Now Presenting (I'm No Princess Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stevens

  “She’s certainly unique.” Dad smiled.

  “Another word for mad,” I added.

  “But all the best people are,” we finished together; I’d been a mad Lewis Carroll fan forever.

  Feeling a little less self-conscious, but only because I was pretending it wasn’t Dmitri sitting next to me, I got through the rest of dinner relatively unscathed and then feigned jet lag to run up to my room.

  Chapter Five

  The servant took away my coffee just as I was about to pick it back up and I glared at their back. Then I looked around in panic as Lia, Dad and Hilde started getting up from the breakfast as though there had been some secret, silent signal to do so.

  “Nikolai will take you to Madame Jacqueline,” Dad said as he wiped his mouth on his napkin and dropped it on his plate. “Then I’ll meet you in the south conservatory.”

  I blinked, trying and failing to catch the last bit of my toast before the plate was taken away. “How am I meant to find the south–?”

  “Nikolai has it sorted, Tati,” Dad said as he walked out.

  I sat in the breakfast room by myself, watching as the servants milled around doing their jobs. I huffed a stray hair from my face.

  “Can I at least get one more coffee, please?” I asked anyone who wanted to listen.

  “Lady Tatiana,” a kindly-looking man nodded as he brought me a cup and poured what looked like still piping hot coffee into it.

  “Thanks.” I smiled at him and he inclined his head politely.

  “Nikolai is waiting for you outside, my lady. Might I suggest that you take that ‘to-go’?” he whispered as he leant past me to pick up a glass.

  Because I was me, I tried replying before I’d finished drinking and only some last minute evasive manoeuvres spared me the need for a costume change. “Good idea. Thanks.”

  I took better hold of my cup and got up quickly, whirling around without looking where I was going. So what happened? Yeah. The coffee I had so pain-stakingly acquired ended up between me and Dmitri as we crashed into each other.

  He did that super endearing thing where he muttered under his breath in Gallyrian and I breathed out as the heat seeped through my shirt. The heat from the coffee. There was no other heat between us.

  “Lady Tatiana. Pleasure as always,” he said in that monotone as he stepped back and shook his hands out.

  I was bright red, but I still made the mistake of looking up at him. “Likewise, Dmitri.”

  We both stood and stared at each other, even as the servant passed him a napkin and then took my now empty cup from me. When he returned, he murmured, “Nikolai,” under his breath and I finally remembered I was meant to be somewhere.

  I cleared my throat. “I apparently have an appointment with Madame Jacqueline before I’m required in the south conservatory,” I told him.

  The look on his face told me just how much he cared. Still, I tried to be political and inclined my head while doing some odd sort of half-curtsey bob and just saw him return the head-bob as I hurried out, zipping my hoody up over the patch of cooling coffee on my top.

  “Madame Jacqueline, Nikolai?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  I nodded and indicate he lead the way because there was no way I’d remembered all the twists and turns of the palace yet. I was starting to realise that there was some benefit to this bodyguard business. As long as I thought of him as more a babysitter than a guard. I didn’t want to know if he could kill a guy with uncooked spaghetti or one finger or something. In my head, he was going to be little more than a glorified tour guide. And that made me feel better.

  “My lady?”

  I looked up and saw Nikolai holding the door open for me to the seamstress’ room.

  I smiled at him. “Thanks.”

  “Lady Tatiana!” Madame Jacqueline cried as I walked in. “Entrez-vous, entrez and take off those horrible jeans.” Her French accent was somehow perfect for expressing her displeasure for anything but the finest. “I have some designs to try and we only have so much time.”

  I sighed as I undid my button. “Already?”

  She nodded. “Évidemment.”

  I still remembered a little French from school – would it have been more helpful for me to have done Gallyrian? Évidemment. But my school didn’t have Gallyrian and, as we’ve established, the laziness was strong with this one.

  “How?” I asked as I hopped out of my shoe with my jeans half off.

  Madame Jacqueline huffed as though it was obvious. “It is my job, non?”

