by Artemis Hunt
At least he has progressed to saying ‘good morning’ to me since Alex asked me to marry him.
“Good morning, Jasper,” Alex and I both chorus.
“Your Majesty, may I have a private word with you?” Jasper pointedly looks at me.
Alex waves his bacon-ridden fork. “Whatever you have to say to me can be said in front of Liz. Remember that, Jasper.”
Jasper suppresses a sigh.
“Your Majesty, I think it is time you let Lady Tatiana and her father, the Duke of Nuernberg, know that your engagement to her is off. It’s time to make it public.”
Oh.
Alex looks pained. I don’t blame him. It’s not a task I would relish either. I’m a pacifist by nature and I hate confronting anyone in any way.
“I suppose I need to get it over with,” Alex says. He reaches over the table to clasp my hand. “Then I’ll be able to announce our engagement to the public.”
“That isn’t wise, Your Majesty. It would be too soon after your father’s death. It would be extremely bad publicity. We are still in the bereavement period for the old King. To break up with Lady Tatiana, the old King’s choice for your bride, and to take on a new betrothal so soon might send many tongues wagging. It will not augur well for the start of your reign.”
I hate to agree with Jasper on anything, but he’s right.
Alex still looks mutinous.
“It’s not right. I hate subterfuge of any sort. Why don’t we just come clean to the press? I proposed to Liz before news of my father’s death reached me. It wouldn’t be fair to Liz to ask her to wait so long.” His vivid green eyes dart to me when he says this.
A pang clenches my chest.
He’s always thinking of me. If this man can be any more perfect, I would think I’m in some surreal nirvana.
I squeeze Alex’s fingers. “No. Jasper is right. We have to wait. It won’t look right, Alex. I know that if I were reading it on some tabloid, I would think Moldavian royalty is behaving really crass.”
“No different from British royalty.”
Now it’s my turn to look pained.
“I get it, Liz.” Alex flashes me a smile. “If you’re OK with waiting just a few months more . . . ” He squeezes my hand back.
Jasper masks a fleeting expression of disdain. I have to suppress a laugh.
“I’m OK with it,” I say.
Alex leans over the table to kiss me in front of Jasper, who takes his cue and makes a hurried and quite disgusted exit.
4
Jasper is indeed right. Unpleasant things have to be done.
I can’t help but wait anxiously for Alex’s return. He made a day trip to Nuernberg to seek an audience with the Duke and Tatiana. I’m all pins and needles. I picture Tatiana being distraught, the Duke refusing to allow the breakup. I imagine the Duke threatening to go to war! I mean, Germany went to war with Austria over a very trivial issue, right? What’s to stop Nuernberg from going to war with Moldavia?
Do those two nations even have armies?
When Alex finally comes home, I rush into his arms. He’s bone weary and he sinks down with me onto the bed.
“How did it go?” I ask lightly, not wanting to let him know how worried I was.
He sighs. “Not good. The Duke did not take it well at all. Tatiana, on the other hand, was uncommonly calm. For her, I mean.”
That does not sound good.
“Will everything be OK?” Anxiety swarms my voice.
“I hope so,” he says, kissing me and pushing me onto the bed. “I’m tired, but I still have a raging hard-on every time I look at you.”
I laugh despite my reservations about the situation. As he begins to tease the warm folds of my pussy, my restless mind wanders to how I can take matters in my own hands.
*
I text Tatiana:
'PLEASE MEET ME TOMORROW AT 2.30 PM. A CAR WILL BE WAITING AT YOUR PALACE ENTRANCE. WE HAVE MUCH TO TALK ABOUT. DO NOT LET ALEX KNOW YOU ARE MEETING ME.’
OK, I’m a stickler for déjà vu.
I get one of the drivers to take me in a limo to Nuernberg. In a reversal of events, I wait for Tatiana in the backseat. She’s right on time. She moves in gracefully beside me as I depress the button that shields the backseat passengers from the driver. She wears a sharp suit today – cerise jacket and skirt with black zigzag embellishments. Tatiana can pull any dress off.
