I look out at the horizon, squinting. “You don’t know my family, Margot. They are not like anyone else’s family.”
Her nose wrinkles a little. I fully expect her to ask when she will meet my father and mother, to say that it is an important part of her article or whatever. But she doesn’t.
“No,” she says, her full mouth flattening. “It would be weird to expect the royal family to function the same as everyone else, I guess.”
I study her, wondering what she’s thinking that makes her mouth turn down at the corners. “What about you?”
She looks up at me. “What?”
“You never answered my question yesterday. Did you grow up in New York City?”
“Ah.” She looks down at the reins in her hands. “Yeah. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. It was…” She laughs to herself under her breath. “It was basically the opposite of growing up here, I think. That’s what I’m gathering, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” I ask casually.
Her resulting smile is a little bitter. “I didn’t have anything as a kid. And I don’t mean I didn’t have a palace and a fleet of jets. I mean…” Her cheeks turn red. She pauses, then shakes her head. “I was just brought up differently, that’s all.”
I shrug. “Almost everyone grew up differently than I did.”
She tilts her head, cocking an eyebrow. “Have you ever thought about finding someone who was raised in the same way? I mean, I know you are being pressured to pick someone to marry…”
Rolling my eyes, I shake my head. “Nope. Not interested.”
“In talking about it, or doing it?”
I pin her with a stare. “Either. Now come on.”
Digging my heels into my horse, I take off like a shot. And Margot isn’t far behind, nudging her horse into a gallop and letting out a whoop of fear and excitement.
For just a moment, I let go of everything extraneous. Worries about my father’s health, heavy thoughts about becoming the ruler of Denmark, constant needling about choosing a wife.
Right now, in just this moment, Margot and I are just two people flying far and fast, all the rest of Copenhagen and it’s concerns be damned.
Chapter Fifteen
Margot
“And let us not forget the children for whom we raise this money…” Stellan says, smiling into the microphone. He’s in his usual dress of a richly-cut navy suit and a crisp white button up, standing behind a podium before a ballroom of people.
I’m staring at him from the sidelines, my cellphone in my hand, recording the whole thing. Still I look at him, at how he draws the attention of the entire room.
Elegant. Coiffed. Handsome.
You can say a great deal about his other attributes, including his often-oafish personality. But I look at his dark hair, his light blue eyes, his cheekbones chiseled from granite…
A person really can’t find fault with his physical appearance, is what I am thinking. My cheeks warm, but I don’t look away.
I watch him talking to the audience in his native tongue, something that is still foreign to me. He speaks quickly but assuredly, his voice honeyed as itglides over the alien-sounding syllables. I bite my lip, thinking to myself that I have to learn Danish sooner or later.
That is, if I stay here in Copenhagen after the article is published. All of that is a little too far into the future, murky at best.
My attention wanders: the ballroom we are in is in downtown Copenhagen, not owned by the royal family from what I can tell. The ceilings are soaring, the decoration ornate. Everything that I’ve seen so far in this hotel is done up in silver and black, in the style of jazz age era hotels. There’s even an old gramophone; I saw it as I entered, segregated from the rest of the room with slinky red ropes.
“Thank you!” Stellan finishes his speech and the small crowd of businesspeople applaud wildly. As cameras flash, I roll my eyes just a bit.
No wonder he has such a huge ego. If everyone clapped every time I gave a speech about anything, I would probably have a big head too.
I see Stellan searching the crowd for me a second before his gaze meets mine. Blushing a little, I smooth my hands down yet another rented ballgown. This one is strapless and snow white, with a white length of taffeta meant to be worn as a wrap.
