Page 6 of Her Royal Houseguest

‘Did you spill tea on it, too?’ Mama pointed at the overturned teacup.

Phoebe pulled out her handkerchief. ‘That will wipe off. No one will notice.’

‘Arthur will notice,’ Mama said.

Anna sighed as she started to unroll the map. She needed to see how badly she’d damaged it.

‘No, no!’ her mother cried. ‘Wait until the tea service is taken away!’

Yes, she should have thought of that.

She held the map high as their butler took away the service. Damn, the man was slow! But at nearly seventy, he could hardly be expected to move fast.

‘Mama, I’ll take care of—’

‘Don’t! Don’t send me up to my bed,’ Mama snapped as she pressed a hand to her forehead against the pain. ‘Let us see if this disaster can be mitigated.’

They all waited as the small table was cleared and wiped clean. Anna made to unroll the map again but Mama stopped her.

‘Not here. There’s more room in the library. You should have looked at it on his desk.’

‘There’s more light in here,’ she mumbled. It wasn’t an excuse. She knew the map was delicate. She knew it was important. She just hadn’t thought about the tea or the carpet bag.

She started to move towards the door, but her mama held her hand out.

‘Give it to me.’

‘I can—’ She cut off her words at her mother’s hard look. She wanted to object, to say that she could walk the distance to the library without another disaster. She wanted to be respected as a full adult who could manage delicate things just fine.

But history suggested something else entirely. Without saying another word, Anna passed the map to her mother. Then she and Phoebe trailed behind as Mama took them all to the library. The map was spread out not to show Phoebe the tiny little country of Siam but to see if the tea could be wiped off without a stain.

‘Well,’ Mama said after they’d done all they could. ‘We’ll just put it away and…’

And wait until some other time for Papa to find the problem and explode.

Meanwhile, Phoebe squeezed her hand. ‘Maybe we can find another map. Gift it to him at Christmas.’

With what money? Anna’s pin money had gone to covering all her other mishaps. She wasn’t careless with other people’s things. But spilled ink, torn dresses and lost reticules were common occurrences when the items were her own.

‘It’s your curse,’ Mama said, her voice forlorn. ‘We just have to live with it.’

Anna winced. She didn’t believe in curses. She was a practical woman who enjoyed learning scientific things. Or she had for a time after her investigations into carpentry and before she discovered the many uses for mushrooms. That had been her first topic of conversation with Phoebe and the two had been good friends ever since.

But if she did believe in curses, then someone somewhere had cast one on her. It was one thing for a child to forget lessons or muddy a dress. But she was a grown woman now, much too old to be tripping or spilling tea on expensive maps. Yet, here she was, still plagued by disaster.

‘Never mind,’ Mama said as she patted Anna’s arm. ‘We’ll deal with it later. I’m going back to—’

A loud pounding interrupted her words. Someone was banging the knocker hard enough to rattle the door.

Mama sighed, her hand pressed to her forehead. ‘What now?’

Chapter Two

‘What a disaster!’ Vaji grumbled in Siamese. ‘He had a spinning head!’

Deva nodded. ‘The English phrase is “hung over”.’ He spoke in Siamese knowing his brother would translate to the English in his mind. They were very careful to be quiet as they were escorted out of the English prince’s presence.

Vaji grunted, his downcast eyes and saffron robes doing little to hide his annoyance from Deva. ‘He is a royal prince. Our equal. And he dares appear—’