She regards me with her bemused eyes.
“Turning the tables on me?” she says wryly. “You’ve won, you know. No need to rub it in.”
I clasp my hands. I’m nervous. “No, it’s not like that. I’m not here to gloat. I’ll never do that to you, or to anyone.”
She raises her eyebrows.
I say, “How are you, Tatiana?”
She does look different. Her shoulders are not as poised and a stray hair has escaped her usually impeccable coiffure. The sides of her mouth are creased. There are extra patches of concealer buried beneath her eyes, suggesting that she has not been sleeping well or looking after herself in the usual flawless manner.
My chest contracts. In this kind of war, there can only be one victor. I remember the state I was in when I left Alex for the first time. I was pretty depressed. It’s remarkable that Tatiana even managed to get out of bed and dress for me.
“As well as I can be, under the circumstances,” she says.
“I heard your father is really upset.”
“It’s a slap in the face for him. My engagement to Alex was a very public announcement after all.”
“Is your father . . . treating you OK?” I don’t know how royal fathers act towards their daughters, but suddenly, I am worried for Tatiana.
She smiles. “He hasn’t hit me, if that’s what you are implying. But he’s disappointed in me. He has always wanted a son, and this incident does not sit well with him. It’s an affirmation of his belief that daughters are and will continue to be disappointments to his lineage.”
“But it’s not your fault.”
“He insists it is. If I had been more persuasive with Alex . . . more beguiling, more giving.” Tatiana’s shadowed eyes flit away.
I feel really, really bad, but we are not close enough for me to reach out and clasp her hand. I’m not sure she would welcome my comfort either – I who have stolen away the love of her life.
“He thinks I should have been more ruthless,” Tatiana continues.
“How?”
She shakes her head. “There are things some royals do that never see print. You don’t want to know what they are capable of.”
Her eyes regard me again, and I suddenly feel a cold shiver slide down my spine.
She says, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to have you murdered.”
A smile ghosts her lips.
The thought of her hiring someone to kill me has never crossed my mind, and now she is suggesting that it should. Oh God. What am I playing with? Surely things like these don’t happen these days? With my heart thudding, I remember Princess Diana’s fatal crash in the French tunnel when she was with her lover.
That can’t be . . . no, no, it simply can’t. That was an accident, wasn’t it?
“You should see the look on your face,” she says, once again amused. She reaches out to grasp my hand instead, a gesture that takes me completely by surprise. “Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I am not your enemy. My father is not your enemy, if that’s what this visit is all about. We will not declare war upon Moldavia over this.”
I’m more than surprised. I’m shocked. Is she a mind reader?
She laughs. “I’ve hit the nail on the head, haven’t I? Yes, you are here because you want to barter peace. Very noble of you. We have no armies, but we can request defensive aid from Germany if necessary, just as Moldavia can request armies from France. But no army is going on the offense for us if we want to attack Moldavia over something as trivial as loss of face.”
That’s a relief to hear. But I’m still not out of the fire when it come
s to assassination.
Tatiana turns a shade more serious.
“No, Elizabeth Turner. Neither I nor my father will be protesting this turn of affairs, although when it is made public, I cannot gauge the reactions of my fellow countrymen. They have been primed to accept it, however, thanks to the endless stream of photos featuring you with Alex for the past couple of months. No, the enemy is much, much closer to your home.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
“Exactly what I mean,” she replies cryptically. “It would do you well to keep your eyes and ears tuned. When the strike comes, it would be from the most unexpected of places.”
5
I spend the next four months being afraid of my own shadow.
I’m jumpy and nervous. “Is our food tasted before it’s served?” I ask Alex. “You know, as by royal food tasters?”
He’s astonished for a split second, and then he throws back his head and laughs.
