“Hello!” I waved my arms in big semi-circles in front of them. “It’s me: Elizabeth Theresita Bill Me Too-much-I’m Done,” I said. “I do not have amnesia. Who are you ladies? I’m concerned that this place looks like a James Bond villain’s lair circa the 1960s. Are we trapped here? Do we need an escape plan? Trust me, I’m good with shit like this. Why is the guy guarding that door wearing an enormous cod-piece?” I rubbed the back of my head and felt a lump the size of a goose egg and winced. “What happened to me?”
Cheryl and Joan rolled their eyes and clucked their tongues. Joan pulled a small silver flask from her purse, unscrewed the top, took a sip and handed it to Cheryl. “Single malt. Prince Harry’s private reserve. The good stuff.”
Cheryl accepted it, placed the flask to her mouth and downed a shot and grimaced. “Most excellent. Thanks.” She held it out to me.
“Thanks.” I accepted it, knocked back a shot and handed it to Joan.
“Elizabeth—look into my eyes and concentrate. My name is Lady Cheryl Cavitt Carlson. Our great grandfathers were first cousins and served together during the Great War.”
I blinked. “World War I? For real?”
“Not that Great War,” Cheryl said. “The Great War of 1965 when the Fredonia bakers declared war on the fisherman. To protect themselves from the hardened loaves of bread and stale rolls that, when properly aimed, could take out a man more efficiently than a volley of bullets, the fisherman fashioned armor from petrified fish scales. That codpiece—” She pointed to the guard’s groin, “—is a revered, time-honored, traditional outfit for a Palace Guard of the Inner Circle. The nuns taught us that in grade school at All Saints. Remember?”
“Huh?” I asked.
Joan took my hand. “Elizabeth. You blacked out on the tarmac and hit your head.”
“We were waiting for you in my family’s limo next to the runway and watched the whole thing happen,” Cheryl said. “You fell over like a fat redwood after a lumberjack took a chainsaw to your trunk. We followed your ambulance to the hospital.”
“I’m not fat.” I frowned.
“No, but you’ve picked up a few curves in the States. Tell all—did you get your boobs done?” Joan asked.
“No!” I held my hand to the lump on my noggin. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I read that if you talk about what you remember immediately following a head injury, your memories might come back.” Cheryl grabbed an ice bag from a stainless steel medical stand and held it firmly against my head. “What do you remember?”
“Airplane turbulence, no freaking food—not even one piece of fruit on the entire flight—a loud marching band, hot guys—a blonde and a brunette—and a ring the size of the bunion on my Great Aunt Hazel’s toe.” I crossed myself. “May she rest in peace.”
“That’s totally Cristoph’s style,” Cheryl said.
“He’s big on the over-the-top bling.” Joan pulled her buzzing phone from her purse and tapped the screen. “Your father’s fiancée texted… your dad’s on his way here. I didn’t know you had an Aunt Hazel? Which side of the family is she on?”
Oopskies. “A distant relative on Papa’s side.” I suddenly remembered the sweetness of Elizabeth’s Dad’s face. “No!” I pushed myself to sitting on the hospital cot. “Call Papa immediately and tell him not to come here. I’m going home. I’ll meet him there.”
“Done.” Joan keyed a message into her phone and hit send.
“But what about Cristoph’s question?” Cheryl asked.
“What about it?” I asked.
What was it would have been the more appropriate prompt as I could barely remember Cristoph let alone his question. I plopped my feet onto the floor. The guard leaped across the room, knelt down and slid industrial hospital slippers on my tootsies. “Thank you, officer.” I tried to meet his eyes but could only stare at his metallic groin.
He grunted, lunged back to the door and cracked a smile.
“It’s not like you haven’t been expecting this,” Cheryl said.
“Expecting what?” I trudged across the room in my threadbare hospital gown. A chilly breeze traveled up my spine and drew goosebumps. I realized my ass was more-than peeking out the vertical split in the gown’s rear. I twisted one hand behind my back and attempted to hold the two pieces together.
Joan and Cheryl regarded each other, torn.
“Elizabeth, sweetie.” Cheryl said. “You have to remember. It’s only like the biggest question of your life?”
