“Tea’s perfect,” Cassie said. She peered at her while Perry poured the tea. “How are things?”
Perry shrugged. “Exactly how you’d expect, I suppose.” She passed over the cup, its delicate china almost singing as it exchanged owners. “George and Edward are reticent, Xavier has buried himself in his lab.” She pursed her lips. “The whole place is somber. It’s not like it’s not understandable. I just… I’m at a loss. I can’t make this better for anyone.”
Cassie winced. “Marianne and I didn’t see eye-to-eye often, Perry. Too different. I didn’t particularly like her.” She quirked a brow. “I’m sure you noticed that sometimes.”
Perry’s lips twitched. “Neither of you kept it a secret, did you?”
“No, but, even so. I thought the old witch made an ice hotel look warm and cozy, but she didn’t deserve that.”
Blowing out a breath that disturbed the amber brew in her hands, Perry murmured, “She certainly didn’t.”
This wasn’t the first time Cass had visited the palace since Perry’s coronation, but the conversation always began the same way. She pulled a face, because she knew she had to be a horrible person, but talking about Marianne all the time just made her depressed.
As well as fearful.
For herself, and for her lovers.
Even then, it was more for them than for herself. They spent more time out of the castle than she did. For the moment, at any rate.
“Anyway, let’s change the subject. How are things going with Marcus? Have you managed to convince him to quit yet?” Marcus’s job on the Stock Exchange in New York was high pressured. It had triggered a heart attack. When he’d refused to slow down, hadn’t quit his job for the sake of his own health, Cassie had returned to Veronia with their children in the hopes he’d come around.
He hadn’t.
He was stubbornly clinging to his job, and was making vague promises to return home once the deal he was working on was done.
Cass shot her a considering look, one that analyzed more than Perry’s words, but she did as requested: changed the subject. “I’m not sure why I’m shocked, but he’s been ridiculously stubborn about all this. When I brought the children over, I just thought he’d follow.” She grimaced. “Trouble is, Perry, I’m starting to like the fact he isn’t home.”
Eyes widening in surprise, Perry murmured, “It’s a novelty. Not having to answer to anyone but yourself.” She knew Cassie and Marcus had been married a damn long time. “But a change is as good as a rest. It will do you good to be apart, and make you more appreciative when you’re together again.” The recipient of a doubtful look, Perry had to stop herself from laughing. She lifted a hand and covered her mouth.
“It isn’t funny, Perry,” Cass chided, but half-choked on the words.
Perry glanced at her, and the two immediately cascaded into giggles when their eyes caught and held. As they snickered and chuckled, they fed each other’s amusement by casting surreptitious looks at one another, chortling away for only God knew how long…but the break in tension was welcome.
Cass gasped. “God, I needed that. Everyone is so bloody serious at the moment. It’s driving me crazy.”
It wasn’t like Perry could argue, though she felt guilty for understanding and empathizing with Cass. “It’s hard. We feel for George, Edward, and Xavier. And Philippe, of course…plus we’re dealing with the aftermath and how it affects us all.”
“Tell me about it,” she grumbled. “Did you know Marcus is eighth in line to the throne now?” She rolled her eyes. “Can you imagine? The man can’t organize his own life, never mind the country. Please, Perry, get pregnant quickly. I can’t stand the extra guards.”
She winced. “How do you think I feel? It’s a goddamn nightmare. I can barely use the bathroom without having a guard check the bowl for somebody hiding out there.”
Cassie gagged. “Gross.”
Chuckling, Perry jerked a shoulder. “Gross, but true. Unfortunately. Anyway, I thought you were going to threaten Marcus with divorce if he didn’t immediately move over here? It was a good sign that he came to the coronation, no?”
“His mother would have killed him if he hadn’t shown his face at the coronation,” came the bitter retort. “I should probably get that old witch to tell Marcus to move over here. He’d probably do as he was told. He such a mama’s boy.”
“Are you really happy without him?”
