Page 106 of Last Duke Standing

“What is it?” the king asked hoarsely.

“Amelia!” the queen fairly shouted. She saw Robuchard and shook her own telegraph at him. “They must come home right away. She’s gone off to the country with Lady Holland, and the Bardalines had to go and fetch her! I told you she’d be trouble, Robuchard, but you insisted! This isyourfault. Drakkia! I want to send for them straightaway. They are to come home atonce.”

“Darling, do you think—” The king tried to intervene but his question turned into a wet, phlegmy round of coughing.

Dante stuffed his own telegraph into his pocket. He would be sending a telegraph at once to Douglas, demanding that he convince the princess to marry one of his choices as soon as possible, for God’s sake.

CHAPTER THIRTY

JUSTINEFOUNDHERSELFwith Queen Victoria a day later as the queen was being fitted for a ball gown to be worn during an upcoming trip to the Palace of Versailles. The gown was exquisite, made of white silk and blue trim. The dressmaker was fitting the royal sash Her Majesty would wear diagonally across her chest, assuring a proper fit with the gown.

“You will soon learn, my dear, that all the trappings of a throne are designed for men. The sashes, the crowns, the robes, even the scepter—all of them too big and too heavy for a woman. You would be wise to walk about with them before appearing in public. No one wants the symbolic vision of a crown toppling off a sovereign’s head. As we all know, once the crown falls, the head is soon to follow.” She chuckled at her jest.

Justine was too horrified by the image to even smile.

The queen began to fuss about the trim on her sleeve and Justine slipped back into the dreamy wonderland of her memory—the same place she’d been residing for the past day. She kept thinking of William, of the things they’d done, of the way he made her feel. They’d lain together on the divan, talking deep into the night until she began to worry the servants were listening at the door.

They’d talked about so much, and yet it felt as if they’d scarcely even scratched the surface before he told her he had to leave.

She hadn’t wanted him to go; she’d wanted him to stay. She’d wanted everything, all of it—his body, his heart, his mind. She wanted to make love to him, to talk to him, to laugh with him, to play with him, to be silent with him.

“Now, then, my dear, what sort of progress have you made in finding a husband?” the queen asked, startling her back to the present.

“Ah...it has not as yet been successful.”

“But I’ve heard there have been squads of suitors.”

Justine winced inwardly. All of London was talking about it, then. “There have hardly been squads. Only a few, and none of them right.”

“And how are they not right?”

“One was kind, but...” She hesitated. She didn’t know what to say about Prince Michel since that had been entirely her fault. “He was kind. Another was a bit of a drunkard.”

“Steer clear ofthat.When a man’s wealth is completely dependent on you, he will believe himself to be useless. Spirits will make his grievances seem larger than they are, and he will blame you for all of them.”

“Oh my,” Justine said, taken aback.

“I’m surprised your mother hasn’t told you so. Who else?”

“There was another that needed quite a lot of reassuring. And I am to meet an American.”

“No,” the queen said flatly to that. “Who else?”

Justine desperately wanted to say there was another. One who was not on Lady Aleksander’s list, but who perfectly suited her. The only one on her list. “I am aware of no one else.”

“Mmm.” The queen stepped up onto a box so the dressmaker and her assistant could mark the hem. The queen was so small that from the look of it, they were going to have to cut off a foot of fabric.

Justine had just picked up a glass to drink some water when the queen said, “My advice is to find someone with whom you will enjoy your marital bed. All the rest will follow.”

Justine was so startled that she choked on her water and began to cough.

Not that the queen noticed. “It can make the longest days rather pleasant in the end.”

“Umm...” She ran her thumb over her bottom lip to catch any water spilling down her chin.

“Don’t be fussy, dear. It’s a fact of life—the more compatible you are in the privacy of your chamber, the more compatible you are in life.”

Both the dressmaker and her assistant shot a look at Justine.

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