Page 14 of The Impossible Princess
“A raid at dawn clears your whole day. It leaves time for an afternoon of pillaging.” This is going brilliantly.
“Or housekeeping. You headed to Podense?” The next message arrives almost immediately. “Posters were up on base.”
Well, well, well. Looks like a certain officer is not above a little stalking of his own. I am, indeed, planning to meet with theMeesterinof Podense and her husband for a tour of the city hall and a walking parade through town (behind the brass band and in front of the horses, as one would wish) while my brother and sisters are deployed in different areas of the country for the day.
“Yep. I can pillage this evening. Hope the tides cooperate.”
Three dots dance and disappear and dance again on my screen. I’m holding my breath when the text appears.
“You should pillage my fridge. Come over for dinner?”
“What are you waiting for?” asks a voice behind me. “Answer him.”
I emit a tiny scream and whirl around, my pulse pounding furiously. Ella is grinning.
“What are you doing, sneaking up on people?” I hiss.
“Sneaking up on people,” she says. “It’s my palace as much as yours, and if you hadn’t been so absorbed with your boyfriend—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Why are we whispering?” she asks, winding one of her ginger curls up and tucking it back into her messy bun.
“Her Majesty,” I begin, waving in the direction of the Crown offices, “would have an aneurysm.” I shove the phone into her hands, letting her scroll through. I will be telling her everything anyway.
“Aw. You guys are adorable. I’m already on Team Clax.” She wrinkles her nose. “You know what? We’re going to workshop that.”
I tug the phone out of her hands. “Whatever you do, workshop under your breath, maybe? I don’t need Mama to find out.”
“Find out that you’ve got a man? You were bound to find one sometime, Clara, even with the pronounced overbite and the geyser of drool.”
I snort out a laugh.
“Anyway, you’re legal in every country I can think of.”
That’s not quite true. Thanks to the Marriages and Succession Act of 1798, the reigning monarch and parliamentary bodies must approve the marriages of the first five heirs to the throne, and you’ll never guess which one I am. Lucky number five. It had something to do with the scourge of Papist Uprisings. At least, that’s what my constitutional tutor said. Though it’s not nice to call them Papists anymore. Come to that, I don’t think it ever was.
“She assumes the press is going to paint me as Vlad the Impaler, looting the countryside and drinking the blood of peasants, if it turns into nothing.”
Of course, it will turn into nothing. I can’t even let myself think otherwise. With this tiny, tiny text flirtation, I’ve merely pushed back the nothing a few hours.
Ella rolls her eyes. “Eat an Affelworst at a Dragons match and you’ll be back in their good grace in no time,” she says. We know how the game is played. Which papers to call. Which pictures to leak. Which levers to pull and which dials to turn to manage public perceptions. As much as I hate Mama’s doom spreading, I hate Ella’s brand of skepticism almost as much. Still, she’s probably right.
I look down at my phone. I don’t want to end this. I don’t want to manage this. I just want to do it. It’s just one dinner—enough to get him out of my system—and Mama doesn’t even have to know.
I type.
“Time?”
Send. Ella shakes my arm with excitement.
“6.” He follows that with his address.
“Can I bring something?”
Ella gives two thumbs up and an encouraging, “Very cool.”
“How about dessert?” He answers. “Something easy.”