Cassie shrugged. “For the most part, sadly. It’s just a lot easier, you know? I didn’t realize, not until…
“My time is my own, Perry, once the children go to bed. I don’t have to attend boring parties for his work, nor do I have to deal with him grumbling like an old man. If I want to work for a charity foundation, he can’t gripe over the one I pick because he’s not here.
“I suppose I’m just realizing what a pain in the ass he is.”
Perry winced. “Aren’t all men? We love them anyway.” She studied Cassie, trying to ascertain if her friend did love her husband.
Apparently Cassie grasped her point, because she pouted. “I suppose it’s lucky for him that I do.”
“I guess the last thing you guys need is added pressure, Cass.” She heaved out a breath, hating that she was about to dump something else on Cass’s shoulders. But Perry’s need for ladies maids she trusted was becoming vital. “I mean, I was going to ask you to be my head Guardian of the Keys, but I totally understand if it’s just too much for you right now. What with the kids and everything…” Perry trailed off. Then, when her friend just stared at her, she continued, “I’ve been putting off asking you for ages now. But Edward hired this dragon for a PA, and Rose has been harping on at me about getting a team together.”
Cass’s children were acclimating to a new nanny, and things weren’t going very well. When she said that she’d understand if it was too much for Cass right now, she’d meant it. Though meaning it and hoping to God that wasn’t the case were two different things entirely.
Just when Perry had started to freak out that she’d totally messed things up, Cass whispered, “Oh, Perry, I’m honored that you’ve asked me.”
Blinking, not having expected that particular answer and stunned to see the tears in the other woman’s eyes, she questioned uncertainly, “Is that a yes or no?”
“It’s a yes, of course!” Cassie jumped to her feet, strode over to Perry, bowed down in a curtsey that had Perry freezing in her armchair. “Your Majesty, you honor me with your request.”
Her friend’s formality, after always having been so informal with her, didn’t help defrost Perry’s sudden attack of nerves.
God, there was so much for her still to learn. So much Marianne hadn’t managed to pass on.
Perry should have had years, a decade, minimum, to prepare for this role. Instead, she was having to learn as she went, and while that wasn’t a problem when it came to anything science-based…royal-based?
That was a whole other ball of wax.
Uncaring that she probably sounded like she had a frog in her throat, Perry whispered, “Please, Cass, get up. Come on, you’re making me blush here.” When Cass snorted out a laugh, Perry could finally take a deep breath. Relief filtered through her. “Seriously, don’t do that to me. You know I don’t like it when things are all formal.”
Another snort. “You’re the Queen now, Perry. You’re going to have to get used to it at some point.”
Feeling mulish, Perry jerked her chin in the air. “If I’m Queen, surely I can do whatever the hell I want.”
Cassie laughed. “Well, that’s certainly one way to look at it.”
“One way to look at what?” The question came from the doorway, and Perry’s heart leaped at the sight of Xavier standing there like her knight in shining armor. Maybe he could help Cassie understand?
Though she longed to stand, to fling herself into his arms, she remained where she was. Cass might have thought it was rude, but Perry didn’t care. If she moved, she was falling into Xavier’s
embrace, and not moving an inch for a year. Minimum.
Cassie’s laughter trickled from her, and she tilted her head to the side so Xavier could kiss it—he swooped down to do just that. “Perry has just asked me to be her Guardian of the Keys. When I curtsied, she looked like I’d electrocuted her.”
Xavier shot Perry a look. “She does look rather shell-shocked, doesn’t she?” When Cassie giggled, Xavier grinned. His smile widened when Perry rolled her eyes at him. “Anyway, it’s about damn time you asked her. You’ve been procrastinating over this for ages.”
Cassie pouted. “Why?”
Grimacing at having been placed in the spotlight again, Perry mumbled, “I wasn’t sure if you’d say yes.”
The older woman’s mouth fell open. Then, she cast a look at Xavier who simply shrugged. “Perry doesn’t get how big a deal it is,” he said. “How large a compliment… She sees it more as a nuisance.”
