Walking into her mum's suite in the palace, Victoria glanced around hoping Frederick wouldn't be there. She'd come home for his wedding, though she'd only seen him for a few minutes. Talking to him would be worse than talking to Mum alone.
Fortunately, Mum seemed to be alone. Dipping into a curtsy, Victoria greeted her. "Good morning."
"Good morning." Her mum held out a mug. "Just like you like it."
Victoria took the mug of coffee and took a sip. "Thank you. It's good."
Her mum motioned to a chair. "Let's talk."
Perched on the edge of the chair, Victoria held the cup of coffee in her hands and stared into the swirling liquid. She didn't want to volunteer information but would answer questions.
"Would you like to tell me what's going on."
Or the former queen would cut straight to the chase and give an instruction phrased as a question. "His name is Enzo. You'll like him." Her family already did like him - at least as the futureleader of one of their most important trading partners outside of the Quad Countries of the Sargasso Sea.
As a member of their family? Marrying the youngest child? That could be a different matter all together.
"Does he have a last name?"
"Yes.” Sort of. “I'm not prepared to share it with anyone just yet. We have a few things to work out before taking the relationship public, but also before I can introduce him to the rest of you." She needed to be careful not to lie to her mum. Let her assume he was her fiancé, but not actually confirm it.
"Why?" Her mum took a sip from her own mug, though Victoria suspected it was tea rather than coffee.
"You'll understand once I can tell you the whole story." She adjusted her gaze to stare at the flooring between them. "I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I won't be able to tell you for at least a few more days, but it could be longer than that. There's some things going on on his side of things that need to be resolved before we can introduce him to you."
Victoria glanced up long enough to see a look cross her mum's face.
"Why is that? Has he been in some kind of trouble?"
"Nothing like that. We were supposed to go to his home in a couple of days to take care of most of it. He was called home suddenly last night, so he's not even here now." Using both hands, she brought her mug up to take another sip. A long one. "He wants to meet all of you, but..."
"You can't tell me about him yet." The hint of disappointment showed on her mum's face, but stayed out of her voice.
Years of practice helped the former queen do that. Victoria would need to figure out how to do that herself, to keep a tight rein on her emotions, at least most of the time. There was a time and place to show those emotions, but there was also a lot of times when it wasn't.
Victoria remembered seeing an episode of Taylor Swift's docuseries about her wildly successful world tour. She met with victims of an attack on a dance party where her music had been playing. In the interviews and after the meetings with the families, she was clearly distraught, but she said when she went out on the stage, it would all be left behind. While on stage, she needed to do what was expected of her.
Victoria had never thought she'd find herself in the same sort of position on a much smaller scale. She wouldn't be playing instruments, dancing, and singing in front of tens of thousands of people for three-and-a-half hours, but she would be the queen of her new country. She would be expected to control her emotions in front of cameras and the public.
Could she do it? Certainly not as well as the pop star had done, but perhaps as well as her mum did. Maybe she'd talk to Elise, her new sister-in-law. The now-retired actress would surely have some tips.
"Is there anything you can tell me? How did you meet him? How long ago did you meet him? How long have you been dating?" The questions didn't feel overwhelming like they could have when they came so quickly.
"We met when he was on holiday in the same place I was. We literally ran into each other walking toward our respective tables." How should she word the last two answers? "He asked me to have dinner with him since he was eating alone. I was too. We've been practically inseparable since."
Her mum raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Don't think I didn't notice you didn't tell me how long ago it was, but I won't press you for more details. Yet."
Victoria nodded, but didn't answer the questions any further.
"Would your papa approve?" Tears filled her mum's eyes as she quietly asked one more question.
After setting her mug down, Victoria moved to the side of her mother's chair and knelt near her. "I think he would. I know he would like Enzo. I think he would approve of him as a son-in-law." She rested her hand on her mum's knee. "I promise it'll be good."
"Do we need to start planning the wedding? Do you have a date picked yet?" Her mum brushed hair back from Victoria's forehead.
Victoria shook her head. "We're not at the point of planning a wedding. You'll be one of the first to know when the time comes."
"Does Cap know him?"