“Head trauma.” Joan tapped her index finger on the side of her head. “Maybe I shouldn’t be giving her alcohol right now. I fear we’ll be dealing with this debacle for a while longer.”
“I’d like to pose a bigger question,” I said. “Why did I arrive here in Free Donna?”
“Fredonia,” Cheryl and Joan said.
“Question. Why did I arrive here with two guys who are conspicuously absent from this hospital room? Slick and Mischief? Right?”
Joan rolled her eyes and twirled her finger next to her head.
“Nick and Cristoph,” Cheryl said.
“Right. You ladies are here. Where are the guys?”
“They’re in the hospital’s waiting room. They’re waiting for us to give them the thumbs up to see you,” Cheryl said.
“They’re waiting for your approval—why? Are you the Mafia? The Vatican? The CIA?”
When the hospital door flew open and slammed into the guard, who grunted. A full-figured thirty-something woman wearing a red and black flamenco dancer’s outfit, complete with a red cowgirl hat adorned with feathered plumes, strode into the room and headed toward me. “No bitch. We’re your Ladies-in-Waiting.”
My breath caught in my throat, my eyes widened and I pressed my palm over my paper-thin gown to my chest. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am Lady Esmeralda Ilona Castile Hapsburg the Fourth.” She pointed at me with one black-gloved hand. “And I want you, Elizabeth.”
Chapter 15
“No, no. You totally don’t want me—I might have brain damage.” I pointed to Joan. “Take the redhead. She’s super cute, seems smart and you could probably sell her on the black market for her weight in shekels.”
“No way girlfriend.” Esmeralda grabbed me, pulled me to her large bosoms and squeezed me so tight I couldn’t breathe and I squeaked. She whispered, “I missed you so much. Don’t tell the other bitches-I-mean-ladies. They’ll detect I’m weak and go for the jugular. Shh.” She pulled away from me.
“Okay?” I squinted at her.
Esmeralda clacked her heels together three times, raised her arms overhead, tossed her mane of auburn hair back and clicked castanets high in the air. “The ‘guys’ are waiting for us—your Ladies-in-Waiting—to give them the heads up, the okay, the all-righty-then, the get-the-job-done, before we allow them to see you.”
She eyed the guard collapsed against the wall, lifted her skirts seductively over her knees, posed Marilyn Monroe-esque. “Cancel your plans for tonight, soldier.” She winked and blew him a kiss. “Because I’ve got far better ideas for you. God, I love me a man in a uniform.”
“My ‘Ladies-in-Waiting?’” I asked. “Why do I have Ladies-in-Waiting?”
“Oh Mr. Palace Guard,” Esmeralda held out a lace handkerchief and dropped it onto the floor between them. “Show me chivalry.”
He crawled to her handkerchief, picked it up, his hand shaking, and held it high in the air. “Yes, my Lady.”
She leaned down, grabbed his shoulders, yanked him toward her and kissed him hard on the lips.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Joan said.
“Get a room, Esmeralda,” Cheryl said. “And do not think you can pull that ‘I’m half Spanish and love runs through my veins’ excuse for the umpteenth time. We know your Latin Lover explanation is but a poor thesaurus choice for hussy.”
Esmeralda sucked the handsome guard’s mouth so far into hers I thought it might pop out the back of her head. When she slapped him r
esoundly on the ass and then pulled away. “And that, Ladies, is chivalry! We’ve put up with your shtick forever, Elizabeth, because we knew that some day it would come down to this. Someday you would need us. And each of your Ladies-in-Waiting has a kind of a super-power.”
“Super-power?” I asked.
“You’re totally exaggerating yet again.” Joan said.
“Am I?” Esmeralda raised an eyebrow and held onto the skirts of her dress. “No matter what the occasion, I, Esmeralda Ilona Castile Hapsburg the Fourth can dance.” She twirled in the middle of the small hospital room, picked up speed and spun like a dervish. She took out the guard who flew across the room, hit the wall and dropped to the floor like a flattened bug on a windshield.
Joan and Cheryl crouched behind my hospital gurney and winced.