  I shrugged as I finally stood up straight and unzipped my hoody. “Sure.”

  “Mon dieu, what happened to your shirt?” she asked me.

  I looked down and realised I should have changed my top first. “I had a little accident with a cup of coffee and a prince,” I explained.

  The French she muttered was way too fast for me to catch. It seemed to be becoming a habit that people muttered around me, preferably in a language in which I wasn’t fluent, and I was smart enough to recognise the common denominator.

  As I finished getting undressed – thankfully the room was warm thanks to the fire blazing merrily away – she picked up a huge thing of a pale brown material and shook it out. I saw it was a skirt.

  “Huh,” I mused, “I was kinda expecting something a little more… Fancy.”

  She clicked her tongue. “It is but a toile.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry. A what?”

  “A muslin?”

  “It’s…made of…muslin?” I asked, confused since I’d been under the impression muslin was the thing that you strained jams and jellies through before you let them set.

  She glared at me with a fierceness that made me grin. “A mock-up, my lady.” She shook her head. “We make a test version first. This lets us check cut and style and fit. Comprenez-vous?”

  I nodded quickly. “Yeah. I get it.”

  “Bien.”

  Madame Jacqueline fluffed the skirt out and I stepped into it. It was a many layered, poufy thing.

  “When did you have time to make this?” I asked her. “You only measured me yesterday.”

  “Mais oui,” she said as she pinned the heavy fabric at what was apparently the right height on my waist. “This was done for your sister. You two are so similar…” She petered off and we both looked up to catch each other’s eye.

  “But?” I pressed, just waiting for it.

  “But for your eyes.”

  I nodded and looked in the mirror behind her. “I get that a lot.” I ran my hand over the skirt, wondering what it would look like when it was finished. “They didn’t do this at home when I had my state dinner dress made.”

  Madame Jacqueline muttered something and I looked to her in question. “Amateurs,” she explained.

  I gave her a smile, which she returned for the briefest moment.

  She moved around behind me, lifting my hair up like it might be done on the night. In the mirror, I saw her eyes fall on my back and watched her eyebrow and the corner of her mouth lift in interest.

  “Qu'est-ce que c'est?” she asked wryly.

  I couldn’t help smiling. “My eighteenth birthday present to myself.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  I nodded. “A little. It was more hot than anything else.”

  I could see in her eyes that she was thinking of something. “We should showcase this, non?”

  I shook my head. “Yeah. Maybe not,” I laughed. “I can’t imagine Dad giving that the okay for my presentation ball.”

  “C’est vrai. D’accord. For… Not Christmas. New Years perhaps? You will let me design you a dress that shows off this beauty. Oui?”

  I bit my lip as I thought about it. Finally, I nodded. “Okay.” And we shared a smile.

  Then she’d turned back to her table of material and the process to find the perfect top for my dress began. I felt like we were there for ten hours, different pieces of
material being placed over me, then another, then pinning some others together. And each one had rigorous scrutiny as Madame Jacqueline talked to herself in a combination of French and English. The rare occasion she asked me something, she’d moved on before I could give her an answer.

  So by the time I wandered back out to find Nikolai waiting for me, my feet hurt from standing for so long and I had no idea what my dress was going to look like, but I trusted Madame Jacqueline when she said I was going to look amazing.

  “Ugh, how do you do it?” I asked him as I followed him to the south conservatory, wherever that was.

  “Do what, my lady?”

  “Stand all day.”

  “You get used to it,” was all he’d deign to say.

  Servants bowed or inclined their heads as we passed. I knew it had only been like three days, but I wasn’t sure if I was getting sick of it or if I’d just accepted it. I supposed it was like Nikolai said; I’d get used to it. All of it.

  “Tati!” Dad sighed as I walked in.

  “What?” I answered, automatically incredulous and ready to defend whatever he thought I’d done.

  He huffed a laugh as he waved a hand at me to motion me over. “You’re later than I expected is all.” He put one hand on my waist and picked up my other. “How did it go?”

