Holy shit. I did it.

“Would you like me to fetch it for you?” I asked, in as polite a tone as I could manage.

Eleanor folded her paper and set it aside. “No,” she said. “Congratulations. You crossed the first hurdle.”

“So it was a test. I thought maybe you were just being petty!”

“They are not mutually exclusive.” Eleanor tapped her tented fingers together like Mr. Burns. “I hadn’t thought of the writing loophole. I assumed that eventually you would blurt out something asinine.” She raised an eyebrow. “Which of course you did, but about one of your baseball gentlemen.”

“I knew you were listening.”

“My ears are not the problem,” she said. “I’ve never heard words put together in that order.”

When I cracked up, Eleanor glared at me again, and my laugh died almost as fast as it came.

“Do not press your luck,” she said. “We have much to discuss, and none of it involves complimenting your vocabulary.”

I braced myself for another litany of my faults, and what further penances I had to perform, but Eleanor merely appraised me sharply.

“For a time in my youth, I was the closest approximation to you,” she said.

“Me?” I blinked. “How do you mean?”

“Uncle Arthur came to the throne before my father did, but even before that, it was clear he and Ingeborg couldn’t have children,” Eleanor said. “I was an heir presumptive. A few places removed, certainly, but all eyes were on me.”

Comprehension dawned. “As they’re on Nick.”

“As they’re on you.” Eleanor folded her hands. “Richard will never remarry. You are the next queen this country shall have, and the public knows it.”

She said this with such certainty that I was tempted to wonder aloud if Richard knew remarriage was off the table.

“You married an unusual man, and thus you shall have an unusual fate. You need to be ready,” she continued. “Men are weak, Rebecca. All of them. Richard, Nicholas, Frederick.” She held out her hand to stop my protesting. “I know whereof I speak. Men are weak, but women are not. We aren’t afforded that luxury. And unfortunately, I will not live forever.”

“Nick is solid, Your Majesty,” I said. “I know we’ve made mistakes, but you don’t need to worry about him.”

“Nicholas has a good heart. But he is not strong, not alone,” Eleanor said. “He will wobble. He already did. My patience with that has expired.”

“With all due respect,” I said, “if the point is to steady him, then why play him against Freddie by making Freddie a Counsellor of State first?”