Thanks to the volley of information Pet had flung at his head over the past couple of weeks, he knew that the princess, her parents, and her siblings each had private apartments in the south wing. Hopefully with a little less foot traffic, but he had a feeling that even occupying the “family” wing would be akin to taking up residence in a fishbowl.
According to Pet, it was “true love.”
For their sakes, he hoped it was worth it.
Without any expectation of a useful answer, he addressed Jeremiah, who looked the most likely to drop illicit info. Something about the constant eye twitch and the emerging peek of Doctor Who socks under too-short trousers. “How many tenders are on the short list today?”
“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, sir.”
He seemed scandalized that Dominic had even asked.
Weddings topped the priority list of their contracted cakes. They held hugely personal, intrinsic meaning. For two—or in some cases, three, four, or more—people, it was a symbol of an occasion they would remember and shelter for the rest of their lives.
Or at least until divorce proceedings and a subsequent second cake.
But there were limits to how much pretension Dominic could swallow, and this experience was starting to push at those boundaries.
They rounded another corner, and Arabella spoke into her phone. As they approached an imposing set of double wooden doors—the Captain’s Suite, according to a gold plaque—the left door opened, and a middle-aged man stepped out.
He inclined his head at the protection officers, and their spines snapped rod straight. Dominic half expected a military salute. Evidently, he was a staffer high up the authority ladder. Dominic surveyed him with one glance.
Small round glasses. Vividly red nose. Bushy white beard. Probably a heavy drinker. Definitely a smoker; under a whiff of cologne, he still smelled like the rear courtyard of a pub. Visually, he was a dead ringer for Father Christmas. If Father Christmas were the moody old bastard he ought to be, with a job description that revolved around the entitled demands of millions of sugar-hyped children.
“Mr. De Vere,” the Santa doppelgänger said crisply, after an equally comprehensive summing-up in return. “Please, come in.”
The interior of the room was bog-standard conference suite: an oval table surrounded by backbreaking chairs, a trolley with rudimentary tea and coffee facilities, and a projector screen. A few people in nondescript suits sat in silence, each wearing the ubiquitous staff lanyard. With one exception, it might have been any office building in the city.
That exception, the three people at the front of the room, stood up in a collective movement, accompanied by the rustling of expensive fabric.
The statuesque woman standing front and center studied him from head to foot. Every person in this building was constantly eyeing someone else with suspicion or condescension. Her eyes were infamous, a shade of blue so pale that her irises were almost white, glittering with both intelligence and calculation, like ice crystals reflecting an overcast sky. In an old novel, her features would be described as “handsome.” Presently, they were set into a very polite, totally meaningless smile.
At her side was a younger woman in her twenties, whose eyes were at the opposite end of the blue spectrum, almost navy, and heavily accented by thick streaks of black under her lashes. Unlike the pearls the other women were wearing, she had small silver spikes in her earlobes. Her shoulder pressed against the arm of a blond man with a scab on his chin where he’d cut himself shaving. The man was nervous and doing a terrible job of hiding it—swallowing a lot and repeatedly licking his lips.
Princess Rose of Albany and her fiancé, John Marchmont, who ought to be the stars of this particular show, were eclipsed in both authority and X-factor by the bride’s mother, Georgina, the Duchess of Albany.
In a literal nod to convention, Dominic dipped his head in a brief bow.
His career had brought him into the path of other royals, but this was his first encounter with the duchess. Supposedly, she ruled her branch of the family with an iron fist. Within two sentences, Dominic believed it.
“This is Edward Lancier, my daughter’s private secretary.” The duchess nodded in Father Christmas’s direction. “He’s overseeing the coordination of events in the planning of this wedding.”
Lancier looked coldly back at Dominic. His whole demeanor spoke of intense displeasure. Archaic snobbery at having to deal with the local shopkeepers? Or disapproval this wedding was taking place at all?
“You’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement.” The duchess spoke with the certainty of a person whose every wish was carried out promptly. “It goes without saying that we expect every syllable relating to this event to remain strictly confidential.”
“Naturally.” Dominic’s voice was equally cool, and she lifted her finely tweezed eyebrows.
“First of all, we’d like to thank you for accepting the invitation to submit a tender. His Majesty is particularly pleased by the inclusion of your establishment. De Vere’s has done excellent work for our family in the past, and I understand His Majesty enjoyed a cordial personal acquaintance with your late grandfather, Mr. Sebastian De Vere.”
As a senior and experienced royal, the duchess was prepped and prepared. He imagined a briefing today had also provided the names of his parents and siblings. If he were here to provide a favor and not a highly paid service, she’d probably ask after even his bloody cat by name.
And the seething pile of fur and narcissism he’d inherited in an unbreakable clause of Sebastian’s will would expect no less. Humphrey spent his days either sleeping or destroying pillows, confident that the rest of the world existed solely to serve his comforts.
A feline soul mate for the duchess.
“He did. An honor my grandfather appreciated until his death.”
The stab in his chest was sudden and unexpected. And at this moment unwelcome.
Dominic thought of Sebastian every time he opened the kitchen door in De Vere’s. Part of him expected to see his grandfather standing at the stove, still incredibly adept with his hands, his shoulders broad enough to bear the weight of the business through every financial struggle, every economic downturn.
Broad enough to support the silent cry for help of a very angry teenage boy, a quarter of a century ago.
Sebastian lived in everything that occurred in De Vere’s. His legacy and presence were embedded in the very walls. Usually, his memory was faint, lingering solace.
Today, there was pain.
Grief. The ever-changing sea. Brutal and turbulent. Stretches of peace. And out of nowhere, a knockout wave that rolled through dark shadows, stretching so far back in time now their power had thinned to threads.
Or should have.
“De Vere’s is always pleased to cater to the needs of the royal household.” Rigidly, Dominic closed a mental door on the past and fixed his speculation on the present. Through the industry grapevine, he’d counted at least six salons with the official nod to bid for this contract. A short list should knock that down to no more than three.
Better, it turned out. He doubted if the Duchess of Albany was the royal they rolled out to children’s hospitals and aged-care facilities, unless they wanted to scare the shit out of already vulnerable people, but he appreciated her aversion to beating about the bush.