Page 2 of The Impossible Princess
But Mama has moved on, turning her attention to me. Her critical gaze travels a path down my outfit. She seems to check items off a list, and for all I know, her efficient secretary is doing exactly that. Hat, hair, hem. Check, check, check.
The Violet Presentation will be the rare royal event where I am front and center, and I can detect the unease in Mama′s eyes and feel how unsettled she is this year. I am currently the favorite chew toy of the tabloid press, and I have no doubt that, were it the 15th century, she would have already packed me off to a nunnery to save her peace of mind.
I feel the moment she sees my heels, watching as she lifts her brow and opens her mouth. There are rules about what a princess of Sondmark may wear, and these shoes are dancing right on the line. They are a mistake and I wait for her to tell me so.
But then Père breezes into the hall, nodding vaguely to everyone and heading directly to the doors. ”Are we going?”
Mama′s expression sets as soon as her royal consort appears, and without a word, she holds out her hand. Her secretary places her gloves in her palm and Mama turns. I breathe a sigh of relief. Père waits for her to pass, follows neatly two paces behind her, and the rest of us trail after them like ducklings in a row.
The ride to the Royal Mews is short, little more than five minutes from one end of the grounds of the Summer Palace to the other, but I try to calm my nerves by reminding myself I′ve been performing this ritual since I was sixteen. That makes eight scandal-free years. Eight is a nice, big number. It′s a cheering thought until I remember that it’s impossible to do anything ruinous at such a simple event.
A thousand internet posts dredging up the midriff tops I wore to college football games won′t change my perfect record. Dozens of style retrospectives featuring covert photos of me crossing the Stanford campus or locked in an upperclassman’s embrace after sneaking off to Full Moon on the Quad, or dancing at dive bars can′t undo eight years of Violet Presentation competence. I want to point out that the press has gone absolutely insane since I graduated and returned home, dissecting every aspect of my life in gossip columns and online tabloids.
I tell myself these things but glance at Mama and mirror her ramrod posture. ”Never dwell, never tell” is the unofficial family motto, and she would say that trotting out explanations and excuses for the bad press is unwise and, worse, unhelpful.
We drive into the massive interior courtyard of the mews and disembark to the sounds of the military band warming up. The carriages are polished, and the massive Friesian horses are standing stock-still in their traces, rigorously trained to disregard the commotion of such things. Navy men fill the rest of the space, milling about and comparing dress uniforms, laughing at the stiff forage cap arranged on each head. In years past, I have loved Queen′s Day, sailing through my part in it so comfortably I might as well be wearing an old pair of sweats. But this year I have more than Mama′s watchful eyes tearing my nerves to shreds.
My gaze arcs over the knot of men, horses, and brass instruments, and it astonishes me how easy it is to pick him out of the crowd. In about half a second, I′ve located Lieutenant Commander Max Andersen of Her Majesty′s Royal Navy. The entire point of a uniform is to turn the crew into an intimidating, faceless mass, but there he is, looking as fine as a newfennigin his crisp blues and brass buttons. My pulse kicks up, and it becomes difficult to recall the exact mechanics of breathing in and out. A blush swirls up my cheeks.
Panicking, I glance quickly away, looking for something to smooth or straighten. Instead, I encounter Ella′s bland, wide-eyed smile and she joins my side, sliding an arm through mine. We look friendly, but if I had an ax, Ella would be in serious danger.
“Isn’t it an absolutely gorgeous day? The scenery is”—she glances over my shoulder at the knot of military men—“exceptionally good.”
“You’re dead to me,” I say through a brilliant smile, vowing never to let Ella near my computer ever again. “Dead-dead. Like, ‘sweep aside the bones in the family crypt because we are going to need the room’ dead.”
A smirk tucks Ella′s cheek, and she raises a hand, shielding her eyes from the sun. ”I don′t know why you′re upset.I′mnot a cyberstalker.”
I will kill her for toying with me. I hiss from between my clenched teeth, ”The graduation records of Knutsen Naval Academy are public information, and his mother has nonexistent social media security protocols.”
She snorts, putting a gloved hand to her nose to cover the sound. Mama looks up, and finding no easily identifiable lapse of decorum, only narrows her eyes at us before her glance slides away again.
“If it looks like a lovesick princess and quacks like a lovesick princess,” Ella chants under her breath.
Decapitation is too good for my sister, but the mass of evidence is on her side. Last year was sweltering, and when a sailor fainted right on the parade ground, Lieutenant Commander Andersen stepped forward in a brisk, sensible manner to sort the entire thing out, almost before the photographers noticed. I was impressed. That his shoulders are so broad you could park a truck on them has nothing whatsoever to do with my internet habits, but one princess′s citizen outreach hobby is another princess′s cyberstalking. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, as the Americans say.
I have uncovered the following facts:
Max Andersen graduated first in his class from the naval academy seven years ago. He has an older brother and a younger sister along with a small niece who likes to ride on his shoulders. His family spends every August in a tiny cottage somewhere on a lake.
For a while, there was an icy blonde in family pictures who didn′t look more than mildly pleased to have his hand resting on her waist, but I haven′t seen her in ages, and I assume her soul was sucked into the black abyss from whence it came.
I tug at the cuffs of my coat-dress, uncomfortably aware of why I chose my wardrobe with painstaking care for this year′s event. It wasn′t only because I have to nail my engagements in front of Mama. No, I′ve got a crush on someone who doesn′t know I exist. My brow wrinkles, and I hastily smooth it. He surely knows I exist. Anyone passing the tabloids at the grocery store knows I exist. He doesn′t know that I knowheexists.
A call to form up rings out, and I observe the flurry of activity as Max brings his sailors into formation with one clear command. In a heartbeat, the blurry assembly snaps into focus, a sharp contrast to the milling about of only moments before.
No one would blame me for having a crush on a man like this. He′s handsome, competent, and…safe. It is a plain, depressing fact that nothing could ever happen between us because our lives are too different, intersecting only once a year. I know how foolish it would be to form an attachment to one of my mother′s subjects, a commoner, but infatuation is a victimless crime, and nobody—nobody but Ella—ever has to know.
While his face is hard and his eyes stare into some military middle-distance, I allow myself to look my fill. Is it so weird to feel this way about a stranger? Is it any different than having a crush on a Hemsworth brother? A sigh escapes me. The press would have a field day if they knew.
I take in his light brown hair, cropped short, and the uniform which accentuates his broad shoulders and long legs. I know that the top of my head comes up to his lower lip when I′m in heels. A very agreeable thing that has me imagining going up on my toes ever so slightly. My own eyes must have wandered into some princess-y middle-distance because Freja emits a tiny cough as we mount the carriage steps. I offer to sit facing backward and she casts a look at the wall of uniformed officers behind us with a notch of her brow.
“Ew,” I say, outraged. “I’m not going to ogle them.”
Not all of them.
Just one.
Really well.
