And without thought of who might see, she tore that damned kerchief off her head and raced out of the temple, her copper hair flying.

79

The Royal Wedding

Prince True

Quarters of the Crown Prince, Western Turret, Birchlire Castle, Notting Thicket

WODELL

“Your mother,” Luther murmured.

True turned from the full-length, oval looking glass where he was inspecting himself in his dress greens, what he’d be married in, toward the double doors to his bedchamber, where Luther stood.

He nodded.

Luther looked over his shoulder and nodded to Wallace, who was in the sitting room.

Luther then disappeared, and True’s mother walked through.

She was dressed for the ceremony in a russet-colored gown that was subtly extravagant. The top was made entirely of a delicate lace with a demure V-neck and stitched minimally throughout with something that sparkled. The skirts were yards and yards of shining satin.

Her hair, the color which she had given him (though hers was beginning to silver), was a wonder of swirls and poofs, the poof being bunched at her nape.

She was wearing one of many sets of royal jewels. These, her amber and emeralds surrounded by diamonds. A large round amber at her lobe falling into an even larger tear of an emerald. The same in a curve adorning her neck.

And the same as a tiara threaded into her hair.

It was not the first time he thought this, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but his mother was a beautiful woman.

He and she had not had a great deal of time together since his return.

He had been busy with his father, or more to the point, the business of his realm for his father just sat petulantly and watched as True struggled his way through meetings with auditors and ministers and guild leaders, talking about everything from budgets to school syllabi to setting a minimum wage (something, until then, his father—meaning Carrington—flatly refused to do) and establishing a college to train mariners.

When he was not at this pursuit, he was meeting with Mars, Cassius and Aramus, as well as Frey and Apollo, to catch up about what had happened since they parted, what had been learned, what had not, and discuss what was to come.

In his rare free times, he couldn’t often find Farah, for she was off in the city with the women or in her own engagements with his mother to meet the castle staff, learn how it was run, go over the plans of the wedding in detail and be educated on being a princess of Wodell.

They’d caught snatches of time, mostly in passing, and some of this they spent in minimal whispers, but most of it they spent in maximum embraces.

They managed to have only one dinner together, a pompous affair held the night before attended by five hundred guests.