Page 82 of The Midnight Princess
“I love it when you listen to me.” She grins, forgetting the distance she’s placed between us over the last several days, blind to the danger of being kissed. “It’s got polka dots. Think of it like making a trade—you’ve got a formal Windsor but in a playful pattern. You have to get the balance just right.”
She turns up my collar and lays the tie against my neck, adjusting the length and weaving the fabric this way and that. She fumbles and retreats a step—right up against the closet door.
I catch her waist. “Careful.”
We’re as close as we were that night in the orangery, but this time I know she’s bossy and straight-laced. Knits badly and blushes. This time, though, I know she’s not free. Whenshe cinches the tie, I step back and check myself in the mirror. “Good?” I ask.
She only nods.
“That’s nice,” I say, pointing at her black dress. My compliment is the understatement of the century. Alma looks like every dream I never knew I had. “What is it?”
“Vintage Sergei San Martin,” she says. “It’s Freja’s favorite designer.”
That’s one more factor I haven’t considered when choosing my clothes. “It’s like I’m playing checkers and you’re playing inter-dimensional chess.”
Her smile flashes, and I let my eyes drop, skimming along the outline of her figure. The sleeves extend just beyond the soft bend of her elbow. “You look good.” Her lashes flicker. If she were mine, this would be my cue to take her in my arms.
“Get on the bed,” she commands.
“What?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Jacob.”
She pushes me, and I fall back, propping myself up on my elbows, curious to see how events unfold. Her gaze has a dangerous weight—like a running saw with faulty safeguards.
“Your shoelaces are appalling,” she says. She pivots a chair into position and guides my foot to the seat. I’m at Little Duckies again.
She doesn’t waste her time with instruction, only pulls apart the knots I learned in kindergarten and does them up. The bows no longer look thick and stubby but lay flat, the loops dripping with money.
“What’s that?”
“A Parisian knot.”
I tilt the shoe back and forth. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“I’ve had a lifetime to learn.” Her gaze drifts from my eyes to my waistcoat and back again. “Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“Should I do it this way every time?”
Alma shakes her head. “There are lots of ways I didn’t even think to teach you.” She moves around the room, tidying up the mess, tucking neckties away, and straightening my shoes.Opadoes this sort of thing forOma, coming after her in the kitchen after she gets breakfast on, wiping down the counters and cleaning the cast iron skillet. Like the afternoon turkeys crossing at the end of the drive, it is a sign that all is well in their little world.
A wave of longing knocks the words from my chest. “You don’t have to get married,” I say, as if it’s as simple as exchanging one tie for another. Hard pressure builds in my lungs.
“If you come to Vorburg, I’ll make you my master and I can be your apprentice,” I say, using the familiar language of tradesmen. Her hand goes to her finger, twisting an invisible ring, and the room shivers with the words I haven’t spoken.You could be my girl. I could be your man.
Alma’s face is pale, but she forces a smile. “And spark off another war between our people?”
One Sondish princess, but not one more.She knows what I want. She has to. And she thinks the idea of us is impossible.
I sit up, hands braced behind me. “I’d go to war for you.”
She stands at the dresser and closes a drawer with a snap. “Thank goodness it won’t come to that.” The sound she makes isn’t a laugh, but it tries to be. “I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.” Alma is always running.
We drive across town. Ella sits in the front seat with the security detail, keeping up a steady stream of conversation and filling me in with just enough family gossip to keep me from making a massive idiot of myself.
“And of course, Clara has been dying to introduce Max to our parents, but there hasn’t been any kind of precedent for these things,” she explains.
“No precedent for meeting the parents?” Alma sits silently at my side. I want to reach for her hand in the darkness, lacing our fingers together.
