Page 72 of The Midnight Princess
“Where did you learn how to do this?” I ask, forcing myself to swim against the current again, struggling against the dance and the cottage and the man I never want to be without.
“My mom was a dancer. Don’t you remember?”
Of course. The notes of the song die away, and I peel myself out of his arms, avoiding his gaze. I lift the needle on the record player. He bends over the hearth and lays a fire, working in silence. “I approve of him,” he says, at last.
“Of whom?”
“Your sister’s boyfriend. I assume everyone is freaking out about Max.”
I don’t even think about holding my answer back. “A little. He’s not what we expected.”
Jacob’s hands still. “He’s got great taste in music. A bit old school, but nobody who has that album collection just wants to play around.” He lights the tinder and nurses the fire until it catches.
Returning to the sofa, he digs into my bag, removing the paperback, and hands me the knitting.
“Go ahead,” he says, plucking out the bookmark and opening to my spot. “I’ll read to you. We’re still on the adventures of Miss Pendragon?”
“It’s a series,” I say, sorting out my yarn. I hold up the ball, looking for somewhere to put it, and he places it in his lap.
His voice drops into a warm cadence as he begins. “It was the third murder in a month. One was forgivable. Two was a tragedy. Three meant it was time for Agatha Pendragon to postpone the Tea and Rummage Sale in Support of Rural Midwife Retention at the Women’s Institute to catch the scoundrel. The vicar would be cross.”
I knit to the sounds of the clicking needles, the irregular pop of the fire, and his resonant voice until he puts the book down, slides more deeply into the sofa, and watches me.
I keep up a regular pace, dropping more stitches than usual.
“Does this happen a lot?” he asks.
Never. No one else—
“The siege of reporters at the palace gates,” he clarifies.
The sofa is crowded with the two of us. “A wedding date is big news.”
“The palace hasn’t confirmed it.” He holds the ball of yarn in a loose grip.
I don’t want to lie. Instead, I search for a clean, discrete piece of truth to give him. “Mama doesn’t like to have her hand forced.”
The real answer is that we’re damned if we refute it—all but inviting the press to discover that Pietor and I are on rocky ground and that their interest is justified—and damned if we don’t. I’m sure this leak wasn’t an accident.
It’s Pietor. He likes his deal—marrying into the Sondish royal family and getting all the economic benefits which naturally accrue when your mother-in-law owns a sizable portion of the North Sea. There’s no way one of his assistants accidently called an organic, high-end bakery and floated openings on a particular day just for, as Ella might say, funsies.
His move was meant to trap me—trap Sondmark—into going forward with this marriage or at least offering Himmelstein concrete cover for a much longer stretch of time.
“You’ve had a long engagement,” Jacob says, switching on the television, navigating to an exhibition soccer game between Vorburg and Sondmark. The teams are playing in a sunny southern latitude, and the score is nil-nil. I’m thankful for any distraction and put aside my knitting.
“Not so long,” I murmur, watching Mallok make a cross in front of the goal. Kepler barely misses the connection, and the goalie makes a long throw as the team retreats.
Jacob glances at me. “In September the weather will be chancy.”
I tiptoe carefully around a falsehood. “The whole family shifts their August holiday for September weddings. It’s not so long to wait. Americans regularly have engagements lasting a year.”
Jacob grabs my knees and hauls me 90 degrees to face him. A thread of frustration tightens between us.
“Royal timelines don’t work like that,” he says, his voice low, scraping along the side of my neck. “It’s maybe six months between an official announcement and the actual royal wedding.”
I force a smile. “You’ve been doing research?” Emotions crowd against the bridge of my nose and behind my eyes while I make room for false ones that slip through, as thin as water. “If you’re prepared to think about marriage, I could ask Caroline to draw up a preliminary list.”
It’s supposed to sound like I’m teasing him, but my throat hurts too much to get it right.
