The Christmas Princess (15 page)

“A different sort of tree for the living quarters,” he said. “Relaxed and informal, as April said.”

“The embassy possesses no such decorations.” Which was as it should be, judging from Madame’s tone.

“Ah, but we have other resources. You will want to use the ones you brought,” he said to April before returning to Madame. “Then whatever else is needed, you shall buy.”

“I have no information on where one might purchase such
relaxed
and
informal
decorations as might please Ms. Gareaux. Nor do I have the time—”

“I’ll get them. It’s only right—” April said quickly. “Since it’s my idea. And I can find whatever we need so much easier than Madame, who is already working so hard with Hunter and me being added to the household, and the staff reduced. Truly, I’d like to get the decorations. And a tree. A real tree.” Her smile left no doubt that she meant it. “I’d like to do that.”

His face softened as he looked at her. “So you shall. It is all settled then. Where shall we put it?”

“The library.”

“Not the small recep— Ah, no. Not in such a formal room.”

April smiled at him. King Jozef smiled back.

Madame’s voice broke the moment of unity. “His Highness has allergies to trees.”

“Not firs,” he objected. “And only in the spring. From the pollen.”

“The scent everywhere. Your breathing. The doctors.” Hunter had to admire the woman. She did not give up. “So close to your surgery, it is not wise.”

“Bosh,” King Jozef said, or a noise close to that word.

“Oh, no,” April said. “If there’s any chance that you could have a reaction or your breathing—”

“There is nothing wrong with my breathing.” He was focused on Madame again. “And if there were, the scent of fir trees would have killed me many decades ago. You might well have forgotten, but at one time, you had every reason to know that.”

And damned if Madame Sabdoka didn’t blush.

“A real tree. In the library.” Then, His Royal Majesty, Jozef, King of Bariavak, added as if it had just occurred to him, “And Hunter shall help you.”

“I talked to Grady about April this morning,” Leslie told Tris as they took an afternoon coffee break. Tris had been out of the office until now.

“I want to hear about that. But first I have to ask, you manage to have a conversation in the morning that’s not interrupted by emergency signatures being needed, forgotten homework being completed, and missing books being found? You two are bona fide miracle workers.”

“Oh, no, all that happens over, under, and through the conversation. Though this one was pretty brief.” Leslie scrunched up her face in a way Grandma Beatrice decried, but Grady loved. “As for what we talked about … Wouldn’t you know it? Here I’ve been avoiding the topic with him for fear he’ll go all protective and march right up to the Warringtons’ front door demanding to talk to April, and, instead, he says to give it until the weekend. That she’s all grown up, probably busy with life and love, and she’ll call back soon. She
is
grown up. I know she is. She has a good head on her shoulders, and she’s smart.”

A small frown tucked between Tris’ brows. “I heard rumbles today that Roberta’s back in town.” The two women looked at each other. Not needing to voice their thoughts. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to listen to Grady’s calm, reasonable approach and I’m calling the Warringtons at 5:01p.m. Friday, because the weekend begins as soon as work ends.”

“Maybe Madame is right.”

April had wrestled with that thought all through dinner.

“About?” Hunter’s gesture stopped her from leaving the portico at the back entry.

“The tree.”

He looked at her. “Then why is Rupert bringing around the car for this expedition?”

“Oh, I mean a real tree. We’ll still have a tree. But an artificial one might be better.”

“The king seemed set on you getting what you wanted.”

“I know.” With King Jozef being so generous, it was only right to make the tree in the living quarters as convenient as possible. Yet, she also wanted a warm, relaxed Christmas for him. For Hunter, too, if he would accept it.

He was looking at her, she felt it. If she turned, they’d be almost as close together as last night as he’d helped her over the ice.

But the ice was all melted now. Too warm for their breath to show today. No mingling, no connection.

“Giving King Jozef what he wants is the whole point,” he said

He was reminding her that, far from bringing true warmth into the king’s life, she also was lying to him. And he was reminding her that his relationship to her was only a product of this charade.