  I looked at our bodies. “Fine. I think. What are we doing?”

  “Dance lessons,” Dad said. “And I only have a few minutes to do this.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “Dance lessons, Tati. For the ball.”

  “You what?”

  “At balls, it is customary to dance,” came another voice and I glared at Dad like it was all his fault.

  Dad shrugged apologetically. “Mitya, nice to see you,” he said, looking behind me. “What brings you here?”

  “My meeting finished early. I thought I would enjoy some quiet time.”

  “Of course. Although, I’ll be teaching Tatiana how to dance.”

  Dmitri spoke to Dad in Gallyrian, who spoke back and I huffed while I waited for them to finish. Finally Dad looked at me and I knew I wasn’t going to be finding out what was said. Although I was getting pretty good at reading tones of voice, and I was going to go out on a limb and suggest that Dmitri hadn’t been very complimentary and Dad had been exasperatingly teasing.

  “Okay. So how much do you remember?” Dad asked me.

  I snuck a look behind me to see Dmitri sitting on a bench with a book. I rolled my eyes, recognising the oldest spy tactic in the book. I’d bet my inheritance that he was only there to either laugh at me – if he was actually capable – or for a foolproof reason to insult me some more.

  “Tati,” Dad hissed and I snapped back around to look at him.

  I blinked. “Uh, not much.”

  “When was the last time you danced?”

  I gave him an apologetic nose wrinkle. “With you…”

  Dad rolled his eyes. “Okay. Slowly then.”

  He counted as we moved and I only stepped on his feet about sixty percent of the time. The rest of the time, I went the wrong way, elbowed him, or nearly fell over. Still, we tried it over and over again. And I was getting no better. And we hadn’t even put anything to music yet. Don’t even get me started on turning.

  “Tati, come on,” Dad said exasperatedly. “You were not this bad when I saw you last.”

  I huffed and stepped back from him. “Last time we were just spinning around the back yard. I didn’t know I was going to have to do this in front of…people,” I finished on a harsh whisper.

  Dad’s eyes slid behind me and then he looked at me quizzically. “People?” he asked sceptically and I frowned at him.

  Yes, I’d partly been meaning Dmitri. But also, “This ball bullshit–”

  “Tati,” he chastised.

  “Don’t ‘Tati’ me, Dad. If you’d seen fit to tell me about all this back when I was still at home, maybe I would have practised more.”

  “I think we both know you wouldn’t have. You knew Gallyrians spoke Gallyrian as well as English, yet you elected to do French–”

  “Saints didn’t have Gallyrian, Dad!”

  “We could have come to some arrangement.”

  “You could have seen fit to impart the seriousness of the situation and I might have better prepared.”

  Dmitri said something in said Gallyrian and Dad glared at him.

  “Thank you, Mitya. I don’t think you’re helping,” he said sternly.

  Dmitri said something else I didn’t understand and I could have sworn there was a tone of humour to his voice.

  “Really, and what’s that?” Dad replied, crossing his arms as he looked at Dmitri.

  “Perhaps it is the tutor?” Dmitri asked Dad and I whirled around.

  “Excuse you?” I asked him.

  Dmitri put his book down and shrugged. “While I am starting to believe that perhaps you are as useless as you originally described. Could it be that Max is just not a very good tutor?”

  “Would you like to have a go, Mitya?” Dad asked him wryly.

  “Nie. I merely ask the question.”

  “No. By all means, Mitya. You show me what you can manage that I can’t.”

  “Dominic will be home soon. He is a better tutor than me.”

  “A compliment for your brother and to your detriment, Mitya?” Dad said slowly, a smile breaking out on his face. “You really don’t want to do it, do you?”

  Dmitri shifted to Gallyrian for whatever he snapped at Dad with a scowl on his face. Whatever Dad replied with was teasing, but the kind of ribbing a father or uncle would give. Dmitri’s face twitched and I wasn’t sure if it was that muscle of displeasure or if he was trying to supress a smile.

