The people standing around Jules were inching away from him, perhaps because they didn’t like his politics, perhaps because they didn’t want to get hit with flecks of flying spittle.
Maxence leaned toward Jules. “And you would refuse to feed a hundred hungry people because one of them might not be deserving or really need it.”
Jules’s face contorted with anger. “Those people aren’t my problem. I didn’t force them to live that way and spend all their money on rent and food. This whole idea of a ‘fair share’ is a bullshit concept. It’s just a way of attacking wealthy people.”
Maxence smiled, keeping his countenance entirely serene. This argument had gone too far. “Uncle Jules, I don’t know how to explain to you that you’re supposed to care about your fellow human beings, and there’s something profoundly wrong with you if you don’t. Next question?”
Prince Jules stomped out of the throne room.
Maxence smiled at the crowd who were pondering what to ask.
He didn’t think he’d won, not by a long shot. He might have just lost the election spectacularly, but he didn’t care. He would win, or he would walk away.
Throughout Max’s life as the second heir to the throne, his parents and other adults had impressed upon him the importance of remaining calm. If he did not ascend the throne, his place was to not draw attention to himself. In the unlikely event that he was tapped to ascend the throne, a recent scandal or tragedy would have occurred, and he would need to be a steadying influence on the country.
There had been a tragedy and now there would be a scandal, and Max was well-trained to remain steadfast in the face of both.
“Any other questions?” he asked the Crown Council again.
Lady Valentina Martini stepped forward again, a prim smile creasing her lips. “Prince Maxence, before the roll call vote for the election, there’s just one more thing preying on all our minds.”
Her tone was so light that it sounded playful, but Maxence had been in politics too long to ever drop his guard when dealing with a courtier like Lady Valentina. “How may I put your mind to rest, my lady?”
“A nomination and election will establish a sovereign for one generation. Our treaties with France specify that a Grimaldi must sit on the throne of Monaco or else we will be reabsorbed into France.”
The woman standing beside Lady Valentina squeaked and again threw her hands out to her sides.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with being French. I was just going to say that, Lola. There’s nothing wrong with being French, okay?”
Maxence tilted his head. “You know that we would probably prevail in the World Court if there were no one with the Grimaldi surname available to sit on the throne, right? It doesn’t matter if we have a Grimaldi prince, some other sovereign, or none at all. We’re not going to cease to exist based on one family’s genetics.”
Lady Valentina said to Maxence, her tone a little more frantic, “At this point, if there were not a Grimaldi to plant his butt on that golden chair, everyone around here is superstitious enough to worry that Neptune would take offense and drown us in the sea.”
What the hell was she getting at? “I can’t help you with divine intervention with Neptune. I wasn’t going to be that kind of priest. I was studying to be the Catholic kind. And I was never ordained as a presbyter, anyway. I was only ordained as a deacon.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s the problem,” Lady Valentina said, pointing at him like she was tapping him on the nose from afar. “You were ordained as a deacon, which means that you’ve taken vows of—of—” Lady Valentina glanced around herself with trepidation as if she were about to utter a filthy word. “Of celibacy.”
She—the dowager countess Lady Valentina Martini, a woman whose poise and gravitas were legendary—was—was—
Maxence asked her, “Are you asking me about my sex life?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
An Interrogation and One More Question
Maxence
The thought that Maxence was being interrogated about his bedroom habits by Lady Valentina Martini was just too much.
For a decade, Maxence had tried to be celibate and adhere to his vows, but the stress would whip around him until he absolutely couldn’t stand it anymore and he’d—slip.
And she was asking if Max was going to live a life of chastity now?
The absurdity of it tickled Maxence so much that laughter boiled in him.
Was she out of her mind? Was that what the Crown Council had come to, an examination of the heir’s sexual proclivities when they should be worrying about who was committing treason?
A snort escaped him first as almost a belch, then a contorted chuckle sneaked out as he tried to repress it, and then raucous laughter wracked his entire body. Maxence’s stomach contracted with laughter as the insanity of it buffeted him.
