Chapter 12 In Which the Royal Wedding Definitely Wasn’t Planned For Anyone Else
In Which the Royal Wedding Definitely Wasn’t Planned For Anyone Else
The palace drawing room had transformed into a tactical command center. Three clipboards, two iPads and folders on the table labeled in elegant gold script: Ceremony, Reception, Security, Contingency.
Emilia wasn’t sure if they were planning a wedding or launching a diplomatic campaign. Perhaps both.
Queen Eleanor sat perfectly poised at the head of the table, while Richard and Josephine Carter occupied chairs on either side of their daughter. Alexander, seated beside Emilia, looked like a man preparing for a particularly genteel form of combat.
Queen Eleanor, in tailored navy, glanced up from her notes. “We’ll need to finalize the guest list by Thursday.”
Emilia blinked. “The wedding is still six months away.”
“Exactly.” Eleanor didn’t look up. “Which is practically tomorrow, given what’s required. Fortunately, some of the basics are already handled.”
Alexander raised an eyebrow. “Some?”
“The venue. The date. Most of the logistics.” She turned a page with crisp efficiency. “Floral team is on retainer. The ceremonial regalia has been refreshed. Staff was briefed a year ago.”
Emilia felt something cold settle in her stomach. “A year ago…?”
Queen Eleanor’s expression remained neutral. “There was another match in progress. You were not the original bride.”
“Right,” Emilia said, standing abruptly and moving to the window. The formal gardens stretched out below, every hedge trimmed to mathematical precision. “So I’m being slotted in like a… like a cast replacement.”
“That is not a slight,” Eleanor said, voice sharpening. “You are who my son chose. Unexpected, yes—but the royal household doesn’t pause for personnel changes.”
Alexander winced. “Practical as always, Mother.”
Richard leaned forward, eyes taking on that dangerous philosophical gleam. “But what does it mean, precisely, to slot in a human being to predetermined institutional frameworks? Are we discussing marriage, or monarchy as performance art?”
The Queen’s pen paused mid-stroke. “I beg your pardon?”
“Papa,” Emilia warned, turning from the window—but he was already warming to the theme.
“No, it’s genuinely interesting,” he continued, rising to pace behind his chair. “You speak of efficiency. But what happens to authentic connection when it becomes subordinate to—what would you call it? Royal logistics?”
Josephine looked up from her notebook with barely concealed delight. “Oh mon dieu, he’s off.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Emilia muttered.
“Richard,” the Queen said carefully, “this is how royal weddings function.”
“But should they?” he asked, gesturing expansively. “When we reduce love to administrative convenience, what does that say about the institution itself?”
Alexander caught Emilia’s eye and mouthed here we go. She bit back a smile, despite the rising tension.
The Queen straightened in her chair. “Tradition provides structure—”
“Tradition,” Richard interrupted, beginning to pace the length of the table, “is simply peer pressure from the dead.”
Josephine snorted with laughter, then tried to cover it with a cough.
Emilia sat quietly, while trying to give her parents her patented please don’t embarrass me glare. They, of course, studiously chose to ignore it.
“However,” Richard continued, his tone softening as he glanced at his daughter, “some institutions adapt because they contain something worth preserving. The question is whether this institution can accommodate genuine human emotion or whether it simply absorbs and neutralizes it into protocol.”
The Queen blinked. “I… see.”
“Do you?” Josephine interjected sweetly, setting down her pen. “Because from where I sit, this looks like a very expensive theatrical production with a rather uninspiring set design.”
“Maman, really?” Emilia asked in a low voice.
“What? Darling, I have been polite for twenty minutes. That is a personal record.” Josephine gestured elegantly at the colour swatches. “This space, Your Majesty, it has all the warmth of a corporate boardroom. We are planning a celebration of love, non? Not a hostile takeover.”
Eleanor rose from her chair, clearly struggling to maintain control. “This is the formal drawing room—”
“Precisely the problem!” Josephine’s accent grew more pronounced as she turned back to face the group. “You have reduced something beautiful to bureaucracy. Where is the joy? The passion? The… how do you say… the life?”
“We are not planning a Bohemian artist’s wedding,” the Queen said crisply, clearly rattled.
“Perhaps not,” Josephine replied with a sharp smile, moving closer to the Queen, “but neither are we arranging a merger between two particularly well-bred corporations.”
Richard nodded approvingly from across the room. “Josephine raises an excellent point about the phenomenology of celebration versus the mere execution of ceremony—”
“Oh no,” Alexander whispered to Emilia. “Now they’re tag-teaming.”
