Beyond Her Beauty

CHAPTER 27 (Jewelry√)

IT WAS MONDAY NIGHT. OR Tuesday morning. It was so late, it was hard to tell.

Kriesha and I had worked all day finding appropriate swaths of soft fabric, having butlers hang them, choosing our clothes and jewelry creating a rough draft of the menu, and listening to a language coach speak lines in Italian to us in the hope that some of it would stick. At least I had the advantage of knowing Spanish, which helped me pick it up faster; they were so similar. Kriesha was just doing all she could to keep up.

I ought to have been exhausted, but all I could think about were Kaden’s words.

What had happened with Kriesha? Why was she all of the sudden so close to him? Should I even care this much?

But this was Kaden.

And try as I might to pull away, I still cared about him. I wasn’t ready to give up completely.

There had to be a way to figure this out. As I debated everything that was happening, attempting to separate my issues from one another, it looked like all the pieces fell into one of four categories.

My feelings about Kaden. Kaden’s feelings about me. Whatever was going on between Bridger and me. And my feelings about actually becoming a princess.

Of all the things swimming in my head right now, it actually felt like the princess thing might be the easiest to tackle. At least in that area, I had something the other girls didn’t. I had Gregory.

I went over to my piano stool, drew out his diary, and hoped with all my heart that he would have some wisdom for me. He hadn’t been born into royalty; he must have had to adjust. Based on what he’d said in his Halloween entry, he was already preparing for a big change in his future.

I pulled up the covers, protecting the words from the world, and dove in.

I WANT TO EMBODY THE OLD-FASHIONED Like IDEAL. I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY, AND I’M VERY WEALTHY; AND BOTH OF THOSE THINGS SUIT THIS IMAGE BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T HANDED TO ME. ANYONE WHO SEES ME NOW KNOWS HOW HARD I WORKED FOR WHAT I HAVE.

BUT THE FACT THAT I’VE BEEN ABLE TO USE MY POSITION, TO GIVE SO MUCH WHERE OTHERS EITHER HAVE NOT OR COULD NOT, HAS CHANGED ME FROM SOME FACELESS BILLIONAIRE INTO A PHILANTHROPIST. STILL, I CANNOT REST ON THIS. I NEED TO DO MORE, TO BE MORE. WALLIS IS IN CHARGE, NOT ME, AND I NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PROPERLY GIVE THE PUBLIC WHAT THEY NEED WITHOUT BEING SEEN AS A USURPER. A TIME MAY COME WHEN I WILL LEAD AND CAN DO WHAT I SEE FIT. FOR NOW I WILL PLAY BY THE RULES AND GO AS FAR AS I CAN WITH THAT.

I tried to glean some actual wisdom from his words. He said to use your position. He said to play by the rules. He said not to be afraid.

Maybe that should have been enough, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even feel close to helpful. Since Gregory failed me, there was only one other man I could count on. I went over to my desk, pulled out a pen and paper, and scribbled a brief letter to my father.

THE NEXT DAY FLEW BY, and suddenly Kriesha and I were arriving at the other girls’ reception in conservative gray dresses.

“What’s the plan?” Kriesha asked as we walked down the hall.

I considered for a moment. I disliked Selena and wouldn’t mind seeing her fail, but I wasn’t sure I wanted her to do it on this grand a scale. “Be polite, but not helpful. Watch Rihanna and the queen for cues. Absorb everything we can … and work all night to make ours better.”

“All right.” She sighed. “Let’s go.”

We were on time, as was crucial to the culture, and the girls were already a mess. It was like Selena was sabotaging herself. Where Elise and Natalie were in respectable deep blues, Selena’s dress was practically white. Put a veil on her, and this was a wedding. Not to mention how revealing it was, especially when she stood next to any of the German women. Most of them were wearing sleeves to their wrists despite the warm weather.

Natalie had been put in charge of the flowers and missed the detail that lilies were traditionally used at funerals. All the flower arrangements had to be removed hastily.

Elise, though clearly more agitated than she usually was, appeared to be the image of calm. To our guests, she would look like the star.

It was intimidating, trying so hard to communicate with the women from the German Federation—who spoke very broken English—particularly when I had so much Italian in my brain. I tried to be hospitable; and despite their severe appearance, the ladies were actually quite friendly.

It became clear pretty quickly that the true threat of disaster was Rihanna and her clipboard. While the queen graciously aided the girls in hosting the German guests, Rihanna walked the perimeter of the room, her sharp eyes missing nothing. It seemed she had pages of notes before the event had ended. Kriesha and I quickly realized that our only hope was to have Rihanna fall in love with our reception.

….

The next morning, Kriesha came to my room with her maids, and we got ready together. We wanted to make an effort to look similar enough so it was clear we were in charge but not so much alike we looked silly. It was kind of fun having so many girls in my room. The maids all knew one another, and they talked animatedly behind us as they worked. It reminded me of how things had felt when May was here.

Hours before our guests were supposed to arrive, Kriesha and I made our way to the parlor to double-check everything one last time. Unlike the other reception, we were forgoing place cards and letting our guests sit wherever they liked. The band came to practice in the space, and as a lucky bonus, it seemed our choice of fabrics to cover the bland walls made for great acoustics.

I straightened Kriesha’s necklace as we quizzed each other on the conversational phrases one last time. She sounded very natural speaking Italian.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Grazie,” I answered.

“No, no,” she replied, facing me.