"Is there any indication when the king will make a decision?" The man asked the question with a straight face.
"Not that we've been told. There are whispers that he needs to be married by the end of the month. No one knows exactly why or what that will look like, but if he doesn't find a woman to be his bride, it won't matter."
"What are those gathered outside the palace saying?"
"Mixed, but the biggest concern is whether or not a marriage arranged so hastily is in the best interests of the country or the king."
"Is there any word on when the wedding will take place?"
Elise clicked the power button on the remote. It wasn't something she needed to focus on. She didn't know anything about internal Southern Santierian politics or the marriage customs for the monarch. A web search would probably give her the information she needed but doing one would mean she cared more than she wanted to admit.
Her blankets had replaced the ones from the hotel. After explaining her preference to the housekeeper, the staff hadremoved the hotel bedding and used hers. Pulling them back up to her chin, she once again tried to sleep. She tried an old trick someone had told her many years earlier.
Starting at the beginning of the alphabet, list as many words as she could think of starting with that letter.
Acrobat. Anteater. Aluminum. Art. Anathema. Alligator. Artichoke. Architect. Alabama.
Elise made it through about twenty-five of the letter A followed by about the same number of B and C.
When she reached D, she rolled onto her back and growled toward the ceiling. She rarely made it past B.
After pushing herself into a seated position against the headboard, Elise picked up her ereader off the side table and opened it to the next chapter ofSaving the Secret Princeby American Kristin Canary. She read the page three times and still couldn't make heads or tails of the words.
Reading wasn't going to let her mind settle until she could sleep. After another three attempts, she gave up.
Time to try something else.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Elise padded into the living area of her suite. Picking up the Pilates bar, she let the straps dangle until she could slip her feet into the loops. Holding the bar, she did twenty bicep curls, followed by twenty overhead presses, then twenty front raises. They felt too easy, but she didn't want to change out the resistance bands to make it more challenging.
After another round of the three exercises, her muscles started to feel a bit more worn out. Would it burn enough energy to let her settle down?
She added some push ups and held a plank as long as she could. When she finished, she finally felt like she'd worn herself out enough.
This time Elise started with the letter D and went forward from there. Since she rarely made it that far in the alphabet, it took more concentration to see how many she could think of for each letter. By the time she reached F, she felt herself drifting.
As always, her alarm woke her far too soon.
This time when she sat in the make-up chair, Celina chattered away while Elise just tried to keep her eyes open.
"The thing is, if he's not married in the next week, the throne will go to his brother."
It took everything in Elise for to stay still while Celina leaned in close to work on her eyelids. She spoke, but moved her lips as little as she could and still make her words audible. "What are you talking about?"
"King Frederick. I'm not sure why this wasn't on their to do list sooner, but he has to get married by next week or he loses his place as monarch." Celina moved away.
Elise opened her eyes. "Is that why there's been so many women visiting him at the palace?"
Celina gave her a puzzled look. "I thought you didn't keep up with the goings on around here."
Struggling to keep her face impassive, Elise shrugged. "I couldn't sleep last night and there was some gossip show on talking about how there's been a bunch of women going to see Frederick. That's about all I heard before I turned it off."
"It seems that for the last century or more, the monarchs have all been married by the time they inherited the throne so it wasn't an issue. I guess that's why no one realized this was going to be a problem." She picked up another brush.
Closing her eyes again, Elise let the information roll around in her head. There seemed to be something just out of reach.
A solution? How could she have a solution that Frederick and his team wouldn't have already thought of?
He had to get married. If Celina and the show the night before were right, Frederick only had a week before he'd have to get married or step down.
