It took a few more minutes for Dree’s professionalism to fully kick back in. She didn’t know any nurses at the Princess Grace Hospital who she could call for inside information about Lady Valentina’s condition, so she stewed in worry, instead.
As far as the ceremony went, Maxence had evidently been well and officially throned. After everyone returned to their seats, a soprano sang a hymn, some speeches were given, and then a choir of little boys did some singing. Then there was another speech before the nobles left their seats to raise their right hands and say an oath to theConstitutionof Monaco rather than the prince personally, and then a string quartet played a thing, and then, finally, Maxence gave his short speech that she had watched him practice in front of the bathroom mirror for a week.
However, he gave the speech with an interesting addition he’d never practiced in front of Dree, and her jaw dropped.
Maxence spoke into the microphone, and his voice rang across the inner courtyard of the palace. “Tomorrow, I plan to sign my first order as the Sovereign Prince of Monaco. I will establish the Crown Council as a standing legislative body. The members will be elected from the citizenry rather than inherited by the nobility. Elections will be held each year on May nineteenth, six months from Monaco’s national day. The Crown Council shall pass laws and manage Monaco’s treasury.”
The crowd gasped.
Some of the nobles were half-standing, staring at each other.
Dree hung onto the silk swag around the private box, almost laughing in delight that Maxence had sprung this on everyone.
Maxence stared down the whole crowd.
Then, the orchestra played the national anthem, the “Hymne Monégasque,” which ended with the lyrics, “And nothing will change, As long as the sun shines; God will always help us, And nothing will change.”
Dree was almost cracking up as she sang the lyrics in Monegasque with the rest of them becausewhoa, Nelly,a whole bunch was about to change. Maxence had set the country on the path to being a democracy and making himself a figurehead.
About half the crowd whistled and cheered when the song was over, including Dree.
The other half sat in stunned silence.
Afterward, Dree and Georgie, plus a few other nobles who had been invited, walked with Maxence toward the palace gates.
Rogue Security operators flanked them.
As they passed through the small alcove by the gate, Maxence dragged Dree back into the shadows, holding her hand and pressing her to his chest, and he told her how magnificent she had been when she had saved the life of Lady Valentina Martini. “You’re perfect, and you’re the love of my life.”
Between insisting on having the first-aid station and then saving Lady Valentina’s life with it, Dree felt halfway competent. Whether or not she ever got the hang of being a glamorous princess seemed irrelevant. Her own skills were enough.
Outside the gate, hundreds of people had gathered in the vast outer courtyard.
Dree held onto Maxence. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”
He smiled. “I wasn’t sure I was going to until the very last minute, but it felt right.”
“You’re giving up your power,” she said, still smiling at him. She didn’t care. She barely cared about the tiara.
Maxence wrapped his arms around her. “It’s the right thing to do. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I’m corrupted enough. I don’t want to see what I would become if I had the absolute power of a Sovereign Prince of Monaco. It destroyed my uncle, my cousin, and my brother.”
“I don’t think it would do that to you,” she told him.
“I don’t want to find out if you’re wrong.”
More theatrical lights blazed from the sides of the palace and the medieval buildings of Monaco-Ville, throwing thick shadows through the crowd.
The security guys walked with them of course. The redheaded Scottish operator from Rogue Security, Aiden Grier, and that other blond guy with the Irish accent, Eian Summerhays, flanked Maxence, Albert, and Alexandre. Ice-eyed Magnus Jensen walked beside Dree and Georgie. A black, curled cord led from Magnus’s collar to the earpiece inserted in his ear.
Maxence was a few yards in front of Dree, shaking hands and greeting the several hundred Monegasque citizens who had been invited to welcome their new sovereign personally. Those folks looked like just plain ordinary people who wore clothes that Dree recognized as Sunday-best suits and sports jackets for the guys and proper dresses for the ladies.
Max looked more relaxed than during the ceremony, more like himself.
With the lights glaring on him during the enthronement, especially when he had been giving that speech, Maxence had looked otherworldly, like those angel wings might unfurl from his back and he might fly above the crowd on the perfect set of white swan wings.
But afterward, meeting people he considered his friends even if he hadn’t seen them for a while, Maxence transmuted back into the glamorously handsome man with movie-star good looks that made women giggle just by looking at him. No one who liked guys could resist the perfect square of Maxence’s jaw, the sharp slashes of his cheekbones, and eyes so dark they seem to sparkle with stars.
Yep, that was Dree’s hot fiancé working the crowd, and she got to go home with him that night.
