Page 68 of The Winter Princess
Mama dabs at her lips. “I read the reports.”
It’s Alma to the rescue. She coughs lightly and pins me with a look. “The social media campaign,” she says, taking a sip of wine. “Is it having any success?”
If Alma wants allies, I’m game.
“Some. I’ll be making regular trips out to historic sites in the coming weeks. We’ll be at the Blessing of the Horses,” I say, hoping to distract my family from a line of questions I don’t want to answer.
Noah glances at me. “We?”
Questions like that.
Ella chortles. “You haven’t seen him?” She reaches into her back pocket, retrieves her phone—expressly against the mealtime rules—and leans into Noah. “He’s this absolute dream of a Pavian art restorer. I wouldn’t let him near the crown jewels,” she says, her voice matter of fact, “unless we wanted them melted down.”
I cast my eyes to the ceiling.
“Pavian?” Mama says, the word destroying the delicate atmosphere.
Père sets his fork down with deliberation. “It isn’t a condition one can catch, madam.” He turns to me. “This isn’t the young friend ofSehorFornasari, is it? What was his name?”
“NeerVelasquez,” I answer.
“His Christian name,” he prods.
“Oskar.” Saying the name aloud in front of my mother feels like pushing all my chips onto a roulette square, placing a bet knowing the house always wins. The idea makes me feel overly warm and I wish we could crack a window.
Mama slices through a spear of asparagus. “I trust you will take care, Freja.”
I glance over, and Clara is biting the inside of her cheek—a habit she’s trying to break. Mama is offering me the mildest warning against upsetting an entire political applecart by being linked, even professionally, with a Pavian, while Clara was practically banished for dating a decorated navy officer. It’s not fair. I know it’s not fair.
I glance at my father, whose hand rests on the table, fork held comfortably in his grip, a slice of carrot speared on the end. His face is a mask of indifference, but the waters are churning hard between one end of the table and the other.
Have they ever come to terms with what it meant to cut my father off so completely from his homeland? But what could Mama have done?
My gaze darts from one to the other. Maybe the seeds of this unraveling were always there. Maybe it was too much to ask a young queen of Sondmark to bend her ways to a proud young prince of Pavieau.
I stare at my plate, trying to remember when it was different.
It was different.
My parents used to have a secret language, the kind which developed between me and Ella naturally. We would be at the Hunting Lodge, and I’d be hiding with a book in the music gallery overlooking the ballroom. Uncle Georg would be talking Mama’s ear off about cracking down on union demonstrations at the Handsel industrial ports, and she would lift her eyes to Père. I would almost laugh at his expression. A lifted brow. His inflated appearance of self-regard.Do you want me? Of course, you do.He’d walk over so slowly that it used to drive her wild, and when he finally got there, he’d slide his arm around her waist, receiving a wifely nip on the elbow for his tardiness.
I remember feeling such deep, settled contentment when I’d return to my book. No matter how remote Mama had to be in public, I knew how they really felt.
I thought I did until everything froze over
“Speaking of…people,” Ella says, doing her part to diffuse the situation. She looks to Alma. “I thought Pietor had to be with you for, you know, running the dreaded gauntlet of official approval while the government examines his finances and associations through an electron microscope.”
Usually, Ella would rather swallow a fork than talk about Pietor but such is our desperation to get back to some kind of family feeling.
Mama leans forward, touching Alma on the hand. “It’s only a formality. The entire country knows Pietor is perfectly acceptable.”
Alma toys with her knife. “He decided to stay over in Lijuela for a series of beach clean-ups.”
“How admirable,” Mama says.
The conversation shifts, but Alma’s face is pale.
23
