Xavier looks over and throws a confident nod in my direction. “Don’t worry, Princess Tessa. There’s no way I’ll let that baby out of my sight. Not even for a second.”
Nikki smiles at him in a way that says she just dropped an egg. “See? It’ll be fine, Tess. You’ve got Xavier to protect the baby.” She plays with her topaz necklace, running the charm along the chain while she bats her eyelashes at him. Oh Lord, the pheromones are getting thick out here.
“Yes, I’d never doubt your capabilities, Xavier,” I say, then turn back to Nikki. “I don’t think the dream is aboutactually losingthe baby. It’s about the baby having such an unusual upbringing. No offense, Arabella.”
“None taken,” she answers, seating herself on the end of my chair. “It is an incredibly strange way to grow up.”
“That’s what I thought! Thank you for being honest about this because when I bring it up with Arthur, he’s very resistant to talking about it. I know he just doesn’t want me to worry, but honestly, how am Inotsupposed feel anxious about raising a child in a palace surrounded by servants, not to mention constantly in the public eye?”
“Oh, I could see worrying about that,” Nikki says. “Did you see that interview recently with Willow Smith—Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s daughter?”
“No, I missed it,” I say, knowing whatever she said is bound to be bad.
“The gist of it is that growing up famous is excruciatingly awful,” Nikki says with an apologetic look.
Arabella gives Nikki a dirty look, then says, “Well, I wouldn’t classify my childhood that way at all, really. For the most part, it was quite lovely. We were able to see the world and had so many wonderful experiences most people don’t have. And when I think about it, the press left us alone.”
She smiles at me reassuringly, then her face falls. “Mind you, no one had cell phones back then, so it wasn’t like everyone who saw you could video you. Not like nowadays. Pretty much everywhere I go in the kingdom, people whip out their phones.”
“Right?!” I say. “That’s part of what’s freaking me out. I can’t work out how to protect her from any of that. I can’t even seem to help myself in this regard, let alone help the baby.” I sigh, my shoulders slumping. “But apart from all of that, I’m going to be the mum of the next monarch, and I honestly don’t have a clue how to raise a royal baby. I don’t even really know how to raise anormalchild, although I think I’d have an easier time figuring that out.”
Arabella sits next to me on my chair and says, “Relax, Tess. You’re going handle it beautifully. I promise.”
“How?”
“One day at time,” she says, smiling as though that answer should dissolve all my concerns. “And you don’t have to do it alone. You can always ask me, or Gran, or Arthur if you’re not sure about something to do with the whole regal thing.”
I smile back, feeling slightly better. “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”
“Good. Fire away when ready.”
“Okay,” I say. “What was the weirdest part of your childhood?”
“Oh, now?” Arabella asks, looking a little caught off guard. “Mmm...that’s a tough one. I mean, as a girl, it all seemed very ordinary, of course. It was only once I started to meet people whoweren’traised in palaces that I discovered it’s not the norm to have people refer to you with a title or obey your every command when you’re a small child. That bit can go to your head if you don’t have someone to rein it in.”
“That’s what I figured would happen. I want the baby to grow up to be in touch with what it’s like to be a regular person, to have to earn her keep and do things like wash the windows or cook a real meal. So, I’ve been thinking maybe I should raise her like a normal child, the way my mum raised me. Well, except without the unnecessary criticizing and favouring any male children should we have them. But you know, make her scrub toilets and vacuum her room on Saturdays.”
Arabella gives me a blank look. “I don’t understand. You’re planning to teach the baby to do all kinds of manual labour he or she will never actually do?”
“Yes.”
“Butwhy?”
“So she can learn to appreciate what others do for her. And besides, you can’tknowthat she’ll never have to sew a button on a shirt or something. What if she goes on some ski holiday in the Italian Alps and gets stranded in a cabin for a few days?”
“Pretty sure she won’t have to sew any buttons in that particular scenario,” Nikki says.
“Maybe not, but what if there’s only canned beans and she can’t work the can opener, so she dies of starvation even though there’s perfectly good food right in the cupboard?”
“I wouldn’t call canned beans perfectly good food,” Arabella says.
“Well, better to eat the beans than starve, wouldn’t you say?” I ask with a pointed look. “Yes. I think it’s best if our children grow up learning how to perform household tasks, which will mean Arthur and I must start to do them to set a good example.”
Nikki cuts in. “Seriously? That kind of defeats the purpose of the whole marrying a prince thing. I mean, if you’re planning to do all the super crappy mum jobs anyway, you could have just married a bus driver or somesuch and left the prince for someone who’d really enjoy the lifestyle.”
Rolling my eyes, I say, “I didn’t marry Arthur because he’s a prince. I married him because I love him for who he is.”
“And now you shouldenjoyit,” Nikki says. “By delegating all the things that suck about motherhood.”
