And it was a warm day. Ridiculous. It would look appalling if members of the royal family were beaded in sweat in the photo.
The sedan stopped in front of the palace, and attendants came to the door of the car. Maylee turned to him with a wide-eyed look. “What should I do?”
“Do not address anyone unless spoken to first,” Griffin said in a blunt voice. “Try to tone down your accent, smile, be polite, and stick to the other servants.”
She flinched.
“What?”
“Servants? I’m not a servant. I’m your assistant.”
“In the eyes of the crown, they are one and the same. Now, you should let me out first.” He gestured at the doors. “I outrank you. It’s only proper.”
“Of course,” Maylee murmured.
They managed to make it inside the palace without causing a scene, for which Griffin was grateful. It seemed that Maylee had taken his instructions to heart. She walked several steps behind him, kept her eyes downcast, and greeted no one who walked past.
There was something that struck him as wrong about that.
“Viscount Montagne Verdi,” the butler announced, and the great double doors to the common room in his grandmother’s palace opened.
Griffin greeted them with a nod, and before he could take two steps into the room full of waiting royals, his mother was upon him.
Her Royal Highness Princess Sybilla-Louise moved toward him, her gloved hands extended. His mother looked as hale as ever, tall and robust, her clothing practically glittering from all of the beads and sequins and God-knew-what-else she was wearing. Sybilla-Louise’s hair was a stately, steely-blue upsweep, a tiny crown adorning the top of her head. She gave him a critical look and then leaned in to kiss his cheek.
“You look well enough, my dear,” his mother said. “I’m glad to see that living with the Americans suits you.”
Her voice was not quite approving. She still hated that he’d given up any claim to the throne in exchange for the right to go to college in the Americas. It was his mother who had suggested that he be removed from the rankings of HRH and demoted down to a viscount. She’d done it to punish him and keep him in line; however, Griffin couldn’t be happier. He had no desire to handle any of the crown duties.
“Mother,” he said, ignoring her comments. “You look well.”
“It’s a wonder,” she said, her voice taking on that long-suffering tone he remembered well. “What with the royal family marrying commoners right before our eyes.” And she gave him a look that told him that she did not approve, even though she was here for the official wedding portraits.
“Is Cousin Alexandra happy? I suppose that is all that matters,” Griffin said. He tucked his mother’s hand into the crook of his sleeve and led her deeper into the crowd.
“Does it matter? She could have married a prince. Instead, she is marrying an actor.” His mother gave a haughty sniff. “It’s like she thinks Bellissime needs to be Monaco or some such nonsense.”
Count on his mother to focus on what the royals of Monaco had done decades ago. A sister country to the small French-bordered kingdom, Bellissime often felt in competition with the Monaco royalty. It seemed that hadn’t changed since he’d last talked to his mother.
A quick glance behind him showed him that Maylee had moved to the line of servants in the back of the room and was talking to one of them. Good.
“Brother! Glad you could make it.” A big hand clapped Griffin’s back, and he turned to look at George. He was everything Griffin wasn’t—athletic, dashing, more interested in sports than learning, and had married a gorgeous Swedish duchess who was busy producing heirs for the family. At thirty-two, George was four years older than him, a father thrice over, and owned three palaces.
George had also been completely penniless before Griffin had taken over his finances. Her Royal Highness Sybilla-Louise, too. In fact, all the staff that she currently insisted she had to have? And her summer and winter palaces? All paid for on Griffin’s dime . . . and yet they disapproved of his lifestyle.
Not that he was bitter about that sort of thing.
“Come and say hello to your cousin and the American,” George said with a wide grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Interesting fellow.”
For the next hour, Griffin greeted and chatted with various members of his extended family. There was his grandmother, who was ancient and barely did any governing anymore. She simply sat on her throne and smiled at everyone, petting one of her infamous longhaired white cats. There was her daughter, Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra Olivia the Second, who had removed herself from the line of succession once she hit the age of fifty-five, stating that the last thing she wanted to do was spend the rest of her life attending to the throne. She’d abdicated in favor of her daughter, the Crown Princess Her Royal Highness Alexandra Olivia the Third, the twenty-five-year-old bride-to-be who was marrying the American.
The American was Luke Houston, who was shorter than Griffin had imagined, as Hollywood handsome as he’d expected, and charming and friendly. Southern, too, if he recognized the accent as similar to Maylee’s. He liked the man, but he felt a bit sorry for him for marrying into such a starchy family. Still, his cousin Alexandra looked at Luke with quiet approval. In the undemonstrative family of royalty, she was practically fawning over him. Griffin just hoped Alex knew what she was getting into. Marrying a commoner—especially an American one—meant a lifetime of snide remarks from family.
Griffin endured endless conversations about wedding colors and the weather for the upcoming day, all the while doing his best not to seem twitchy. It wasn’t that he cared about the wedding—he didn’t. However, he’d abandoned Maylee as soon as they’d stepped into the palace. He knew she felt out of her depth, and he hadn’t bothered to help her with that transition. He felt a little guilty about that.
Of course, when the royal parties eventually moved to the portrait gallery for the official photo sessions, Griffin wasn’t surprised to see that Maylee was standing next to the photographer, holding two water bottles and smiling as the man talked to her. He said something, and she laughed, that sparkle returning to her eyes.
And Griffin felt a surge of jealousy.
It wasn’t helped when the photographer—who he noticed was young, British, and rather handsome—began to arrange them in order of importance. In the front were Her Majesty the Queen, of course, Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra, and her husband-to-be, Luke Houston. In the very back? Griffin, the lowly viscount who probably would not have been included in the portrait if not for the fact that his mother was the queen’s sister. And he’d been shuffled to the rear like riffraff in front of Maylee, who was watching the entire thing with shining, fascinated eyes.