“Oh Liz, darling.” He wipes tears from his eyes. “Where did you get that? We’re no longer in the middle ages.”
“It never hurts to be safe,” I argue.
“Yeah, but who in the hell wants to poison us?”
You never know, Alex, I think soberly. You just never know. It’s like the proverbial sword hanging over our heads. I don’t know when the strings tethering it to place are going to be severed.
To calm my nerves, I take French lessons. I spend a voluminous time with Marie Vassar whenever she has time for me. Now that her brother is King, their business and social calendars are filled with engagements and appointments. Marie has taken over a large chunk of the casinos so that her brother can be left to tend to more kingly matters.
My mother came to visit for two weeks. Alex paid for everything, of course – first class all the way. It was the first time my mother had ever met Alex, the first time she has ever been to Moldavia and the first time she has ever flown first class. In fact, it’s the first time she has ever been out of the United States.
Her jaw has not left the ground.
She has seen the pap photos, of course, and has been hounded by tabloid reporters to tell her side of the story. Or rather, my story. How I was as a child. Where I grew up. If I had any boyfriends as I was growing up.
Unlike Deanna, she never took the bait. Not even when they offered her a hundred thousand dollars.
Mom was like a fish out of the water everywhere. She never lost her awe of Alex (“But he’s a King! Yes, I know he’s very young and handsome, but he’s still a King, sweetheart.”). She had one tea with the Queen and Marie, and she clattered her way through with the teacups, spilling half her Darjeeling on her cheese and tomato finger sandwiches. She is clueless about dining etiquette.
I know I ought to be embarrassed for her, but I’d rather have my Mom for a Mom anytime than Alex’s mother, who is polite and smiling throughout, without the smile quite touching her eyes.
“I don’t belong here, sweetheart,” Mom says, abashed.
“Of course you do, Mom.” I hug her.
“No, I don’t. And neither do you, Lizzie, as much as I hate to say it.”
I hate to admit it too, but she is right.
“I have a bad feeling about this place, Lizzie.” She shudders as she looks around the grand palace. “It’s as though we are being watched all the time. Nothing feels safe. Nothing is private.”
Those are my exact sentiments, though I have learned to ignore it. Mom is far wiser than we give her credit for.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Lizzie, giving up college and all. But Alexander is a good, good man. He loves you very much.”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
I say a teary goodbye to Mom as she leaves for the airport. The time has now come for another major confrontation – the announcement of my official engagement to Alex. So far, the family knows about it and they have been majorly uneasy, except for Marie.
But it’s time to make it public now. It’s time to drag that-which-shalt-not-be-discussed into the limelight.
Let the mudslinging begin.
*
The official announcement will be to the press. Under Madame Fournier’s careful guidance, Alex and I hold our first interview for Telemonde Moldavia, our local TV station. But CNN, FOX, BBC. Al-Jazeera and all the big world news reporters are here too, not to mention the gossip rags.
I’m dressed in a deep blue velvet dress. It has a demure neckline and a very flattering waist. My hair is brushed and coiffed to shining ‘natural’ perfection. I am bright-eyed and innocent-looking. My face has been touched up so as not to make me look too young, lest Alex be accused of robbing the cradle, even though we are only a few years apart in age.
Alex is so impossibly handsome that I can’t take my eyes off him. Which is a good thing. He helps me focus on what we are here to do. We have to sell our love to the world and come off not looking like the bad guys.
The interview is conducted in English. Our interviewer is the most famous talk show host in Moldavia, Yvette Dupree. She’s the Oprah of her little corner, and we are about to make her world famous.
We are seated on her couch together. She is placed in her usual armchair facing us. There is no live audience today. A bevy of cameras – more news cameras than I have ever seen in my entire life – decks the entire podium to the front of us. I’m frankly dazzled by all the lights.