Flushing, because he wasn’t wrong, Perry wriggled her shoulders. “I just know how busy you are, Cass. And considering I now know what the Guardians of the Keys do, why anybody would want to do it is beyond me.”
When Xavier and Cassie burst out laughing, Perry huffed. Cassie tried to hide her smile, but it was very evident as she murmured, “It’s a paid position, you do know that?”
“For the amount of crap you have to do? It had better be paid. Otherwise it would be slave labor.”
“It also brings with it a kind of prestige that’s considered priceless,” Xavier said smoothly.
“Like what?” Perry demanded, failing to see why being a glorified housekeeper and Royal gofer was such a great thing.
“Things like memberships to clubs. Cassie and her family will have doors opened to them that were closed before. They’ll be treated like Royals. That’s a big deal in Veronia,” he said wryly.
She scowled. “I’m not putting her in danger, am I?”
Perry blew out a relieved breath when they shook their heads.
Cassie answered, “No, not at all. But Xavier’s right.
“We’re nobles, so privilege being what it is, mostly unfair, we already have the advantage over a commoner, but if Marcus comes back, for example, and joins his old club, he wouldn’t have to pay a membership fee.
“Or, if there was a club he wanted to join, where he’d been blackballed in the past, then my being Guardian of the Keys will change that straightaway. It’s perks like that.”
“That’s it? That sucks.”
A laugh escaped Cass. “There’s more to it. Let’s say I want my hair cutting one day. I call for an appointment and there’s a three week waiting list, then I tell them my name, and like magic, something will immediately open up for me.
“The kids—the waiting list was ridiculously long for their prep school—but now that waiting list will disappear.”
Perry sniffed. “Sounds damn elitist to me.”
Xavier chuckled. “The joys of a royalist nation.”
Perry pondered that and fell quiet, letting Cass and Xavier chat and catch up while she zoned out a little.
Sometimes processing the way of life here was more than she could stand.
Still it wasn’t like the States were perfect. It was elitist as all hell over there. And where in the world didn’t, “it’s not what you know, but who,” reign supreme?
As people who had known each other a long time were wont to do, Cass and Xavier fell into conversations about times past, friends and acquaintances old and new, and things that generally excluded Perry from the chatter.
She didn’t mind, knew it was unintentional. If anything, she appreciated seeing Xavier with one of his friends.
It hadn’t escaped her attention that her men had very few people they considered to be that. It wasn’t like she could judge, though. She’d always been a loner, and when she met George, he’d become the pal she hung around with almost all the time.
George had work colleagues that he’d socialized with, and she knew them because they’d usually gone out together. She hadn’t particularly liked them though.
George was in venture capitalism. The rest of his circle from work were too, which meant they were all pricks.
Or, as George called them laughingly, wanker bankers.
The very British insult was too apt for her to giggle over. But he’d never seemed to have minded they were jerks. The lot of them.
After having been in Veronia for a time, she could see why. Those bankers, and the courtiers here, were of the same breed. They thought they were something special because they’d been born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
Her lips pursed with disapproval at the thought. If, in her time of being Queen, she could change that, she would.
And, though the notion petrified her, if she did get pregnant, she certainly wouldn’t raise her kids to be little nightmares. They’d be the darlings of the Crown, that was for certain, but they wouldn’t be monsters.
“Well, I’ll be off,” Cassie murmured with a laugh, and her amusement dispelled Perry’s musings.
“You will? You only just got here,” Perry said, sitting up and feeling guilty at having spent most of Cass’s visit zoned out.
Cass snorted. “I’ve been here an hour, Perry.”
She had? Oops.
“When will you present yourself for duty?” Xavier asked, a touch formally, Perry thought.
Cass’s pretty doll face turned contemplative. She lifted a hand to her mouth and tapped her bottom lip. “I have a few appointments I need to settle over the next week. But if I start as Guardian of the Keys now, those appointments will take barely any time at all. They’ll cede to my devious wishes immediately.”