“Esmeralda!” Joan said. “Stop being a fucking show-off. We need to get Elizabeth home to her family so she can make a decision on her very important question.”
“Of course,” Esmeralda scrawled her phone number on a hospital napkin, leaned toward the guard and tucked it down the front of his codpiece. “Who says chivalry is dead?” She held her hand to her ear like an old-fashioned phone and mouthed, “Call me.”
I had changed into designer sweats and a T-shirt as I watched the TV coverage from my ‘family’s’ luxury penthouse on the top of the Alpine Towers in downtown Sauerhausen. City lights clustered around the streets twenty-five stories below and twinkled around the elite shopping and restaurant districts.
Six flat-screen TVs mounted on the wide living room wall aired the coverage from the six news channels that were on sight for the Royal Fredonia Almost-Engagement Debacle (That’s what the media had dubbed it—not I.)
Each news feed showed me on the tarmac, the wind whipping through my hair. Nick stood next to me as Cristoph dropped to one knee, held out the velvet jewelry box, popped it open and asked me to marry him.
Lucky for me, each channel also featured video of me as I wobbled, my legs giving way beneath me, as I collapsed into a heap while Nick and Cristoph dove toward me to see if I was breathing.
Five local networks placed a fuzzy banner across the explicit view up my conservative designer skirt that had hiked all the way up to the tippy-top of my thighs that lay flopped wide-open. The sixth chose to display my new, pretty underwear. I thanked my lucky stars that Zara had insisted I’d get the full Brazilian and not its less-aggressive second cousin—the half Argentinean.
I watched the relentless, looping coverage while reclining on a velvet chaise lounge and noshing double dark chocolate ice cream from a crystal bowl. “This is like the best ice cream ever.” I regarded the older, handsome, silver-haired man seated next to me who happened to be Elizabeth’s father—Lord David Henry Billingsley. Their family money was legendary, passed down from generation to generation. They were widely regarded as the Medicis of Fredonia: wealthy, benevolent, conniving, supportive of the arts, back-stabbing, and well once again, extraordinarily wealthy.
He patted my hand. “Organic milk from free-range cows who are grass-fed in the pastures surrounding our mountain chateaux.”
“Right.” I flashed to the photo of the picturesque country villa that Zara had shown me. “Totally yum. I’m glad you stayed home, Papa. The hospital was crowded.” I remembered Mr. Philips told me Elizabeth’s father was a little dotty, but very sweet.
He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “I feel terrible. I haven’t been there for you.”
“That’s not true Papa.” I took his hand and squeezed it.
“Except for that one quick trip to the States, honey, I haven’t seen you in almost a year. And then I watch you collapsing on national television? It scared me.”
“I’m fine. I’m just really tired and the flight over the Alps was bad, I mean turbulent. My blood sugar dropped and I passed out. It’s nothing serious, I promise.”
Why hadn’t Elizabeth seen her Papa in almost a year? I wish I still had my mom and dad. Someone who would hold my hand while I ate ice cream. Someone who would miss me if I died, or care if I passed out.
A pretty, fifty-something woman with long, layered, jet-black hair walked toward us and smiled. “Elizabeth. You have color in your cheeks. Thank God, you seem to be recovering quickly.”
Duchess Carolina von Sauerhausen was Daddy’s—I mean Elizabeth’s Papa’s—new fiancé. She was beautiful and had greeted me kindly when the Ladies dropped me off at the condo’s front door.
“Carolina, this is the best chocolate ice cream I’ve ever had,” I said.
She tilted her head. “That’s so sweet. You’ve totally missed Fredonia’s second most important export. Our organic chocolate.”
I stared at the bowl and contemplated licking it. But decided that might not be lady-like. “I’ll say.”
Carolina placed her well-manicured hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “It’s time for your nap, David,” she said.
“But I’m spending time with my only daughter.”
“Your only daughter will be here when you wake up. Besides, the doctors said that a little rest every day is necessary for your health. It will help you live years longer.”
Daddy gazed up at her and blinked. “Jean?”
“No, my darling. Jean was your first love. I’m Carolina. I’m your fourth love.” She caressed his arm. He smiled, got up and followed her like a smitten puppy.