“Of course.”

The car glided to a stop in front of them.

Once they were inside, Rupert turned around. “If it’s all right with you, Miss, I will drive you to Chalton’s Nursery in Maryland. His Highness had me discover who carries the best live trees in the area.”

“I…” She glanced at Hunter. He was looking out his window. “He said that specifically? Live trees?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Then, thank you, Rupert. That will be excellent.”

The driver raised the partition as the car rolled forward.

Hunter kept looking out the side window.

“There’s something going on between the king and Madame,” she said abruptly.

At least that made him look at her instead of out the window.

“The king and Madame.” He chuckled. “Your imagination’s gotten away from you.”

“Maybe not
going on
, but there something there between them. They both feel it. And it is
not
my imagination. Don’t you see the looks?”

“Looks? Are you saying the king and
Madame
are giving each other hot looks?” His tone made it clear which one he thought less likely to engage in such activity, and it wasn’t the king.

“Not hot looks. Exactly. But that’s because those looks haven’t met — not yet, anyway. Mostly they only look directly at each other when they’re at odds. Otherwise, he looks at her when she’s not looking and she looks at him when he’s not looking.” She raised her hands to shoulder level then criss-crossed them in front of her, missing the connection. “But if these looks ever do meet—” This time her fingertips met and, still touching, reached skyward before parting in a volcano-eruption-of-emotion gesture. “—look out.”

He stared at her another moment. “Impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because he is His Royal Highness, Jozef, King of Bariavak and she is Madame,” he said, as if that were plenty of explanation.

“So what? Why shouldn’t they find love? You’re not an age bigot, are you?”

“Age has nothing—”

But she was following another mental track. “You know, I don’t think it’s finding love, anyway. I think maybe they had something going before. So it’s renewing it. Or maybe continuing it.”

“
What
? Do you have any idea of the scandal? Any word of such gossip could cost Madame her position.”

“I’m not gossiping. I’ve only told you.” Though she wouldn’t be surprised if Sharon had an inkling. Maybe Rupert, too.

“Well, for God’s sake don’t tell anyone else. In fact, don’t tell me. It’s impossible.”

“You keep saying that, but not why it’s impossible.”

“He’s the king.”

“There’s nothing that says a king can’t fall in love.”

He shook his head. “Not this king. Some men — some people are equipped to fill a certain job, but not for other aspects of life. It can only lead to disaster if they try to have a family or friends when their only love is their job.”

“You’re saying it’s impossible for the king and Madame to feel anything for each other because his job demands too much of him?”

“That’s a simplistic way of putting it, but yes. Now do you understand?”

No, she didn’t understand his point. But she thought she was starting to understand him better. Still, she wondered, did he realize that he thought he was describing himself as well as the king?

Picking out a Christmas tree should earn hazard pay.

“What about this one?” he’d asked two feet into the brightly lit lot, when he still had delusions about getting in and out quickly. He had to talk loud to be heard over a tinny rendition of song going on and on about Good Saint Nick being on a rooftop.

She gave him a pitying look and didn’t bother to answer.

Then she walked past the first 47,000 trees with “too small,” “too big,” “not the right color,” “don’t last long enough,” “not the best scent,” “those needles can hurt.”

“Why are you whispering? Afraid you’ll hurt the trees’ feelings?”

She chuckled, but said quietly, “I don’t want the people picking out those kinds of trees to feel bad.”

“They must like them if they’re picking them out, so why would they feel bad?”

Pitying look No. 2.

Finally, with that same song playing for at least the fourth time, they came to a section that passed all her tests, judging from her satisfied, “Ah.”

But even here she critically examined a half-dozen trees before she said, “Let’s look at this one.” After a moment, he realized she was looking at him expectantly. “I’d like to see its shape.”

Twine wrapped around the tree, holding the branches in. “I’ll have to cut the twine. They might not like that.”

Pitying look No. 3.

“Anyone who wants to sell trees, expects it. Customers can’t make a decision with the tree bundled up,” she said.