This was impossible! It could not happen. The Crown Council, which had been established to confirm the best contender for the throne, had nearly allowed a crime syndicate to use Monaco as a base of their European criminal operations, and now they were worrying about who Max was sleeping with.
He was laughing so hard that his stomach cramped and his legs weakened, and he sat down on the dais, helplessly laughing his ass off.
Casimir and Arthur exchanged a glance over his head. Arthur squatted down and asked him, “I say there, old sod, are you quite all right?”
“She—she—oh, Lord, my dear Dree.” Max staggered to his feet and barely made it to where Dree was sitting, but then he captured her hand and kissed her knuckles soundly. “Did you hear that? She asked if I’m celibate.”
Dree was staring at him, wide-eyed and with her lips parted. “I’m going to have to agree with the Duke of Earl there, Max. You okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.”
He wasn’t.
Another giggle escaped him, and Maxence threw back his head to laugh again.
Sporadic laughter rippled through the room.
It was undignified and unseemly, and Max could not stop.
Dree smiled, and then she grinned, and then she started laughing with him.
The laughter got louder as the contagion spread, each person looking at someone else who was cracking up. The first laughers had been Max’s friends who knew him the best, and Arthur, Casimir, and Alexandre were doubled over and leaning on the walls.
The chuckles and giggles and outright guffaws spread to the red velvet-covered walls.
Lady Valentina’s voice was peevish as she demanded, “Well, are you?”
Maxence tried to answer her. He forced himself to make a straight face and said, “Lady Valentina, I assure you—”
But the giggles got ahold of him again.
“I do not think this is a laughing matter, Maxence!”
“They do!” He gestured at the nobles of Monaco crowded into the room, and the laughter rose and filled the space between the chandeliers, all the way up to the frescos painted on the gilded, arched ceiling. He asked, “Lady Valentina, what shall I do to appease you? What on Earth can I say so that everyone in this room is amply cognizant of whom I like to sleep with? Do you need references?”
“No, no, that’s not it,” Lady Valentina said, flustered and fidgeting with her purse. Lola was patting Valentina’s shoulder while repressing giggles. “I just want to make sure that you aren’t going to swan off to be a priest again instead of properly getting married and having children to pass the throne on to!”
Maxence wiped his eyes and tried to stop laughing. “Yes, God willing, yes. I’m planning to marry, if a woman will say yes to me. I can’t imagine why any one of them would, however, especially a particular one.”
He didn’t look up at Dree. Proposing marriage in the middle of the Sea Change Gala had been unwise. Pressuring someone with an audience wasn’t fair unless one was absolutely sure one’s intended wanted a public proposal. He’d been rash.
He certainly shouldn’t compound his error.
/> “Are you sure, Maxence? You seemed so adamant about the priesthood,” Lady Valentina fussed.
Maxence stole a glance at Dree.
She was biting her lower lip, but she was smiling.
He winked at her.
She grinned back. Her blond hair was still a tousled mess and curling at the ends as it dried. She was holding her pen poised above the paper where she was taking notes, because that’s what she was needed to do.
Dree Clark was a precious alloy, an amalgam of beauty and sweetness and sheer toughness Max hadn’t believed could exist. He loved everything about her. She nursed people back to health until she was falling-over exhausted, rode a motorcycle through the Himalayas, and escaped from kidnappers instead of falling apart.
He trusted that if she’d gotten away from her captors that morning before he had, she would have parachuted out of an airplane onto that damned cargo ship with a knife clenched between her teeth.
She would be an amazing chatelaine for Monaco. If something happened to Maxence, Dree could hold the Palais Princier fortress above the harbor against their enemies attacking from the sea, so to speak.
He loved—
—her.
Why not make it public?
Maxence rested his arms on his knees and shrugged at Lady Valentina. “It’s the oldest story in the world, my lady. I’ve fallen in love, and I want to marry her.”
