Page 23 of The Winter Princess
My lips part, and I press them together against the strange sensation of words flooding my mouth, sentences piling up like canvases in the workroom. I am a quiet person. In the event the monarchy does implode, I could have a successful second career in a medieval-style nunnery, copying out illuminated manuscripts. Keeping the vow of silence would be a piece of cake. Oskar makes me want to talk.
“The Victoria & Albert Museum is spectacular,” I answer, careful to release only a few of my words. He glances up with dark eyes. I release a few more. “I attended Cambridge and spent every weekend I could down in London.”
I watch his shoulders shift as he works, observing the control he wields over his tools.
“You liked England?” he asks. He’s only making conversation.
“Yes. The art and literature, the history, the food—”
“Food?” He surprises me with a laugh, and I feel satisfaction at the sound. I’ve made grumpy Oskar Velasquez laugh. What else can I make him do? “The British aren’t known for food.”
Even with a belly full of Chinese noodles, I tip my head back, smiling at a happy memory. “You haven’t had a Christmas sandwich from Waitrose—turkey, stuffing, bacon, cranberry sauce.”
He looks up and his eyes are bright. Maybe with scorn, maybe with amusement. I can’t quite tell. He returns to his work.
“You’d wander around the V&A with a sandwich in your satchel and look for…?”
I lift a shoulder. “Everything. Anything. Miniature dollhouses. Home-sewn stuffed elephants. A room of jewels. I like being surprised, and the V&A is good at that. The Nat could use a few surprises. The last time the art in the main gallery was rearranged was in the 70s.” I grab a fortune cookie.
Snapping it open, I pull out the paper and munch on the crisp, sugary offering.
“What does it say?” he asks, head bent over his task.
I read the fortune. “You must wade into the river to catch a fish…in a tiara.”
“Hm?” he grunts.
“My sisters and I tack ‘in a tiara’ at the end. Like, ‘You’ll go on a long journey…in a tiara’ or ‘You’ll meet your future spouse…in a tiara.’ That actually happened to Alma. She met her fiancé Pietor at a Ragnar Prize banquet.”
“Ah.” He lapses into silence and then asks, “What’s my fortune?”
Surprised, I reach into the bag again, tear the wrapper, and snap the cookie in half. I hold it out, but he lifts his hands with the scalpel and centuries-old dust. He opens his mouth, and I lean across the table to drop it in. I almost miss and have to chase it. It ends with my fingers pressed against his lips, his breath warming my skin.
I feel a tingling sensation all the way up my arm. Withdrawing, I watch the column of his neck as he swallows. My words evaporate, and I drop my eyes to the paper.
“Hang in there, little kumquat,” I read, forcing the words through my throat.
“In a tiara,” he adds.
He returns to his scraping. I retreat to the sofa, breathing slowly and quietly, willing the pace of my heart to slow. The rhythm of the work relaxes me—the way he bends over the old canvas. Dark hair falls over his forehead. He shakes it back, but it slips, strand by strand, to brush lightly against his skin until a sweep of his wrist banishes it, only to have it fall again.
To prevent myself from crossing the room to rake it into place, I close my eyes. My ears pick out the difference between the scratch of a dull blade, the low rasp of his thumb, and the brush of a cheap bristle brush sweeping away the debris.
Two hundred thousand visitors. Oskar is right to be outraged. The terms of our alliance are that I will stand with him to protect the Restoration department and he will help me secure the exhibit. It sounds like an even trade, but my mind pivots around the hardest fact. Two hundred thousand visitors. I don’t know how it’ll be possible to achieve such a staggering number of guests when the effort of staging an exhibit will eat up so much energy.
I think of my plans, the carefully curated art, the research. My stomach twists in a way that has nothing to do with Chinese food. The museum is in too much danger. The thought begins like a small seed and grows as large as a magic beanstalk. When I climb it, I can see what I don’t want to see. I have to cancel the exhibit.Vede.I bite my lip and want to cry. All that work. I have to let it go.
To keep a growing sense of dread at bay, I train my ear to Oskar’s movements.Scratch, scratch.The sounds he makes are like the whispering videos Ella turned me on to.
“You like quietness, Freja,” she explained after a particularly overcrowded event that left my nerves shaking like a plucked string. “That’s what these creators specialize in. They upload a video of themselves unwrapping a piece of candy and whisper about the process.”
“That’s weird,” I declared a few minutes later as I watched a surgical dissection of a globe of chocolate on her phone. “That guy sounds like a doctor with a hangover.You’re going to feel a little pinch,” I finished in a tight whisper.
I laughed but Ella was right. Now I put the videos on whenever I need a specific kind of relaxation. Based on the massive number of views, I’m not the only one who finds them appealing.
I shift slightly, kicking my heels off, and curl my legs under my skirts, imagining Oskar’s husky whisper. He would be brilliant at those kinds of videos.
“What kind of videos would I be brilliant at?” he asks.
