I am so excited about it, I can barely sleep. Like, literally, I have not slept in three days.
Will, stay safe in Bolivia, and a wonderful week to you, Princess Arabella.
Ever yours,
Dylan
"Hello, darling," Arabella says, looking beautiful as she waves at me on the tiny screen. The sight of her causes an ache in my chest and I find myself wishing to climb into the mobile phone so I can be where she is. (Which, at the moment, appears to be in her sitting room, whereas I am on a cliff in the Cordillera Mountain Range.)
"How are you?” she asks. “You look as though you got some sun."
"A bit, yes, I'm fine. Really, really missing you so sosomuch, but otherwise everything's been running smoothly."
She narrows her eyes and moves closer to the screen, then says, "Are you sure? You look tired."
"Absolutely fine," I lie.
The truth is, the last three weeks have been eighteen-hour days for me between filming, royal etiquette protocol lessons, and waltzing with my bodyguard — not that I'm going to tell her any of that because she'll feel terrible about it, and the last thing I want to do is to make her feel bad. "How are you? You must be exhausted having had to manage all the wedding stuff on your own.”
"Oh, no. I’m doing really well," she says with a firm nod. "Things are coming along for the wedding. I've barely had to do anything actually. Imogen's team is absolutely on top of everything, and I think we’re set to have a very nice day."
"Really? What a relief,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “I've been worried about you and imagining there must be so much pressure on you to make a million decisions a day."
"No need to worry about me. The key is to just keep it all in perspective, not get too fussed about anything, and then it all turns out." She smiles confidently, but I have a feeling there's more to the story than what she's letting on. But since we've only got a few precious minutes before I have to start filming for the day, we have to move from topic to topic at breakneck speed. "Did you see the email from Dylan?"
Her smile fades. “Yes, and I can’t help but wonder what she’s going to try to pull.”
"Hopefully nothing. I'm guessing maybe she'll think our families won't get along, which would make for amazing television."
Arabella nods. "Well, she's wrong. I have a very good feeling that my family and yours will be great friends within half an hour of meeting. I just need to have a little talk with Gran about being on her best behavior and we should be fine. And my father, too, I suppose. He can be a bit…standoffish. Well, and Arthur can be rather critical, so there’s that.”
“But other than that, it’ll be wonderful, right?” I ask with a chuckle.
Arabella winces and gives me a worried smile. “Exactly. But seriously, it’ll be fine. It's the perfect spot for everyone to be able to relax and get to know each other before the wedding."
"Very true. If you can’t relax there, you can’t relax at all,” I say, quoting the brochure. “So, what's the next week of your life like?"
"Gran is hosting a bridal tea for me — an intimate affair of four hundred of my closest friends."
"That sounds…really nice," I say, oozing sarcasm.
Arabella laughs, then says, "At least I've managed to insist that in lieu of gifts, I would like donations to the People for Animals Fund, the Equal Everywhere Campaign, or the Save the Bonobos Foundation. That'll save me from having to open hundreds of over-the-top shower gifts that we couldn't possibly use in an entire lifetime.”
“Good thinking. I can’t imagine what we’d do with thousands of tea towels.”
Nodding, she says, “Yes. It's bad enough that all of the wedding gifts have started to arrive from around the world. We're up to twenty-six silver tea sets already."
“Whoa," I say. “Twenty-six? What are we going to do with all of them?"
She shrugs. "Usually, in cases like this, we gift them to the staff. They’re sworn to secrecy. Anyway, how’s Bolivia?"
"Great,” I say. “Things have been going smoothly.”
She yawns, reminding me that it's late in the evening for her. "You're tired. I should let you go to bed."
She shakes her head. "Not just yet. Tell me what you're doing today."
I glance over the cliff on which I'm standing and say, "Just a little scenic mountain biking thing. Should be pretty easy." Okay, so I may be underselling it a little, but only so she won’t worry.
