Page 54 of Once Upon a Royal Summer
“Just a little craft project.” Lacey took a deep breath. Am I really going to do this? “I have an idea for the greenhouse.”
“Where’s Caitriona?” Queen Elloise glanced around the table the following morning at breakfast, but her question was very obviously directed at Henry.
He could feel the queen’s impatience in his bones, just as he could feel the pressing weight of the impending publication of the photograph from Once Upon A Time—a nagging detail he’d yet to deal with. There simply hadn’t been time.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Henry had yet to make time to draft a statement for the press office because he’d been too busy alternating between enjoying himself with Lacey and trying to prepare Rose for the royal procession, which was now a mere twenty-four hours away.
Yesterday, she’d managed to sit in the saddle while Daisy took a few tentative steps. It had hardly been the triumphant ride the queen, and everyone else in Bella-Moritz, expected. Henry was at a loss. If he didn’t do something soon, he’d have virtually no ammunition in his arsenal to fight his mother’s idea of hiring a governess and limiting what little life his daughter had outside the palace walls.
The fact that Rose was now late for breakfast certainly wasn’t helping matters.
Beside him, Lacey blinked. “She spent the night in my room, but I haven’t seen her since early this morning.”
The queen looked up from her tea. “Caitriona spent the night in your room?”
Lacey nodded. “We’ve been reading Black Beauty. I brought the book with me from Florida. You know, because of the horse thing.”
Henry turned toward her, a smile tugging at his lips. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?”
“We girls have to have our secrets.” Lacey grinned at him, but her smile seemed to freeze in place when she glanced back toward the queen. “But like I said, she went right back to her room around six o’clock. She said she needed to get ready for breakfast.”
“And yet, she’s still not here,” Queen Elloise said.
Henry stiffened. “Mother.”
Before the queen could respond, Rose’s ladies’ maid came rushing into the dining room with her hands behind her back. Apparently, Henry’s mother had sent a search party out for his tardy seven-year-old. “I’ve found her, Your Majesty. Princess Caitriona will be here in just a moment.”
“Brilliant. Thank you, Marie. Now we can stop worrying and get back to our meal,” Henry said, stabbing at his omelet with his fork. “Right, Mother?”
It was breakfast, not a state dinner.
“Yes, thank you, Marie,” the queen said.
But when Marie turned to go, Henry spotted a flash of sparkle behind her back. Whatever it was didn’t go unnoticed by the monarch.
Queen Elloise narrowed her gaze at Marie. “What do you have there?”
Ava, seated closest to the spot where Marie stopped in her tracks, went pale. “Uh-oh.”
“It’s nothing, really.” Marie shook her head. The poor thing looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “Just doing a little light housekeeping, Your Majesty.”
Henry’s gut churned. Why did he feel like something was about to go terribly wrong?
“Show me.” The queen held out her hand.
Then Marie winced as she produced a dripping-wet crown from behind her back—not a plastic crown like the one Rose had worn at Once Upon A Time before she’d given it away, but one of the heirloom tiaras from his mother’s private collection. Henry had most recently seen it on his mother’s head at a white tie dinner in the palace’s grand dining room.
Marie’s hand shook as she placed the glittering tiara in Queen Elloise’s hand, along with a tiny puddle of soap suds.
A bubble on one of the crown’s pointed, platinum prongs popped, and his mother blinked. Hard.
Marie’s eyes went wide. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty. Princess Caitriona must’ve gotten it from your suite and decided to play dress-up, but I take full responsibility.”
“Why is it wet?” the queen asked.
Henry closed his eyes.
Oh, no.