So he cut the twine, and branches dropped partway.

“Ho, ho, ho, who wouldn’t go?” drummed the song. He could answer that question. He had some thoughts on Nell and Will getting their stockings filled, too.

Head tilted, she eyed the now-freed tree critically. “Can you hold the trunk? Out here, so it has room.”

He picked up the tree and moved it to the aisle with one hand wrapped around the central trunk. He felt stickiness attach itself to his hand immediately. Grimacing, he extended his arm fully, while she moved around the tree.

“Grady thunks it,” she informed him. “To see if needles fall off.”

“Why would you want needles to fall off?”

“You really don’t know anything about Christmas trees, do you? You don’t want the needles to fall off. If they do, it means the tree’s not as fresh as you want. So, you thunk the end of the trunk on the ground to see if they fall off. Also—”

He lifted the tree and thunked it. Except he missed the ground and hit his foot.

She sputtered in an effort not to laugh, but at least there was no pitying look. “—uh… It also drops the branches more.” She shook her head. “No, not this one.”

“Wha—” He looked at the rejected tree. “Why?”

“Too many branches twist, so the color’s not even. Let’s try this one.”

No sense cleaning his hand until they’d finished with the trees, so sap piled on sap, tree after tree.

If Saint Nick didn’t get off that rooftop soon, Hunter was going to go haul him down himself.

Finally, after the ninth tree given the full twine-cutting-branch-checking-trunk-thunking-slow-circling treatment, she went back to the seventh tree. “This one.”

“Why didn’t you say that before?”

“I had to be sure.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it when he saw the mischief in her eyes. “Fine. Let’s go. Lead the way.”

He picked up the tree and started following her. Before they exited this section into the main aisle, they were slowed by a couple doing the same thunking-circling routine. Hunter noticed the guy was wearing a glove on his trunk-holding hand.

Once past the couple, they should have picked up speed again, but April had slowed to a near stop in front of him, her head turned back, looking at the tree the couple was considering.

“Oh, no,” he said. He grabbed her hand with his un-sapped left hand and tugged her after him. “Saint Nick is down through the chimney for the last time, and we’re done here.”

“We still have to get decorations and things in their shop.”

“Fine. Fast.”

He realized he was still holding her hand only when they spotted Rupert watching them from near the entry to the shop.

He dropped her hand, which Rupert also watched.

At least the shop had a bathroom where he got the top layers of sap off his hand while Rupert stayed with April. And the music in here, while no less tinny, changed from one song to another.

April’s cart was full, so this couldn’t take much longer. Things were looking up.

As he walked up, Rupert eyed April’s cart and said he’d bring the car around to pick up the tree, being prepared now, and purchases.

She added a box to her collection, then focused on something just past him.

“A stand. I wonder … but even if the ambassador’s family has one, maybe we shouldn’t use theirs. Hunter, could you reach down and get one of those boxes?”

He tried to one-hand it, but the box was too big — judging from the cover because it held a device engineered by the best minds at MIT.

He crouched and reached both hands. That brought him eye-to-eye with a little girl who had half of the straight portion of a candy cane in her mouth and the hooked end gripped in a red-stained hand.

She pulled the candy cane out of her mouth with a sucking sound. “Whatcha doing?” she asked.

Before he could answer or get out of the way, the follow through on her candy cane removal brought it firmly against the side his thigh, adhering to his wool slacks like glue.

A fact confirmed when the girl released her hold on the curved end and the candy cane remained stuck to his pants leg.

He quelled his first instinct to pull it away, because the thing had to be as sticky as the sap from—

A sound erupted. Training had him reaching for his shoulder holster.

He didn’t reach it. Whether that was because his timing was slowed by his hand’s residual stickiness or because he recognized the source of the ear-splitting screech as coming from the little girl, he would never know.

“He took my candy cane! The mean man took my candy cane!”

He looked down and saw that the cane, though leaving a clear imprint on his slacks, had dislodged and now rested amid the dirt and pine needles on the floor.