Xavier frowned. “Schools?”
Cass nodded. “Yes. As I said, the waiting lists for our first choice prep school are long. I’m finding it hard getting the kids into a class halfway through this term.
“Henley College tried to tell me I should tutor them from home for a spell, until the new term begins.” She sniffed her disdain for that suggestion, making Perry’s lips twitch.
“Will being Guardian of the Keys really change things so much for you?”
Xavier murmured, “Of course. It might seem like a chore to you, Perry, but like we told you, it truly isn’t.”
Cass laughed, and Perry had to smile. Neither were mad at her for failing to understand why the position she’d presented Cass was anything other than a pain in the butt.
She offered her cheek to her friend and new ‘Guardian’. Cass promptly bussed it as Xavier got to his feet, hugged her when she stepped over to him, then left them in a cloud of overwhelming perfume.
When she was gone, Perry curled her finger at Xavier. He grinned, placed his hands on the armrest of her chair, then bent down to anoint her mouth with a kiss.
He started off slow, his lips merely pecking hers until he slanted his hand and nipped at her bottom lip, tugging it down playfully, teasing her into responding.
She opened for him, letting him sweep inside her mouth, letting him claim her and make her his in that one small way.
This was how they should have greeted one another.
This was how they should always begin every day.
The thought sent longing shuddering through her, because she knew it wasn’t to be.
“Can’t you live at Masonbrook?” she whispered against his mouth, sitting straighter in her chair, eagerly seeking more from him, needing to get closer, to be in his arms.
He stilled. “You’d want me to?”
“I miss you,” she confessed, sad that he’d stopped kissing her, but feeling flushed at the heat in his eyes as he looked at her.
“I see you every day.”
He made the statement, but she could tell he wasn’t peeved by the notion. Nor was he pleased. If anything, his tone was distinctly bland.
“Not enough. I want to kiss you in the morning. I want to…” She closed her eyes as she raised a hand to her mouth, sealing his kiss onto her lips. “I need y
ou here.”
He tilted his head to the side. “I have no logical reason for being here.”
The sound of the doorknob turning caused her to stiffen in place, fear flushing through her at being caught in this compromising position, but Xavier didn’t shift at all. When the door opened and George headed in, her mouth rounded in an O, and she demanded, “How did you know it wasn’t someone important?”
George huffed. “I’ll have you know I’m very important.”
Xavier laughed. “Because nobody important would just open the door without knocking. Sweetheart, there’s nobody more important in the land than you or Edward. Everyone else has to knock.”
She blinked, taken aback at the idea. Then, she focused on George who’d strode in, his feathers obviously ruffled—something that had nothing to do with her faux pas. Because hell, he was used to them by now.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, frowning at him as he strode in front of her fireplace, pacing back and forth. “And why haven’t you kissed me?”
George staggered a step, then blinked as he turned to her. “I forgot.”
His simple retort had her eyes narrowing. “Un-forget.”
As quickly as that, his glower turned into a cheeky grin as he swaggered over to her, all cocky and arrogant, elbowed Xavier out of the way, and kissed her promptly on the mouth.
She wriggled in her seat as, unlike Xavier, he bit down hard on her bottom lip. The move had her pussy, already molten hot from his cousin’s attentions, stirring to life once more.
She clenched her thighs as he fluttered his tongue against hers, then moaned when he retreated.
“You two are no fun,” she grumbled.
“We’re plenty of fun,” George immediately countered, returning to the fireplace where he began striding back and forth once more.
“Yeah, you’re a barrel of laughs,” she complained, fidgeting in place.
Xavier snorted. “Horny, love?”
She blew out a breath. “I wasn’t. If anything, I was out of sorts.” She ran a hand through her hair, trying to soothe her own ruffled feathers after the sweeping attentions of her men—who knew having three of them would make her greedier for them?
Long Live Queen Perry: Contemporary Reverse Harem (Kingdom of Veronia Book 3) Page 6
