She yawned as she slid her legs under the covers and tried to pull them up over her shoulders.
When she struggled a bit, Frederick pulled the sheet up followed by the duvet. Elise rolled onto her side, eyes closed, and settled back in to sleep.
Where were her blankets? It surprised him a member of their staff hadn’t taken it upon themselves to get duplicates.
Which left Frederick with a decision to make. They hadn’t seen each other enough in the weeks leading up to the wedding. They had dinner together often, but the conversations had remained light overall. Yes, they’d learned more about each other’s lives, but there had been no deeply personal discussions.
Like where they would sleep or when they would start sleeping together.
The middle of the night wasn’t the time to go wandering around the yacht. He wasn’t overly familiar with the layout and getting lost wouldn’t be a good look for many reasons.
After several moments of consideration, he decided there was really only one option.
He laid down, being sure to stay on his side of the bed, then closed his eyes and tried to drift off.
Eventually, he must have because he woke to his phone buzzing on the side table. He picked it up to find a text from his assistant.
Odd.
They weren’t supposed to have anything on the schedule for the day.
He pulled his robe on and tied it as he walked out the main doors of the suite.
“Good morning, Your Majesty.” George bowed from the waist. “I apologize for waking you, but there are a couple of things I need to discuss with you.”
Frederick accepted the cup of coffee George offered and took a sip. He motioned to the frosted doors across from the ones leading to the owner’s suite. If he remembered correctly, there was a table in there.
As George opened the door, Frederick saw he’d been correct.
“A couple of things have come up over night.”
Frederick took the offered tablet as he sipped on his coffee. The screen showed the front page of a local news website. In the center was a photo of his kiss with Elise on the balcony after the ceremony.
The headline proclaimed a new queen with a subtitle of “No Longer a Bachelor King.”
“Did they really call me that?” Frederick had never heard it, but he didn’t keep close tabs on things like that.
“Occasionally when the topic of your marriage and an heir came up.” George did something on his tablet and Frederick’s changed as well. “Overall, reactions are just as positive as we would have expected. There’s a few naysayers, but they’re the ones who wouldn’t be happy regardless.”
Frederick nodded. There were always a few.
“Queen Catherine has asked about moving your October meeting from Southern Santiero to Eastern Novigradia.”
That request made Frederick frown. He didn’t have an objection, per se, but he’d always been told that to have toomany of those in person meetings in the same place led to a power imbalance.
“The queen will be unable to travel in October.” George didn’t elaborate. Perhaps he didn’t know why?
Frederick would call her soon and see if he could find out what the issue was.
“Today is a sea day. Tomorrow, you’ll be in Dolphin Cove for a visit to a children’s center and dinner with local politicians and other dignitaries.” Another swipe changed the screen to the itinerary for the next two weeks. “There will be a sea day every other day for the most part. The other days will be spent in different towns around the country.”
That wasn’t news to Frederick. They’d gone over the schedule several times in the previous week, so he wondered why George had brought it up.
“We have been asked to rearrange a one of the days due to the mayor’s son needing a minor surgery. To do that, we may need to rearrange several others as well.”
Frederick took another sip of his coffee as he turned that over in his mind. “Is there a way we could move it to one of the sea days? That way it won’t inconvenience any of the other towns.”
George nodded. “I think we can do that. It will mean three days in a row with visits, but you’ll also have three sea days in a row to compensate.”
