Carrie Alexander - Once Upon A Tiara

Too thrilled to keep silent, Lili turned to her traveling companion, Mrs. Amelia Grundy. “This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Mrs. Grundy, a solid British sort not given to hyperbole, shook her head at the young princess. “Surely, sweet child, it’s not better than the time the sheikh from Abu Dibadinia offered Prince Franz two hundred camels and a sixty-carat ruby for your hand in marriage.”

Lili let out a huge smile. “Oh, much better. You know red’s not my color. Besides, he offered three hundred camels for Natalia. I was highly insulted.”

“What about when you ran off with the young Scottish laird of Kirkgordon to the topless beach in Monaco?” Mrs. Grundy had heartily disapproved of the escapade, even though her eyes had twinkled while she’d scolded the young princess. Lili was certain that she brought it up now only to remind the princess of past transgressions.

“That should have been exciting,” Lili mused, her lips curving into a reminiscent smile, “but poor Johnnie, with his unfortunate red hair and all those freckles—he wasn’t prepared for the hot sun of the Riviera.”

“And a lucky sunburn it was for you, young lady. Because of the lad’s solar allergy you made it off the beach in the nick of time. The papparazzi arrived a full five minutes before the palace bodyguards.”

Lili put on a pretend pout. “I never even got to take my top off.”

Mrs. Grundy rolled her eyes heavenward. “Goodness, no. Remember, my dear, you promised. There will be no mischief on this trip.”

Lili opened her mouth. How very dull that sounded! “But—”

“No ifs, ands or buts about it, Your Serene Highness. You know what I always say—”

“Not to worry.” Lili interrupted before the dear woman repeated one of her favorite expressions. It was always a bad sign when Amelia Grundy launched into the Your-Serene-Highness song and dance.

Lili glanced sidelong with a foxy smile. “I hear that Americans still emulate the Puritans when it comes to nudity…and other regards. It’s extremely unlikely that Blue Cloud, Pennsylvania, will offer me a single opportunity for naked shenanigans.” She gave an airy sigh. “What a pity.”

“If I didn’t know that you’re teasing me…”

Lili gripped the older woman’s hand. “Of course, I am, Amelia. I remain as pure as the driven snow.” In spite of my best attempts.

Amelia Grundy’s stern but kindly face crinkled into dubious speculation. She was sixtyish, rather tall and formidable, built as round and solid as a ski mogul, with keen blue eyes and silvered hair she wore on top of her head in a pouf. A widow, she’d been with the royal family since before Lili was born, acting first as the three sisters’ nanny, then—when the princesses chafed at being overseen by someone who bore such an old-fashioned term—as their combination escort, companion, social secretary and lady-in-waiting.

“Perhaps you are pure in deed,” Amelia said, “but not, I fear, in thought or intent.”

Lili scrunched her nose. How true! She never could manage to fool old Grundy, who had an almost mystical omniscience when it came to the three princesses. Many a time she’d shown up where least expected, just at the right moment to stop one of their wild adventures or dangerous stunts. Or facilitate a dignified exit when none seemed possible. The sisters had come to accept, and even rely upon, their former nanny’s more “magical” abilities.

Now that Lili was an adult, Amelia’s way of knowing what was on her mind—often before she knew it herself—could be as annoying as it was helpful. When a girl was trying to lose her virginity, it didn’t help to have a nanny overseeing her. Transcendentally or not!

“It’s the twenty-first century, Mrs. Grundy. These days, no girl stays a virgin until marriage.”

“Unless she is the daughter of His Serene Highness, Prince Franz Albert Rudolf of Grunberg, and subject to public scrutiny in all that she does.” Amelia nodded complacently, as if the subject was settled, and reopened the romance novel she’d been reading all the way across the Atlantic.

Lili sighed to herself. Upon their official debut into European society, she and her sisters had become known in the tabloids as The Three Jewels. Although their country was small and inconsequential and their father avoided the press whenever possible, much attention—and not a little speculation—had been devoted to the sisters’ love lives.

Or lack thereof, Lili thought, squirming against the restraint of the safety belt as she peered out the window. They were circling the airport now. She was mere minutes away from freedom. Or as close to freedom as she could get with both Amelia Grundy and Rodger Wilhelm, the bodyguard her father had insisted she take along, watching her backside as if it were spun from glass and subject to shatter at the merest touch. Natalia and Annie were better off; they’d been granted permission to travel on their own. As the youngest, Lili was babied more than she liked.

But no more. She was determined about that. This trip would be the start of something tremendous for her. She could sense it.

Peanut butter, M&M’s, hot dogs and hamburgers, Lili chanted to herself. America was so diverse, so raw, so much an adventure-in-waiting. Hip-hop, bebop, shop till you drop. Drive-ins, push-ups, hoedowns and take-outs!

As the plane dropped toward the runway, anticipation rang in Lili’s ears. This was her chance. She would have herself an authentic American experience or her name wasn’t Liliane Marja Mae Graf Brunner.

Why, she wouldn’t even say no to a daring whirlwind fling with a dashing American playboy!

“WITH ALL THAT’S going on at the museum,” Simon Tremayne said as he waited for the first passengers to disembark, “meeting a spoiled princess from some backward little European country no one but us has ever heard of is the last thing I have time for.”

“Take off your glasses,” said Cornelia Applewhite, the mayor of Blue Cloud, who had a tendency to ignore all complaints, which made it easier to bulldoze her constituency. “You’ll look less like a nerd and more like a dignitary.”

Simon did so, pretending there was a smudge. After he’d finished wiping the lenses with the end of his tie, he slipped the glasses into the breast pocket of his suit coat. Who knew why? It couldn’t have been because in photographs the princess was young, blond and cute as a buttercup.

“I suppose I have to kiss her hand?” he said, making sure to sound long-suffering.

“Didn’t you read the protocol report I faxed over to the museum?”

“I intended to.” It was on his list, right after Put On Clean Underwear.

“Si-mon!” the mayor pealed.

He winced. Cornelia—you had to remember to pronounce it Cor-nell-ia, and saints preserve the person who shortened it to Corny—was a short woman with a voice and figure like Foghorn Leghorn. Speaking in a normal tone made her vibrate. When she turned it on full blast to give orders—and she lived to give orders—her entire body swayed with the effort, from the tassels on her pumps to the rooster fringe of her upswept hairdo. Simon wondered if it was considered good protocol to megaphone greetings forceful enough to puncture the princess’s eardrums.

“They’re coming,” Cornelia said to the small group of Blue Cloud VIPs she’d recruited to greet the princess. “Look sharp, people. Pretend you know what you’re doing. And you, Simon, tuck in your tie.” She took a closer look. “King Tut? Couldn’t you have gone for a nice sedate blue or gray?”

“Too late now,” he said, tucking Tut in. The greeters murmured with excitement. The princess and her entourage had naturally been deplaned first. Between the oncoming phalanx of tall, stern people in dark blue suits, all Simon caught of the princess was a flash of pink and a glimpse of ruffled corn-silk hair.