Carrie Alexander - Once Upon A Tiara

The blond head bobbed. Several times. He chuckled. The petite princess was on springs.

Cornelia said “Shush,” to him in her normal tone—loud—just as the princess’s plaintive voice announced, “But I can’t see anything!”

Everyone hushed.

A small feminine hand appeared on the broad shoulder of the closest bodyguard. Next, a blond head with short hair going in six different directions pushed past the woolen sleeve of a woman who looked as starched as her collar. The princess peeped out at the group from Blue Cloud. She blinked several times. Long spidery lashes curled back from her eyes like stamens.

The greeters returned the stare in complete silence.

“My goodness,” she said. “I do hope you weren’t shushing me. I haven’t been shushed since boarding school, even though I suppose there were plenty who might have liked to.”

She smiled, very prettily.

And Simon’s heartstrings went zing.

Fortunately, Cornelia began booming her practiced welcome speech, and he was able to classify the electric thrumming in his veins as sound-wave reverberation. Corny’s reverb had been known to register on the Richter scale.

He had neither the time nor the inclination for dallying with princesses, even when they were cuddly little blondes built for the boudoir. The very idea was absurd, particularly when he remembered who he was: Simon Stafford Tremayne, boy genius, college egghead, museum wonk. Before he’d learned to keep activities that required tuxedos and courtliness permanently outside of his comfort zone, his greatest success with the opposite sex was slow-dancing with Valerie Wingate at his high school prom, and that had happened only because she was mad at her quarterback boyfriend and had grabbed the nearest nerd at hand for revenge. That one dance had earned Simon a broken nose, and it hadn’t even been worth it. Valerie Wingate had been so vapid, not even the chance to look down her cleavage was compensation. At least, not after the first thousand or so mental slow-motion replays.

The older woman with the bulk and the bulging leather satchel was shaking each of their hands, taking names, and introducing them to the princess. “Mrs. Amelia Grundy,” she said to Simon.

He gave his hand. “No, it’s Simon Tremayne, actually.”

Her lips crimped. No sense of humor. She gripped his hand a beat too long, staring straight into his eyes. Damned if he didn’t feel the zing again. Well, that was good. That meant the feeling could be anything—static electricity from the carpet or maybe indigestion. He’d inhaled a spicy burrito at lunch. Give him a Tums and he’d be safe from all manner of embarrassing eruptions. Burps to bolts from the blue.

“Cor-nell-eee-yah,” Princess Buttercup was saying, with an ill-concealed mischievous glitter to her eyes.

“Cornelia Applewhite. My, that’s too long a name. I shall call you…”

She glanced at Simon. He arched a brow.

“Nell,” she said. “You look like a Nell to me, born and bred among the amber waves of grain on a wholesome American farm.”

Simon barely withheld his laugh. Cornelia, for once, was too flustered to bluster. She was hugely and loudly proud of her venerable family background, but contradicting princesses was undoubtedly against protocol.

The stern Englishwoman glanced sidelong, her mouth pinched into a disapproving knot.

The princess saw the look and sobered so suddenly it was comical. She drew herself up, tipping the saucy royal chin into the air and taking on a formal tone. “That is, unless you prefer Mayor? Or would it be Madam Mayor?”

The British battleship returned her attention to Simon. “And you are?”

“Boggled.”

Mrs. Grundy frowned. “Is that a distasteful American slang term?”

“No, it’s the Queen’s English.” He’d never been so irreverent in his life, but there was a certain gaiety in the air and he couldn’t resist. “Its definition is to be overwhelmed with fright or amazement.”

“Ah, that sort of boggled.” She looked him over. “You’re not cowering…”

His gaze strayed to the princess, who’d relaxed as soon as Grundy wasn’t looking. She was charming Corny’s cravat off despite the farm-girl nickname. “Maybe I’m amazed.”

“Wings,” Mrs. Grundy said, surprising him. “Paul McCartney. A Liverpool lad.” Simon tore his attention off the princess and refocused on the Mistress of Starch. Amelia Grundy’s eyes were Atlantic blue, and not nearly as humorless as he’d first assumed.

“I’m the curator of the Princess Adelaide and Horace P. Applewhite Memorial Museum,” he said. It was a terrible mouthful; the townspeople had already shortened the museum’s name to “The Addy-Appy.” “We are most honored to host the debut exhibition of the Brunner family jewels.”

Usually the term family jewels provoked a grin or a snicker—Blue Cloud wasn’t a bastion of sophistication despite Corny’s pretentions—but all he got from Grundy was a stiff nod. “As is the princess to be your guest of honor,” she said.

“Indubitably,” Simon said, because it sounded very British.

Mrs. Grundy’s lips twitched as she passed him over to the princess, introducing him by name and occupation. “Mr. Tremayne,” she continued, “may I introduce Her Serene Highness, Princess Liliane Brunner of the sovereign principality of Grunberg.”

You may indeed.

The princess placed her hand lightly in his, palm down. He found himself succumbing to a deep bow, propelled by some instinct he hadn’t known he possessed, his lips hovering above the smooth skin on her delicate hand. Her scent suited the season—spring fresh, green and sweet as tender rosebuds.

Gather them while ye may, he thought, one hair-breadth away from a courtly kiss when his suit coat gaped. His glasses fell out, landing on the princess’s toes. She trilled a startled “Oh, my!” and gave a little backward hop. Her big, jowly bodyguard moved in swiftly, crunching Simon’s glasses beneath his heel before Grundy could wave him off.

Princess Liliane patted the mastiff’s arm. “It’s quite all right, Rodger.”

The guard swung around to glare at Simon. Crackle.

“Dear me, your glasses,” said the princess.

She and Simon knelt at the same moment. “Please, let me.” She lifted the mangled wire-framed spectacles in both hands as if she were cradling a bird with a broken wing. “I’m afraid they’re ruined.”

He plucked them off her palm. Tiny cracks spider-webbed through one of the lenses. “I have another pair at the museum, Your Royal…uh, Your Serene Princess—”

“Please call me Lili.” She looked into his eyes.

“Lili,” he said, blinking.

“Are you nearsighted?”

No, just boggled. “Farsighted.”

“Then I’m too close…” she whispered, bringing her face another millimeter nearer nonetheless.

“For what?”

Her face was youthfully round, her skin like buttermilk. Her smile was generously wide and unaffected, but it was her lips that stole his breath away—they were full and pink and utterly, undeniably kissable. “For you to see me clearly,” she said, suddenly turning her face up and her delectable smile down when Mrs. Grundy reached between them and pulled the princess unceremoniously to her feet, bracing Lili on a protective, sturdy arm as if the young woman were an invalid.

Simon also rose, the glasses dangling from his fingertips. He didn’t need them to see that he was more than boggled. He was enchanted.

What a pain in the patoot.

WITH ALL THE FAWNING and milling around, it took Simon several minutes to sort out that the princess’s entourage, which consisted of a large portion of airline personnel and only two official watchdogs: Amelia Grundy and Rodger Wilhelm, the heavyset middle-aged bodyguard, who kept shooting suspicious glances at Simon, as if museum curators were high on the dangerous-kook list.