play, we celebrated the first-ever Knight for a Day.
The palace had a bunch of plastic commendation pins lying around, and Lizzy had the idea to knight common citizens for acts of heroism.
“But I don’t understand,” my mother had said. “There are so few opportunities to do anything truly heroic. How many people will actually appear for this?”
“Forgive me for disagreeing, Your Highness,” Lizzy said to my mom, “but there are so many opportunities to be an everyday hero.
"For example, when we were in Virginia, I was not doing a very good job. I mean, I was doing a good job as a guard, but Declan didn’t know that was my job. He thought I was supposed to be a PR consultant—at which I was terrible.
"But he didn’t want to see me fail, so he pitched in, came up with ideas for me, and even offered hands-on help so that I wouldn’t lose my job.”
“I bet he offered hands-on help,” Lambert muttered under his breath before I elbowed him hard in the ribs.
“So you’re talking about common heroics,” my mother said, nodding at Lizzy.
“Not common,” Lizzy clarified. “But everyday. I think that for those we love, we go out of our way and do heroic things every single day. This is an opportunity for people in the kingdom to recognize one another—knighting someone for a day as a way to honor their acts of everyday heroism.”
“Exactly. That’s exactly what I was going to say,” Lambert said, nodding.
“It’s exactly what you will say in the press release,” Lizzy told him, smiling.
“Well, that sounds lovely,” my mother agreed. “Plus, we can finally get rid of all those silly plastic pins.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “We have so little storage space here in the palace.”
My mother made a face at me, and I knew better than to push my luck.
Lizzy’s royal PR campaign was working.
Each day, more and more Murdan citizens posted about Prince Lambert—how much they admired him, how interested they were in his relationship with Celeste. People were beginning to speculate about how soon they might be announced officially as the new royal couple.
Mentions of my father’s illness were few, and we were working inside channels to shut down speculation on that front.
As far as the people of Murdan knew, there was no coronation in the near future, just a new era of royal openness and more royal activity than there had been in the past.
Despite the rosy outlook for Murdan, I was struggling. I wanted to be playing hockey, to be with my teammates. When John Samuels called one morning to check in, I felt a pang of longing I could only think of as homesickness.