  “All right, then.” Dmitri stood up slowly and walked over to me as Dad stepped back, crossing his arms.

  My heart went into overdrive and I actually looked around for Nikolai like he was going to be able to protect me from whatever was about to happen.

  Dmitri held his hand out to me as he gave a slight bow, a look in his eyes that was either inscrutable or I just didn’t want to decipher it. I slid my eyes to Dad and he nodded at me perfunctorily. That was a surprise, but I read in the situation that this had more to do with Dmitri and less to do with me.

  As I looked back to Dmitri, my mouth went dry and my heart stuttered for some reason. I licked my lip nervously and I slowly put my hand into his. My gaze flickered from his eyes to our hands as our bodies moved towards each other, mine feeling like it was on autopilot. I was still looking at it as his other hand gently directed my other hand to his shoulder, then rested lightly on my hip.

  I had to keep looking at it or I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel. There was this insistent feeling pushing up against the outer edges of my mind that I refused to acknowledge. Something that warred with my knowledge that the crown prince was a butt-head.

  “Whenever you are ready,” he said, his voice low like it was only between the two of us.

  I finally looked up into his eyes and there it went. My heart skipped a beat and my breath caught. His eyes were bright with humour, like he was daring me to pull away, but the rest of his face was still neutral. His hand was warm and sat in mine nicely. The realisation sent a shiver down my spine and I cleared my throat awkwardly as I looked down like I was checking the placement of my feet.

  “Okay. Teach me how to dance, Dmitri,” I told him.

  “I will do my best–”

  “Yeah, I know. But you’re not a magician,” I grumbled and I felt him shift in a way that made me look up.

  There was a slight rise in the side of mouth and I had to be imagining the heat in his eyes. “No, I am not.”

  He took me through the waltz and I made sure to concentrate hard. It made me a little less fluid than I should have been, but at least I was a little less damaging than I’d been to Dad. But being the spectacular klutz I was, I still co
llided with him a few times and I dared to hope I wasn’t the only one feeling the sexual tension simmering between us. Or maybe I hoped I was the only one feeling it.

  His grip tightened every time I ran into him or stumbled, but his face was inscrutable and he did nothing but breathe out when he got clocked with a wayward elbow or hand. What turned out to be the last time however, the hand on my waist slid up my back under my jumper, our clasped hands close to my face. He let go of my hand, tracing a line down my jaw. My breath came fast and I licked my suddenly very dry lips.

  His eyes were fixed on my lips and a potential smoulder ignited in his eyes. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to say something to diffuse the situation or escalate it. But I dared not open my mouth, knowing nothing good would come out.

  He looked at me a moment longer, our chests against the other’s, then he blinked and his eyes were light once more. He cleared his throat and stepped back. My body flushed hot from his touch and cold at the sudden removal of it.

  “Better, Tati,” Dad said and I looked at him quickly, feeling guilty about something.

  Much like Dmitri, Dad’s face was unreadable, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t disapproval I saw. I knew disapproval on my father’s face and I wasn’t sure why he’d feel the need to hide it if he was feeling it.

  “Perhaps it is time we stopped for lunch?” Dmitri suggested, his voice thick and husky.

  “Good idea,” Dad said with a smile. “Why don’t you take her, Mitya? I need to make a couple of phone calls before I eat.”

  Dmitri inclined his head to Dad, who returned the gesture. As he walked out, Dad lay a hand on my arm and gave me a proud nod.

  Which left me in a room with Dmitri when I was in the middle of forgetting that he was a rude, condescending, judgmental, royal pain in the arse. He was still looking at me with a heat in his eyes and I felt like I wasn’t the only one who was breathing a little harder than necessary.

  “So, lunch?” I asked, my voice weirdly strained.

  He nodded. “Ja. Are you hungry?”

  “Uh… Yes. Sure.” I gave an awkward laugh. “Actually, I can always eat.”

  The room was thick with a tension that was only broken when a very light-hearted voice called, “Brother! This must be Tatiana.”