Elias gestured for her to turn into an adjacent hallway. One slightly less grand and gilded, but not by much. It led to the private wings of the palace. “Just because you’ve never heard of Moncriano doesn’t mean we aren’t well aware of all things American.”
As he’d hoped, Kelsey rose to his implied challenge. “Really? Prove it. What’s weird about the parade we have on Thanksgiving morning?”
“Giant balloons of cartoon figures. Which aren’t that odd, all things considered. Did you know that Belgium holds a Bathtub Regatta on the Meuse River every year?”
“With real bathtubs?” Kelsey’s disbelief sharpened her tone.
“Indeed.”
She paused in front of a French door. The morning sun put a halo around her golden hair. Elias had a sudden vision of it spread across his pillow.
So he looked away. Looked for anything at all to distract him from the pull of Kelsey’s beauty. The first thing that caught his eye? A painting of The Sirens—three women lying on Moncriano’s beach. Nude.
Even though it was centuries old, it was still naked women.
Elias could not catch a break.
Kelsey had turned to walk backward as she tossed him another challenge with a cocky lift of her eyebrow. “Where’s the Liberty Bell?”
“Philadelphia. I accompanied the crown prince on a tour of your Independence Hall and we marveled that your country is so young. There’s probably twelve bells older than that one within a mile of our palace.”
“Show off. Old isn’t always better.”
“Cheese and wine disprove your point.”
“Stale bread and rancid meat prove it.” Kelsey drew an oversize check mark in the air with a flair. “Check and mate.”
A laugh spun out of her, not like the tinkle of a harp, but a loud, raucous, triumphant belly laugh. Laughs like that did not erupt in the public wing of the royal palace very often. An honest laugh like that one would never be used by a woman to flirt.
See? This was just fun. This couldn’t possibly be him breaking every protocol and flirting with the princess. No flirtation in history included the words “rancid meat.” Elias was cheering up Her Royal Highness, giving her a laugh. Kelsey only saw him as a friendly shadow. A necessary evil. Perhaps even as unwanted as an ankle monitoring bracelet they put on criminals. She wasn’t flirting with him.
And even if she was? It was absolutely forbidden for a member of the RPS to date a member of the royal family.
Also very, very frowned upon for a commoner to date a member of the royal family.
And his father’s reaction—well, that’d be another problem entirely.
She was in the friend zone, nothing more. It was normal to enjoy a friend’s laughter. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
That laughter certainly was an improvement over the pale and tightly drawn cast to her face when she’d left the throne room. And he wanted to do whatever it took to keep that light in her eyes, that smile on her lips. On an impulse, Elias veered to the right and opened the French door.
Kelsey didn’t walk through. Eyes narrowed, she shot him a look of confusion. “Why are we going outside?”
“I thought I’d take you on a walk in the gardens.”
The upper half of her body canted forward, but her feet stayed planted on the carpet. “I can’t.”
“Are you allergic to grass? Roses?” Damn it. Talk about an oversight. What if the bouquets in her room were making her sneeze? Or worse? “That should’ve been in your file.”
“No.” Kelsey let out a long sigh. Not one of satisfaction. No, this had a distinct tinge of dissatisfaction to it when coupled with the slump in her shoulders. “No, your crack dissection of every inch of my life before ever actually meeting me didn’t miss anything.”
Elias most certainly did not miss the thick sarcasm frosting her words. “What, then?”
Biting her lip, Kelsey thrust a folder at him and shook it back and forth. “It isn’t on the schedule. I’ve been ordered to adhere to the contents of this folder. Admonished, even.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
He should’ve known the old lady would immediately start throwing her power around. From what Christian had told him, King Julian was in no shape to control the situation. He was in shock. The official, barely responsive kind of actual shock that had sent his valet sprinting to get the palace physician.
Christian said his father hadn’t been much better this morning than when he’d broken the news to him last night. As though the king refused to let himself give in to hope. So however horrid his mother-in-law might have been to Kelsey, the king probably hadn’t done anything to rein her in.
Elias grabbed the folder. He beckoned to the nearest footman. “Please take this to Miss Wishner’s suite. Give it to her sister.”
“Right away, sir.”
Foot still propping open the door, Elias swept an arm out toward the vast expanse of manicured lawns, ruthlessly trimmed hedges, and more flowers than he could name. “I believe your schedule has cleared, Your Highness. Would you care to stroll in the gardens?”
“Why yes, I would.”
The key to this brief escape for Kelsey was to keep her out of sight of, well, everyone. So he quickly led her past the dual strips of reflecting ponds edged with rows of white flowers. The fast click of her heels dulled as they switched from pavement to the crushed shell path that took them past the fountain. Elias only slowed once they were—mostly—out of sight and under the trellis sagging under drooping purple jacaranda.
Kelsey raised her arm to trail her fingers amidst the blooms. “When I agreed to a walk, I didn’t know it would be a speed walk.” From beneath heavy-lidded eyes, she pinned him with a glare. “Were you hazing me? Initiate the newest royal by giving her a blister?”
Was that a glare? Or a flirtatious glare?
When the hell had he lost all ability to read women?
And why the hell did it matter when Elias could not, should not, would not date a princess? “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to give anyone the chance to stop us. Being truly alone is more difficult than you’d think in a palace with more than six hundred rooms.”
“Thank you.” She pulled down a branch and sniffed deeply. “I…I did need a break.”
“If it makes you feel better, everyone walks out of their first formal audience a bit worse for wear. Honestly? Your grandmother scares me, to this day. And I met her years ago, when I was just a boy.”
“How did you—” Kelsey broke off and started taking the pins out of her hair. “She is scary, the grand duchess. Can you tell me something? Does she hug anyone? Because I didn’t get the vibe she was particularly thrilled to see me.”