Lady Valentina was still glaring at him. “She’s not one of your cousins, is she?”
“No,” Maxence laughed. “We wouldn’t want problems like the Habsburgs had.”
Valentina’s expression visibly relaxed. She said, her tone as high-brow as an opera critic, “It seemed sordid to say anything while Pierre was alive, and then it seemed unwise when Marie-Therese was the leading contender for the throne, but she was blackmailing Pierre about his natural family because his unlawful wife was Protestant. She wanted Pierre to marry her instead of Flicka von Hannover.” Her voice dropped to a snarl. “But the Grimaldi do not marry their cousins.”
“Indeed,” Max chuckled.
Lady Valentina Martini said, “But you have someone in mind.”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” He did not dare look at Dree now. To do so would pressure her again.
Lady Valentina’s pale eyebrows pinched to the middle of her forehead. “And—it’s a girl? A young lady?”
“An absolutely beautiful woman. As kind as she is good. As charming as she is honorable.”
A few people around the room were side-eyeing Dree, who was still sitting behind Maxence, taking notes. He had no idea whether she was making faces or pointing to her own head or crawling off the stage to get away, because he could not look back there. The people looking between Maxence and Dree, some of them with wide eyes and growing grins, might have been near the dance floor last night at the Sea Change Gala and witnessed his ill-timed proposal.
Lady Valentina clenched her hands together at her stomach while Lola still patted her shoulder. “When will you reveal her to the public?”
“When she is ready to reveal herself.”
Behind Maxence, a pen clattered to the floor, and paper swished.
He twisted where he was sitting and looked up to find Dree waving to the crowd. “It’s me!” Dree piped up. “Hi! Here I am! Pleased to meet you.”
Maxence held his hand out to Dree, and she joined him farther forward on the stage. “My friends and family, may I introduce Ms. Andrea Clark of New Mexico, the United States. We’ve been seeing each other for some time. I hope you’ll be seeing more of us soon.”
Dree said, “Wow, you said it correctly again.”
Lady Valentina’s eyes had widened, and her open mouth was pulling at her papery skin. “Your secretary? And an American?”
Maxence laughed. “Surely, it’s not all that bad. My grandmother, Princess Grace, was an American, and she did quite well in the role.”
“Yes, but Grace Kelly was a famous actress. She worked with Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant and Bing Crosby. She was sophisticated, and she fit in with us.”
Maxence lowered his voice to make sure he sounded perfectly firm. “Ms. Clark is not an actress. She is a nurse practitioner. If a new plague or pandemic ever upends the world, having a medical professional at the head of our government would be a great advantage when we made policy based on medicine and science to protect ourselves.”
Valentina nodded slowly.
Dree plopped down beside him on the dais and asked him, “So, does this mean we’re engaged or not?”
Maxence could feel the smile stretching his face. “I had worried that my impromptu proposal at the Sea Change Gala was premature. I didn’t want to pressure you in front of a crowd of onlookers.”
Her smile drooped a little. “Oh, okay. I can see that.”
Maxence took her hand. “Besides, you never answered me.”
Dree batted her eyelashes at him. “Well, it’s been a while. I don’t remember what the question was.” She grinned. “You’d better ask me again.”
He turned back to look at Lady Valentina. “Do you want me to propose to her right here?”
Lady Valentina’s eyes darted from one side to the other. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. I was just very interested and wanted to make sure you were a long-term situation, not a stopgap measure. I did not mean to pressure you.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Maxence helped Dree to her feet and then shifted to one knee. He held both her slim, competent hands in his. Around her neck, she was still wearing the platinum cross he’d given her for Christmas in Nepal on its delicate chain.
A woman’s voice rang out of the crowd, “You can’t marry her!”
The crowd gasped. They turned.
Lady Clémentine Gastaud stepped forward, her long skirt swishing as she trembled. She consulted her phone and repeated, “You can’t marry her.”