Then stopped in his tracks, turned and stared at me. “It’s been a very long day, Elizabeth. I’m going to take a nap and then we can determine what to do. Yes?”
“Yes, Papa,” I said.
Carolina smiled. “I’ll be back.”
I nodded and gave her a thumbs up.
I got up, stretched and looked out the windows. The view from the condo’s floor to ceiling windows was dark: thick gray clouds bumped up against each other in the night sky. I doubted I’d see Papa again before morning. And because I’d passed out before I gave Prince Cristoph an answer to his marriage proposal—apparently the entire population of Fredonia was holding tight to their lederhosen because they didn’t know if I was injured and lying in a hospital room, dead on a mortuary slab or if I just said no.
At least that’s what one news anchor speculated. That I’d turned Cristoph—aka The Playboy Prince—down because he’d slept with half of Fredonia’s royal court as well as several adjoining countries and a principality—or five.
Another reporter insisted I was in seclusion, surrounded by my nearest and dearest while I contemplated my answer. A third channel featured relentless close-ups of my stomach while their female anchor pointedly suggested that I sported a baby bump.
I had three slices of Johnnie’s Chicago deep-dish pizza the night before I left. Cut a girl a break.
I finished the rest of my ice cream and checked out the view from my family’s digs. Great views of the capital city of Sauerhausen: old buildings mixed with new. A pretty castle sat on a hill in the distance. I squinted. It looked like it had a moat around it. Seriously—castles still have moats?
I was past tired, but perhaps my adrenaline had kicked in. I pushed myself off the couch, held the bowl close to my chest and wandered down a hallway.
I found my way into the kitchen. It was large, immaculate and filled with shiny, state-of-the art appliances. Oil paintings of fruit lined the walls. I rinsed the dish in one of three stainless steel sinks, opened the cabinets beneath them and searched for detergent. I foraged through twelve drawers and cupboards until a woman barked, “Elizabeth! Vat are you doings in my kitchen?”
I swiveled and saw a short, older woman who looked like the salt half of a salt and peppershaker set. I recognized her from my tutoring sessions with Lady and the Damp. She was Helga: chief cook and bottle washer for the Billingsley family since Elizabeth was seventeen-years-old. “I’m looking for soap—”
“Hah-hah! Youz alwayz crackers me up, Elizabeth.” She leaped on me, encircled me with her arms and smothered me in a bear hug. If a bear could be four foot
eight inches tall.
“Oof!” I gingerly hugged her back.
She laughed and released me. “You need ze rest. I vill vash. Vat az you stinking?”
I lifted one arm and sniffed my armpit: I was indeed a little stinky. “Sorry about that.”
“Not stinky—stinking.” She grabbed the ice cream bowl from me. “You needs to go to bed. Sleep. Now.”
I feared there were many bedrooms in this condo and I didn’t know which one I was supposed to go to.
“The condo looks a little different than last time I was here. Which bedroom is mine?”
“Ack. The new fiancée, Duchess Carolina von Sauerhausen.” Helga crinkled up her nose. “She loves her fanzty-pantsy designer remodels. Your bedroom is the red one, of course. The red one will alvays be yourz.” She slapped my ass with a towel and I jumped. “Go!”
“Thanks!” I exited the kitchen, padded barefoot down the marble hallway and paused at the first tall, wooden door. I wiggled the knob, cracked open the door and peeked inside. There was a queen bed with a big, blue canopy. Not red—not mine. I closed the door and wandered yards to the next one. Tried the handle: it opened readily. This room had a king bed with a black and gold canopy. Not mine.
Ten yards later I turned right for the heck of it down another hallway, poked my head inside a third doorway and broke out in a sweat. There was a ginormous, sunken hot tub in the center of the room. Metallic rails lined the steps leading down into the steaming waters. The entire room smelled like eucalyptus. Yummy.
One wall was lined with open-faced, tall, wooden cubicles filled with white, cushy towels and robes. There was an adjustable weight-lifting bench and a container of stacked dumbbells lined up next to it.
Part-time Princess Page 10
