Page 11 of The Impossible Princess
“Pickled herring tiramisu.”
I make a face, and she laughs again.
It’s the laugh that loosens my tongue and makes me forget for a fraction of a second whom I’m standing next to. “We don’t have to wait a year for small talk.”
She stills, her hand resting lightly on the stone, and my common sense catches up to me, telling me not to be such aflamenfool. In my mind, I can already see myself holding a grandson on my knee one day, telling him about this moment; how I was possessed by a spirit of idiocy and made a pass at a princess. And then I imagine telling him about how I retreated.
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” I will remind him.
In the darkness, my lips twist in a grimace almost worthy of pickled herring. Discretion is overrated. When I tell this story someday, I want to say that I saw my chance and took it. I want that grandson to give me finger guns and a high five.
“I don’t always wear a uniform,” I continue.
“You don’t say.” Her low laugh makes me want to hear it forever.
“Sometimes I don’t even put a crease in my dress shirts.”
“Shocking, lieutenant commander.”
I grin and shake my head. “We should get together sometime. Unless it would upset your boyfriend or…”
My fingers sketch out the question, but it’s a direct flick, the sharp cast of a fishing line.
Her delicate chin lifts, and she darts a tongue across her lip. The massive sapphire on her tiara catches the moonlight. “No boyfriend. No one to mind. I—”
This is the first time I’ve ever seen her in less than perfect command. Even tangled up with me in front of fifty cameras, she was more poised. Then she nods quickly and unclips the clasp on her purse, giving me a peek behind the curtain.
“What do you think those handbags hold?” my mother always asks. And now I know. A cell phone. Lip balm. An actual cloth handkerchief.
She hands me the phone and beckons for mine. I’m almost stunned, and she has to tug it from my grasp, our skin brushing for a brief moment. I stand there like the statue in the harbor of Horst the Invader, waves crashing up my legs, but she’s already tapping her contact info into my device.
Holy hell, I can’t believe it worked. I jerk from my stupor and navigate to her contacts, checking my number three times before I’m certain it’s correct. Then I type “Max”. That’s all. Max. Like I’m Morrissey or Beyoncé or something. Maybe she knows dozens of Maxes. I want to elaborate so she won’t forget: Lieutenant Commander Max Andersen From That Time I Touched Your Legs on National TV.
But before I can do anything more, the chime of the dinner bell echoes in the night and she plucks her phone back, trading it with mine as her escort—a chinless, inbred Lanagasquen if I had to guess—dashes out of the garden doors and waves.
“Coming.” She gives me another smile and moves off without another look back. I glance down at the phone.
C.
I follow them, grinning, and I’m quickly relegated into a seat at the back of the banquet hall, so insignificant that a palm frond keeps brushing against my shoulder. The food is not as bad as I thought it would be. Only the soup course contains the dreaded fish, and as it is brought to each table, I glance at Clara, who is conversing with the chinless princeling. She wears the same look of interested pleasantness that I’ve seen a thousand times, and then, sniffing the soup, her nose twitches.
She’s biting her lip and her eyes lift, flicking from their official line for a single heartbeat. Her green gaze lands squarely on me and I lift my brow. She gives the tiniest shake of her head, and though her mouth returns to its ordinary shape, I can tell she’s laughing. I wink.Vede, how could I not? I have the satisfaction of watching her cheeks turn pink before she looks away.
After the final entree is cleared, the Vorburg ambassador raises his glass to toast the royal family of Sondmark. He praises the trade talks recently begun, vows decades of peace and prosperity, etc. The captain and his wife leave early, and I join them, satisfied at the thought of Clara’s number on my phone.VrouwDusstock, who is nothing like the discus thrower of my imagination, fills the quiet car with her bright chatter.
“I hoped you would have a chance to speak to Her Royal Highness, lieutenant commander,” she says. “Ah well. I had fun ‘shipping’ you two. Is that what the kids say?” she asks.
The captain grunts. “The lieutenant commander has too much sense to go chasing after trouble, Bette.”
Captain Dusstock’s wife might look tiny and fragile, but she is uncowed by her husband’s gruffness. “Trouble, Art? She’s a girl, not a bomb.”
Captain Dusstock grunts again. “She’s not a girl. She’s a princess, and any link with her is trouble. A Navy man doesn’t get himself in the newspapers.”
“Unless it’s his obituary, I suppose,” she mutters.
Ten points forVrouwDusstock.
But the captain isn’t finished. “Andersen wants to be a commander in a few years and captain after that. You want to know what the promotion board is looking for? Someone smart enough to keep his name out of theflamenpapers.”