Max said, “Of course, I can. I can marry whomever I want.”
Lady Clémentine shook her head. “You can’t marry her. She’s not noble. It would be a morganatic marriage, and any offspring that you did have wouldn’t be eligible to be the next sovereign of Monaco.”
Maxence glanced at Dree, his mind the black of a tornado-storm sky. He paused, thinking, and then said in a bass rumble, “I don’t care who the next Prince of Monaco is after me. We set up the Crown Council to elect sovereigns instead of allowing the whims of fate and genetics to dictate the next absolute ruler of our country.”
Lady Clémentine looked like she was about to speak again, but Lady Valentina shook her head sadly. “That’s a good point, Clémentine, but you should not be making it. Is your fibro acting up today? Where do you get medication for the pain again?”
Alexandre stepped forward again and spoke directly to Lady Clémentine Gastaud. “Prince Rainier IV declared my marriage to an American with no noble title to be valid and dynastic. It’s not considered a morganatic marriage, which is why I nearly got roped into being the prince. If Maxence is elected the sovereign, he can declare his marriage or any other to be dynastic and not morganatic if he wants to.”
Lady Clémentine Gastaud looked at her phone and then up at Maxence, a look of horror rising on her face.
Lady Valentina said, “Do not go on, Clémentine. You’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
Maxence turned back to Dree and began again. “Andrea Grace Catherine Clark, my one true love, my chérie, I’ve been waiting for you all my life. You are my north star and my guiding light when I’m at sea. You’re my rock as solid as Le Rocher de Monaco, the headland that has held this palace and the Grimaldi for a millennium. No matter what happens in this council today, I ask you to marry me and be my wife and my princess for the rest of my life.”
Behind him, he heard Valentina mutter, “Her middle name is Grace. Of course, it is.”
Dree was grinning at him so widely that her eyes were squinched almost closed. She had been nodding the whole second half of his speech, and then she said, “Your Sere
ne Highness, Prince Maxence Charles Honoré Grimaldi—”
It was his turn to be shocked that she had remembered that entire moniker. He doubted Arthur or Casimir could’ve recited it.
“—I accept your proposal, and I will marry you,” Dree finished.
Maxence leaped to his feet and grabbed her in his arms, slanting his mouth over hers. Her petal-soft lips opened under his, and he had to restrain himself from ravaging her like a rake in front of the entire Crown Council.
He broke off the kiss, but it echoed in his veins. He whispered to her, “I wish I had a ring to put on your finger right now. The jewelry box I tried to stuff in your hands last night must’ve gotten lost in the chaos. We can pick out a ring at one of the jewelry boutiques here. Monaco is the best place in the world for jewelry shopping.”
Dree perked up even more. “Oh, I have it! I’m surprised I forgot about it because the corners are kind of sharp.”
She plunged her hand into the top of her sundress’s bodice between her sumptuous breasts, all the way to her wrist.
Maxence stepped between her and the audience. Casimir and Arthur closed ranks at his sides, facing out.
Truly, Max could count on those guys in any situation, even weird ones.
Dree thrust her hand up into the air in triumph, her fingers clamped around the black jewelry box. “Got it!”
Arthur glanced over his shoulder before he stepped away, and Casimir followed suit.
Dree handed the box to Max, the velvet-covered box soft in his palm. “Here you go.”
He opened it and began to dig out the ring, but Dree shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I want the whole shmeer.”
Chuckling, Maxence lowered himself to one knee again. “You already said yes, right?”
She grinned and nodded, her blond bob flipping around her flushed cheeks.
Maxence held the box in one hand and flipped up the top with the other.
Dree stopped smiling.
Her hands raised to her mouth.
From her expression and for one horrible moment, Maxence was afraid that his grandmother’s ring had been lost, and a mouse had crawled into the box and died. He angled the black box and peeked through the side.
Royal: A Royal Billionaire Novel (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 6) Page 17
