Her attention traveled to the large window, where she had a view of several apartment buildings and the gray sky.
So far on this trip, she’d seen the interior of the ballroom, the interior of the hotel room, and the view from the limo window as they drove from the airport to the hotel. Not exactly the introduction to America that she’d been hoping for, but today was set aside for sightseeing. The sight she was most anxious to see had brown hair and silver eyes, a straight nose and the most delicious lips …
Her phone blasted a trumpeter’s royal announcement. “That would be my mother,” Nyssa muttered as she snagged the phone off the nightstand and swiped to answer the video call. Her mother never used the video chat option on the island, but Nyssa goes to America and she’s suddenly a pro.
“Hello, Mother.” Nyssa settled back into her chair.
Mother’s phone sat on the lower table, angling slightly up. It must have been propped against the tea kettle, because Nyssa could see a familiar scene from home. Her mother was dressed all in white, the billowy fabric rustling in the morning breeze. Behind her, the palace’s pink stucco soaked in the sun. Nyssa missed the sunshine. DC was under cloud cover.
“Hello. I scheduled a date for you with Prince Marius for Friday.” Mother set her teacup delicately into the saucer.
Nyssa scrunched up her face. After the lengths she’d gone through to avoid the prince the evening before, she couldn’t believe he was thrust in her path once again. Her mother was relentless as a matchmaker. Nyssa had thought it was funny when she was arranging meetings for her older brother. Now that he was safely settled in an official courtship, the queen moved on to her second-born.
Nyssa frowned. She’d been so wrapped up in Tatum, literally and figuratively, that she’d had a morning free of any thoughts of Marius.
“Is something wrong?” asked Mother.
An irritation she was unfamiliar with worked its way up Nyssa’s spine. “Not a thing. I swoon every time a man asks my mother for a date. It’s so romantic.”
Mother sniffed. “Romance can come later, my love.”
“When? When we are expecting our first child and I’m the size of a whale? Or, perhaps when I am changing a diaper he’ll swoon at my swaddling abilities and we’ll be unable to control ourselves.”
Mother stared. “It’s possible. My mother told me love is woven into your life in small threads until, one day, you look back and see the beautiful tapestry the two of you have created.”
When she said it like that …
“Perhaps …” Mother rubbed her lips together. “If you had not disappeared last night, Marius would have asked you himself.”
Nyssa sank into her seat. Kingston must have ratted her out. The man hardly said a word to her the whole trip, and then he talks her mother’s ear off. It was clear where his loyalties lay and why Mother was pacified by his accompanying her on the trip.
But even Kingston snitching wasn’t what scratched at Nyssa’s ego. “You’re right. Staying in the ballroom would have made it easy for Marius to ask me out. But where is he now? I am here and he still chose to arrange a date—through my mother.”
“Nyssa.”
“I am a woman of twenty and five and quite capable of using my mind for such matters as planning an evening with a suitor.” She pressed her palms into the chair. “Quite frankly, I’m afraid if I did marry him, he’d spend the marriage consulting you and ignoring me.”
“Nyssa.” The queen’s voice betrayed her indignation. “I would not intrude upon your marriage.”
Nyssa sighed. “You missed the point. I wasn’t worried about you, but about Marius.”
“He has never treated you with anything more than respect.”
Nyssa snorted. “Have you forgotten the time he and Titus tricked me into chasing the chicken through the pigpen?”
“You were seven.”
“And my hair smelled until I was eight.”
“It was three days before your birthday.”
“He doesn’t see me as a woman.”
“How can he when you behave like a child?”
“I refuse to marry a man who does not see my value.”
Mother paused, her hand frozen in the air. “Do you truly believe he does not?”
Nyssa paused and then nodded. “He’s not a bad person,” she added quietly. Quite the contrary. Marius was handsome enough he could pose for statues and they would be admired for centuries. He worked hard for his island, doing his part to advance their trade across the globe. He’d attended university and graduated with many honors. She’d seen him carry an old woman’s bags from the grocery, play with children as if he was one of them, and sit through an evening of chess with her father. With all of his glowing qualifications, she should love him.
But she didn’t. An uncomfortable mixture of guilt and regret washed over her. Her parents had gone to great lengths to secure the marriage treaty with Riodan. And they hadn’t promised her to just any of the king’s sons. They had hand-picked Marius. “Perhaps I should have found Marius last night. His family has always been good to us.”
The queen leaned back in her seat. “Go out with him Friday night. Away from the palace, from either of your families. See him as a man and not a prince.”
Nyssa nodded. “I will try.” She couldn’t ask something of Marius that she wasn’t willing to try herself. Pigpens and chickens could be put aside, couldn’t they? She rubbed her forehead where a small headache formed at the thought of marrying Marius.
Perhaps she could talk Tatum into kidnapping her just before the ceremony. He seemed like a resourceful type of man. The kind who could swoop in under the cover of darkness and secret her away from the palace. She grinned to herself. There actually was
