Page 8 of A Princess for Christmas

So she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “It is vitally important that I reach the North Cove Marina by seven o’clock.”

“So you can go to a party on a boat,” the taxi driver said flatly. He was not impressed.

She could try to explain that it wasn’t merely a party, butactually, if things went well, a stealth trade meeting. But, again, what was the point? Mr. Benz’s wildly unnecessary little speech had probably already cemented this man’s opinion of her. So she merely said, “That is correct.”

He didn’t bother hiding his disdain as he reached across her and handed Mr. Benz a business card through the open window, and as they pulled away from the curb, his lip physically curled upward.

His other passenger didn’t seem to share his disregard, though. “Are you really a princess?” she exclaimed.

Marie turned to look at the girl though the open window in the clear plexiglass partition that separated the front seat from the back. “I am.”

“Eeee! That is soamazing!” The girl threw up her hands. She must be the driver’s daughter. They had the same thick, dark hair, though hers was in a ponytail and her dad’s was a shaggy mass of waves. Matching light-brown eyes were topped with heavy, unkempt brows. Thick, pillowy lips that would make the girl a knockout when she got older made her dad... a knockout currently. His were surrounded by a beard that was a little too long to be called stubble, but only just. She found this tendency of some American men to hover perpetually in limbo between clean-shaven and bearded rather vexing.

“What was the name of the country again?” the girl asked.

“Eldovia.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Lots of people haven’t. It’s a small nation located between Switzerland and Austria.”

“Near Italy, or up closer to Germany?” the man asked.

She was impressed. Most Americans thought of Europe as one indistinguishable mass. They knew the UK and perhaps the boot of Italy, but that was usually as far as their geographical knowledge went.

“Germany—we’re north of Liechtenstein.”

“Eldovia.” He snorted. “It sounds like one of those fake Hallmark Channel countries.”

“Leo!” the girl protested. “That was sorude!”

Marie smiled. She was pretty sure that wasexactlywhat most people thought, but she’d never met someone who actually said it to her face.

Also:Leo. The girl had called the man by his first name. Was this perhapsnota father-daughter relationship? She glanced at the man’s—Leo’s—hands on the steering wheel. No ring.

Not that that mattered in any way.

“It’s a real country,” she assured them. “It has a long, rich history. But itisabsurdly picturesque. The Alps will do that.”

“And it has a princess!” came the voice from the back seat.

“And a king, too,” Marie said, enjoying the girl’s unbridled enthusiasm. That wasn’t an emotion she had a lot of experience with, at least not lately, and it seemed... like fun. She twisted in her seat again so she could see the girl.

“Is he an evil king who tries to thwart your happiness at every turn?”

Marie startled herself by laughing. She wasn’t normally easy with laughter. She also wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Her fatherwasthwarting her happiness, but he wasn’t doing it on purpose. And he wasn’t evil.

“Or! Is he a kindly king?”

“I think he’s a sad king.” It was out before Marie could think better of it, but it was true.

The girl scrunched up her face as ifsadwas not an entry in her mental reference book underKings, types of.

“Why is he sad?”

“Because my mother died.” And with her, any opportunities for unbridled enthusiasm.

Normally, Marie would never speak like this. But these people seemed safe. They were so far from her life at home, both geographically and in every other way, that she felt like she could tell them the truth.

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