know how I truly feel. “It is quite nice here,” she says, her voice smooth and low. She sounds eerily like our mother. “I met some very nice people today.”
I try not to roll my eyes while I finish applying lipstick. Had I used the word nice twice in a sentence, a lecture requiring me to express myself in less common language would have followed. Isabelle may have gotten the beautiful voice, but at least I can lay claim to an expanded vocabulary.
“Excellent.” Our father slips on his coat; my sister acts as valet, smoothing the shoulders out. “This is cozy, isn’t it? Us all in a room like this? I feel as if we’re camping.”
Only His Serene Highness would consider the three of us residing in one of the United State’s most famous historical mansions as the equivalent of camping. After fleeing from Prince Christian this afternoon, I overheard plenty of people who once believed only Europe houses architectural masterpieces oohing and ahhing over the mix-matched styling of the Castle. Nonetheless, it is also fairly tiny for the amount of people packed into it for the week. Royals, so often used to having large, lavish spaces all to themselves, are stacked upon one another like sardines in bedrooms in the four houses. Placements were drawn at random so no one family was favored for a better room over the others. That leaves precious little privacy to be enjoyed. Nobody—not even the most powerful and influential monarchs present—have their own room. Sharing quarters with our father is not ideal, even when he generously ceded the bed for Isabelle and me and is sleeping upon a small portable foldaway off to the side, but Isabelle and I figure it could have been far worse, had our mother also been present. But no—she is at home, overseeing renovations to the palace.
As for any employees who tagged along, they’re the ones who could argue to be camping since they are lodging in barracks. This is only further proof the MC has lost their collective minds. To require loyal staff to sleep on undoubtedly uncomfortable cots in the equivalent of dorm rooms and use portable showers and toilets? Unforgiveable.
I texted this insanity to Charlotte, who promptly wrote she was grateful for remaining in Vattenguldia—and that I better keep her updated at least ten times over the course of each day.
I also told her I met the heir to Aiboland.
Her immediate response? Is he as good looking in person as he is in the glossies?
I figured it couldn’t hurt to tell her the truth. Ridiculously so.
Was he nice?
I wouldn’t know. We didn’t talk. Which was a lie. Well, all right. Half a lie. I talked. He listened. And now I cannot help but wonder if I came across like a raving lunatic, like the RMM broke me on day one.
Isabelle’s murmuring to our father, something about how nice it is to visit California, when a knock on the door sounds. It’s Bittner, already dressed in a pristine suit though he will be dining in one of the large tents I spied down the hill. “Your Highness, you requested to be notified twenty minutes prior to supper.”
My father grunts as Isabelle straightens his tie. “Do you know who we’re to dine with?”
It surprises me to hear him refer to us as a whole. Family style seating is not something I considered. Or am even used to nowadays.
“Lichtenstein and Norway,” Bittner offers.
Ten minutes later, we descend the steps toward the pool. Tables covered in snowy white linen, candles, and fresh flowers adorn the patio surrounding the Roman colonnades that circle back to a Greco-Roman temple facade. The sun glows golden in the sky around us, reflecting against the turquoise waters of the pool, and I quietly muse over how the name our tour guide offered us earlier— La Cuesta Encantada , or the Enchanted Hill—is so perfectly apt for what is before me.
My father takes my arm. “Not so bad now, is it?”
Soft music from the early-to-mid twentieth century fills the space around us, and
I try not to roll my eyes while I finish applying lipstick. Had I used the word nice twice in a sentence, a lecture requiring me to express myself in less common language would have followed. Isabelle may have gotten the beautiful voice, but at least I can lay claim to an expanded vocabulary.
“Excellent.” Our father slips on his coat; my sister acts as valet, smoothing the shoulders out. “This is cozy, isn’t it? Us all in a room like this? I feel as if we’re camping.”
Only His Serene Highness would consider the three of us residing in one of the United State’s most famous historical mansions as the equivalent of camping. After fleeing from Prince Christian this afternoon, I overheard plenty of people who once believed only Europe houses architectural masterpieces oohing and ahhing over the mix-matched styling of the Castle. Nonetheless, it is also fairly tiny for the amount of people packed into it for the week. Royals, so often used to having large, lavish spaces all to themselves, are stacked upon one another like sardines in bedrooms in the four houses. Placements were drawn at random so no one family was favored for a better room over the others. That leaves precious little privacy to be enjoyed. Nobody—not even the most powerful and influential monarchs present—have their own room. Sharing quarters with our father is not ideal, even when he generously ceded the bed for Isabelle and me and is sleeping upon a small portable foldaway off to the side, but Isabelle and I figure it could have been far worse, had our mother also been present. But no—she is at home, overseeing renovations to the palace.
As for any employees who tagged along, they’re the ones who could argue to be camping since they are lodging in barracks. This is only further proof the MC has lost their collective minds. To require loyal staff to sleep on undoubtedly uncomfortable cots in the equivalent of dorm rooms and use portable showers and toilets? Unforgiveable.
I texted this insanity to Charlotte, who promptly wrote she was grateful for remaining in Vattenguldia—and that I better keep her updated at least ten times over the course of each day.
I also told her I met the heir to Aiboland.
Her immediate response? Is he as good looking in person as he is in the glossies?
I figured it couldn’t hurt to tell her the truth. Ridiculously so.
Was he nice?
I wouldn’t know. We didn’t talk. Which was a lie. Well, all right. Half a lie. I talked. He listened. And now I cannot help but wonder if I came across like a raving lunatic, like the RMM broke me on day one.
Isabelle’s murmuring to our father, something about how nice it is to visit California, when a knock on the door sounds. It’s Bittner, already dressed in a pristine suit though he will be dining in one of the large tents I spied down the hill. “Your Highness, you requested to be notified twenty minutes prior to supper.”
My father grunts as Isabelle straightens his tie. “Do you know who we’re to dine with?”
It surprises me to hear him refer to us as a whole. Family style seating is not something I considered. Or am even used to nowadays.
“Lichtenstein and Norway,” Bittner offers.
Ten minutes later, we descend the steps toward the pool. Tables covered in snowy white linen, candles, and fresh flowers adorn the patio surrounding the Roman colonnades that circle back to a Greco-Roman temple facade. The sun glows golden in the sky around us, reflecting against the turquoise waters of the pool, and I quietly muse over how the name our tour guide offered us earlier— La Cuesta Encantada , or the Enchanted Hill—is so perfectly apt for what is before me.
My father takes my arm. “Not so bad now, is it?”
Soft music from the early-to-mid twentieth century fills the space around us, and
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