My hands are numb. Come to think of it, I can’t feel my legs either. Madame Fournier has made us rehearse what we’re going to say again and again, but there’s always the chance of Yvette Dupree throwing us a curveball. She’s a journalist after all and you can’t curtail the freedom of the press, even in Moldavia.
Even if you are royalty.
Yvette is a stunning blonde. She is not beautiful if you take her individual features apart. Her nose is too narrow. Her eyes too close together. Her lips trend to the voluptuous side. But put together, she is stunning, especially with her huge mane of hair.
“Are you ready?” she says in her low, smoky voice. She is far from deferential, though she is clearly excited. This is her coup and she knows it. Her career is about to go stratospheric.
“Yes,” Alex says.
He clasps my clammy hand.
“You’ll be OK,” he whispers.
It’s like a test I have studied ten times for. I keep telling myself I’ll be OK, and yet, now that I’m here and my examination orals have begun, I am tongue-tied and frozen.
Oh God God help me.
The interview begins. Before us, the news cameras greedily lap up our every word, magnify our every deficiency . . . every pore on our face. Sweat beads upon my brow from the studio lights.
The first few questions are congratulatory about Alex’s ascension to the throne. Yvette mentions the old King’s passing and we are suitably somber. Alex talks about his father in a heartfelt way, dragging up memories of his childhood with his father. He details the anecdote, as rehearsed, about his father playing toy trains with him in the royal playroom. I find myself imagining Alex as a boy and the old King as a far younger man – sitting together on a humungous toy train as it runs round and round a track replete with toy stations and toy passengers.
So we have now established that Alex loved his father. I hate it that everything is so manipulated for the media, but we have no choice. And it’s true – Alex did love his father dearly, even if they didn’t always see eye to eye.
Alex is magnificent in front of the cameras. He’s very natural, as if he’s used to being before them all his life even if this is his first time being officially interviewed.
Yvette swivels to me. My insides turn to jelly.
“So, Liz. May I call you Liz?”
“Yes, please.”
Don’t, don’t throw me a curveball, I psyche her.
“So how did you and Alex meet?”
I take a deep breath. Alex gives an almost imperceptible nod of encouragement.
He claimed and took my body against
the wall of a public hotel restroom. The men’s one, to be exact.
Do not be ashamed, I hear Madame Fournier’s voice telling me.
“I was a maid in a hotel in Chicago. Alex and his father were visiting.” Thank goodness my voice isn’t shaking . . . yet. I am looking directly into Yvette’s piercing brown eyes. “I was one of the servers at the state ball thrown that night by Alex’s father. Alex noticed me.”
“He noticed you? How?”
Wait. That isn’t supposed to be in the script. She’s throwing me a curveball. Yvette’s expression turns amused. She seems to be saying, Come on now, Liz. Don’t spare my global audience the juicy details.
If only she knew.
I remember what I wore that night – a harem’s outfit – and I blush. How do I extricate myself from this now? I’m not good at telling lies. How do I wriggle out of this without appearing like a harlot? I don’t want the world to know how intensely sexual our experiences are. I don’t want them to know about our first ‘date’, and the way he fucked me 30,000 feet above the ground.
“I was serving champagne.” I say. I don’t actually remember what I was serving that night. “I’m kind of a klutz. I spilled champagne on him.”
I groan inwardly. She’s going to totally see through that. It’s the commonest ‘meet cute’ story in the book. I should never be allowed to tell stories. Someone should lock me in and throw away the key before I embarrass myself and Alex any further.
“You did? How quaint! So what happened?” Yvette appears genuinely interested.
Oh, oh, what do I say? What do I say?
Alex interrupts, “She apologized profusely, of course. I was totally charmed. There’s something different about her, I noticed immediately. She has a refreshing, innocent beauty that I haven’t encountered very often. I mean . . . just look at her.”
His clear green eyes are filled with so much love that my heart wrenches with actual physical pain. Oh Alex, Alex . . . This is genuine. No one can fake that.