Or perhaps everyone would take it really well. There’d been a time when she’d liked Keira. Perhaps I was building all this up for nothing and it would go really well. It didn’t seem likely, but a man could always hope.
I found her in her private office. She listened in stony silence as I began my little speech, first explaining that I would not be doing anything with Princess Alexandra under any circumstances.
“Why not?” she asked, her voice as level and unreadable as her face.
“Well,” I said, “leaving to one side that I don’t love her, I honestly thought this was just another one of your scare tactics for trying to make me realize I need to settle down. You know, like the last three girls you tried to tell me I had to marry? Those marriages never happened, and I assumed this was more of the same.”
“First of all, they were ladies, not girls, and secondly, none of this has ever been a scare tactic. You may have seen it that way, but I’ve been trying to find you a suitable wife since you reached your twenties. It may seem like a joke to you as you’re still so young, but it’s your royal duty to marry an appropriate woman and produce an heir.”
Well…I already had an heir on the way, not that she knew about it yet.
“I want to have a proper daughter-in-law and future Queen,” my mother continued. “The succession may not be important to you, but it is to me and many others. It’s basically your only real job. And left to your own devices, I don’t see you getting married anytime soon.”
I took this as the best cue I was likely to get. “Well, I can set your mind at rest on that front. I’ve met someone!”
I decided not to go further just yet—the fact that the succession was secure might be good news, but the fact that it had been secured out of wedlock with an employee of ours might not be the best news she’d heard today.
“Indeed?” She raised a regal eyebrow. “What convenient timing.”
I was confused for a moment. “What?”
“I was just remarking,” she continued, voice thick with sarcasm. “On what an astonishing coincidence it is that, after years of sleeping with everything that would roll over for you, you happen upon the woman you wish to marry just before your engagement to someone else is announced. How convenient for all concerned! I’ll get on the phone immediately and cancel Alexandra’s visit. And when I’ve done that, I’m sure a wedding will take place between you and this other girl. There’s no chance that you might string it out for a month then say it’s all off—at which point of course there’ll be no getting Alexandra to marry you because no one likes to be jilted like that—leaving you off the hook and able to continue sleeping with everything that’ll roll over for you. No, I’m completely sure that that won’t happen. No chance at all.”
Sarcasm wasn’t usually something a queen used, but for an amateur, my mother made an awfully good stab at it.
“That’s not what I’m doing at all,” I said, although I had to admit that it did sound exactly like the sort of thing that I might have done in the past, before I met Keira.
I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes at me, but she refrained. “Fine. Does this girl have a name?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “Keira Valencia,” I said.
Just having her name on my tongue reminded me of the sweetness of her lips, and my heart soared as I remembered what it felt like when she’d told me she was having my baby; our little piece of serendipity.
The Queen’s brow furrowed. “Valencia? Spanish nobility?”
“I rather doubt it.”
“Good, because you don’t want to get mixed up in that. Some of them are as bad as you are. Or very nearly.”
“She’s American.”
“American?” Her brow unfurrowed as realization struck. “That Keira Valencia?”
“Yes.”
“The maid.”
“I don’t think of her that way, but yes.”
She stiffened. “Enough of your ridiculous jokes. It’s about time you grew out of this awful sense of humor you have. Alexandra will be here shortly. We will have a pleasant dinner together, during which time you will treat her with a great deal more decorum than you treat most of your female friends. You will smile, you will laugh, you will compliment her dress and her hair, you will pay attention to her and have eyes only for her. An engagement will be announced at the end of her visit and the wedding will take place within the next six months. Is that clear?”
“No,” I said, holding up a hand. “That’s not happening. And I have met someone; it’s not a joke. Keira…”