Like maybe Gen also thought Dree Clark looked familiar.
As the wedding ended, Maxence and Andrea Catherine walked toward the gate of the Prince’s Palace to the outer courtyard. Citizens and overflow guests had watched the ceremony out there on giant television screens bolted on the castle walls.
The reception was due to start in an hour. Maybe Rox and Gen could get a closer look at her there. The bride was wearing wedding makeup, after all, and until the middle part of the ceremony, a sheer veil had draped over her face.
Maybe Rox needed glasses.
After the bridal couple had left the castle, everyone stood, including the four of them.
Gen stretched, raising her arms over her head. “That was lovely.”
Behind Rox, Casimir said, “Yes, it was,” in a strange, strangled voice.
Rox reached behind herself and held his hand. He always got so emotional at weddings. “I can hardly wait to meet Andrea Clark,” she said to Gen as she consulted the invitation. “She’s gorgeous. No wonder Maxence fell for her.”
Gen nodded and said with a funny note of ambivalence in her voice, “Yeah, absolutely beautiful.”
Rox poked Gen’s arm. “Did she look familiar to you?”
Gen twirled to look at Rox, her brown eyes huge.“Yes!Did she look familiar to you?”
“Yeah.Caz said she’s from New Mexico and worked in Phoenix. I pretty much haven’t been anywhere except Georgia and LA.”
“I haven’t been either one of those places either. I mean, I grew up in Texas before I moved to London.Wherewould we meet somebody who was from New Mexico and worked as a nurse in Arizona?”
Rox nodded. “It’ll come to us. We just have to keep thinking. If she recognizes us, maybe we can hint around so she’ll tell us where it was.”
Gen bit her lip, nodding slowly. “Good plan.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Fourteen Hours
Dree
Fourteen hours.
Between the final walk-throughs for the palace courtyard and the renovated Grimaldi Forum that morning, to the ceremony, and then the long,longreception at the convention center where the dancing had gone on all night, Dree had been on her feet forfourteen hours.
The soles and the sides of her satin high-heeled shoes felt embedded in her skin.
The boning of the corset under her pale pink reception dress may have fused to her ribs.
Luckily, Dree knew some good surgeons who could tease the fibers out of her flesh. They’d seen worse.
Maxence and Dree were sitting at one of the round tables beside the dance floor in one of the large halls of the Grimaldi Forum. The rest of the convention center was dark except for a trail of lights leading from this room to the front door.
Casimir and Arthur and their two wives, Rox and Gen, sat with them. The guys were sitting properly in their chairs, but the girls had taken their shoes off and propped their feet in their husbands’ laps for massages. Pinkie toes were many different shades of red. Blisters were rising on toe knuckles.
Plates and glasses littered the table. One of the catering staff had come by half an hour before and asked if they were hungry, mentioning the chefs were about to feed the staff. Since the staff person had assured them it was no trouble to add six more servings to the pot, they’d had a lovely late-night snack of soup and sandwiches.
Dree could not place where she knew Rox and Gen from.
And she was too embarrassed to ask.
So she kept meandering around the subject, trying to elicit information.
Nurses were good at asking direct questions. Dree sucked at this subtle stuff.