“I think,” Eleanor said with forced calm, “we should focus on practical matters.”
“How wonderfully evasive,” Josephine murmured. “But very well. Let us discuss the aesthetics, then. These colours…” She gestured at Eleanor’s mood board. “They are very… safe.”
“They are traditional.”
“They are boring.” Josephine’s smile never wavered. “Traditional does not mean lifeless, Your Majesty. Take for instance, Versailles.”
Eleanor’s composure cracked slightly. “I hope that you are not comparing the royal family unfavorably to the French monarchy? Because we all know how that ended.”
“Oh, I would never be so indelicate,” Josephine said innocently. “I am simply suggesting that even institutions dedicated to continuity can afford to… how do you say… live a little?”
Richard chuckled. “What my wife is diplomatically not saying is that you’ve managed to make a royal wedding sound about as romantic as a tax audit.”
“Papa!” Emilia protested, though she was fighting laughter.
“It’s an observation, not a judgment,” Richard said mildly. “Though I do wonder: if the ceremony is entirely predetermined, what exactly are Alexander and Emilia contributing besides their physical presence?”
Alexander cleared his throat. “Well, this is going better than I expected.”
Emilia squeezed his hand under the table. “Your definition of ‘better’ needs work.”
The Queen set down her pen and studied Richard and Josephine with the expression of someone reassessing a strategic situation. “You both seem to have strong opinions about royal protocol.”
“We have strong opinions about our daughter’s happiness,” Richard said simply, his voice losing its philosophical edge and taking on something quieter and more dangerous. “Everything else is negotiable.”
Josephine nodded. “What he said. But with better aesthetic sensibilities.”
For a moment, the room was silent except for the ticking of an antique clock.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, Queen Eleanor smiled. Barely. But it was there.
“Well,” she said. “Some compromises may be possible.”
Emilia blinked. “Really?”
“If we are to be family,” the Queen said neutrally, “we should learn to get along. And I do understand wanting the best for your child.”
The tension in the room loosened.
“Then maybe we can start with the wedding party,” Emilia said quickly. “Because that’s something Alexander and I actually have opinions about.”
“Of course,” Eleanor said, turning to a fresh page in her notebook. “What were you thinking?”
“I want Harper as my maid of honor,” Emilia said quickly.
The Queen’s eyebrow rose slightly. “The journalist?”
“My best friend, who can also keep secrets, organize chaos, and handle crisis with grace,” Emilia said firmly. “So yes, the journalist.”
“And Sebastian will be my best man,” Alexander added, his tone casual but his posture suddenly alert.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Eleanor’s pen stopped moving entirely.
“I see,” the Queen said slowly, closing her notebook.
Richard leaned forward slightly, clearly sensing the shift in dynamics.
“I told him last week,” Alexander continued, rising from his chair and moving to stand behind Emilia. “He’s already planning the stag night, which should terrify us all.”
“That boy has a gift for chaos,” Josephine noted with obvious affection. “I like him.”
“He’s a complication,” the Queen said, her voice tight.
Alexander’s hand found Emilia’s shoulder. “He’s family. Or have we still not reached the point where we say that out loud?”
Emilia reached up to cover his hand with hers, feeling the tension radiating through his fingers.
The Queen stood again, moving to the window where Emilia had been standing earlier. “We’ll discuss this privately.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Alexander said, his voice taking on an edge Emilia had rarely heard. “He’s my best man.”
The Queen’s lips parted, then closed. For once, she seemed at a loss.
“Well,” Josephine said brightly, rising and moving toward the mood board again, apparently deciding the awkward pause had gone on long enough, “I think that’s settled. Now, about this coronet situation—”
“Wait,” Emilia said, grateful for the subject change. “I’m wearing a coronet?”
“It’s traditional,” the Queen said, clearly struggling to regain her composure.
“And probably hideous,” Josephine added cheerfully, examining the photos Eleanor had clipped to the board. “These things usually are. All diamonds and no imagination.”
“It’s a priceless family heirloom,” Eleanor said stiffly.
“Priceless and attractive are not the same thing,” Josephine replied, pulling one of the photos free and holding it up to the light. “Trust me, I have seen many expensive mistakes in my time.”
Emilia moved to look over her mother’s shoulder at the photo. The coronet did indeed look spectacular – and spectacularly unwearable.
“You’ll try it on,” Josephine continued, handing the photo to Emilia. “If it doesn’t suit you, we’ll find another way to signal ‘future monarch’s wife’ that doesn’t involve headaches or looking like a chandelier.”