Not until she heard the whisper of the main office doors opening as her father's voice drifted through.
Even then, all she did was turn her head far enough she could see him walking toward her with the PR team following behind.
A minute later, they were all seated as Jessica pulled up the first slide.
"The response has been overwhelmingly generally positive," she told them.
Jacob leaned forward. "Shouldn’t it be either overwhelmingly positive or generally positive, but not both?"
"Typically, you'd be right, but this is a bit of a special circumstance. The vast majority of people seem to have a generally positive opinion on the information in the press release, but on a scale of one to ten, it would be more like a 7.5 rather than an 8.5 or higher, which we would consider overwhelmingly positive." Jessica clicked a few times and brought up a scale.
Catherine had seen ones like it many times before. One meant you absolutely hated the thing being judged while ten meant it literally couldn't get any better. Enough at either end would average to a "neither good nor bad" feeling about the news, but wouldn't accurately reflect the feelings of the population.
A pie chart popped up. "Of the polls done so far today, about 75% of people fall somewhere between a seven and eight. Of the rest, about 10% are absolutely giddy, 5% think you should all be run out of the country and possibly off the edge of the flat earth, and the remaining 10% are generally between a four and six - not thrilled but willing togive it a chance."
"So this is good?" Jacob asked, likely hoping to clarify.
Thankfully, he had. Catherine had the same question, but didn't want to ask. She'd been around this sort of thing her entire life. Jacob hadn't, so his ignorance worked in her favor as well. She'd have to remember to thank him later.
"Very good." Jessica set her laser pointer down. "We were hoping for at least 50% to be somewhere between a 5.5 and 7, so slightly positive but not strongly positive. That 85% are at a seven and above? We're thrilled."
"Excellent." Her father jumped in for the first time. "It's what I would have expected, but I understand why you didn't."
"Why the better than anticipated results?" Jacob unknowingly helped her out again.
"From the data we've seen so far, the only reason it's not more positive is because they were informed after the fact. The plan to celebrate the wedding before the ball has gone a very long way toward mollifying those who would otherwise have been quite upset." She picked up her pointer and used one of the buttons to advance to the next slide.
Catherine recognized the layout of the streets of Vesperi Skye. A red line started at the west entrance and continued to the Cathedral. A blue line started at the main entrance of the palace and took a relatively straight route to the Cathedral, joining the red line for most of the way. A purple line left the Cathedral and meandered its way back to the palace.
"These are the anticipated parade routes," Jessica told them, despite the label on the slide clearly saying the same thing. "One change made from what we discussed previously is that the prince will leave via the west gate and you will leave via the main gate."
"Why is that?" Catherine asked. "And don't say it's because they all would prefer to see my dress over Jacob's tuxedo. Those outside the main gate will see it when we return. Those alongthe first part of the route outside the west gate won't see me at all, only Jacob."
Jessica exchanged a look with her aide. "That would be the best option, ma'am. In fact, we suggested you both take the same route from the west gate, just about ten minutes apart. The route from the Cathedral back to the palace will be significantly longer and encompass all of the other typical routes for caravans of this nature."
"Who overruled that idea?" Once more, Jacob asked her question before she could.
"Mr. Hopkins believed this would be the queen's preference," the aide told them. "He seemed to indicate this route would be safer for the queen as well, though he couldn't point to a specific reason why the route from the west gate wouldn't be as secure."
Her father tapped his pen against the closed cover of his notepad. "Why don't we set a meeting up with Hopkins? I've known him for years, and he has a gut instinct about some of these things. If that's what it is, then we need to strongly consider taking both of them out the front gate, but diverging from the return path fairly quickly. If there's another rationale, then we discuss it and see what can be done."
As they all nodded, he stood. "Jessica, please be sure to thank your entire team for their hard work. All of you are all greatly appreciated."
Catherine and Jacob both stood as the other three left the room. As soon as they were alone, she sat back in the chair and the conference table but slouched in a way quite unbecoming of a queen. "I think that's good?"
He perched on the edge of the table closer to her. "I think so. Seems like it anyway. It's almost time for lunch, isn't it?"
Catherine forced herself to sit up straight. "Yes. It should be here any minute."
"Good." Jacob hesitated and stared somewhereover her head for a brief moment. "There's something we do need to talk about, Catherine."
"Okay." She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. This wasn't an "I don't want what I ordered for lunch" conversation. It had a feeling far closer to "now that we've told the whole world, I'm pretty sure we made a mistake" conversation.
He looked back down at her, this time looking straight in her eyes. "We need to talk about the balcony kisses."
8
Lunch was quieter than it had been, perhaps because the news of their marriage going public made it seem more real.
