Royally Screwed Part 19

"Well we have to make that happen," he smirked. Violetta had just stepped away from Baba Katya's side and he wasted no time steering Kat to her. "Kat this is my grandmother, Queen Ekaterina. She doesn't speak or understand English so I'll just have to translate."

Kat narrowed her eyes at Sebastian before smiling at the old woman and saying h.e.l.lo in Sezynian. Sebastian and his grandmother exchanged rapid fire words for a moment. "She wants to know who you are. I told her that I hired you to be my wife. She said you're too skinny and your hips aren't wide enough to bare royal heirs."

"Sebastian," she seethed, discreetly elbowing him in the side. He doubled over in laughter.

"Calm down Kat I just told her you were an American matchmaker. That's a highly regarded profession here. No one will question your presence if you give that answer."

"What do you mean give that answer? That's the truth, isn't it?" Her eyes narrowed again.

"Of course it is. Now stop, you're being rude to Baba." He winked at Kat and began conversing with his grandmother, no translating. Finally he stopped and said, "Baba says that she thinks you have a good spirit and she approves of you helping me. Even if you're a too skinny American."

Kat smiled at her and offered a phrase in Sezynian she thought conveyed her appreciation. The old woman's eyes got wide and Sebastian burst out laughing. "What? Didn't I say thank you? I hear you say it to Sergei all the time."

"You just told my grandmother to get back to work or you'll trade her in for a goat. You really were going for the trifecta, weren't you?"

Kat gasped and brought a hand up to her lips. "Explain it to her. Tell her I misunderstood," she said, hitting him in the arm with the back of her hand. It took him longer than she would have liked to translate through his tears.

"Come on. Let's let Baba recover," Sebastian murmured, bowing to his grandmother and leading her away.

"That was not funny," Kat murmured, pale and horrified as they retreated. But Sebastian was already excitedly telling Anastasia and Roman what had just happened. "And why are you so rude to Sergei?" she burst in the middle of his conversation, smacking him in the arm.

"It's the way I show my affection," he protested.

"You're such a pig."

"The way she shows affection too, I see," Roman pointed out with a grin at his wife. Kat looked at him out of the corner of her eye and repeated the phrase she'd trotted out for Baba Katya. The three members of royalty burst out laughing.

Chapter 18.

The bell announcing dinner sounded, calling them all from the siting room towards a wide, gleaming dining table, so big it would have taken up all of Kat and Blaze's loft. It seemed to stretch for decades, gathering up members of the family as they pa.s.sed by. King Viktor took a seat at one end, Queen Anya at the other, Baba Katya directly at her right. Sebastian pulled out the chair directly at his mother's left for Kat but at the silent insistence of Sergei sat himself farther down the table near his father. It was just a quiet look from the corner but Kat had spent enough time with the men to know their means of communication, the looks that spoke volumes. She was much better versed in their language than Sezynian apparently.

The Princess sat down beside her, her husband not far from her side. Kat couldn't help but smile they appeared to be tremendously happy. Roman could barely keep his eyes, or hands, off of her. His thumb was drawing lazy circles against the back of her neck as he whispered in her ear, a casual caress that sent a pang of longing through Kat's heart. She wanted that.

"Sebastian said that you two were recently married. How long has it been?" Kat asked at a lull in the Sezynian accents as they cleared away the first course and dropped plates of meat in front of them.

"Seven months," the princess said, leaning forward to kiss her husband. The Queen made a quiet sound, a slight tut of disapproval, but had a small smile on her face. "Sorry Mother."

"We're celebrating an anniversary," Roman said, removing his hands from his wife and sitting straight in his seat.

"We met two hundred and fifty days ago," Anastasia said.

Kat did some quick math in her head. "So you only knew each other six weeks before you got married?"

"Do you find that surprising?"

"Well you just seem so comfortable with each other."

They smiled. "When you know, you know," the princess said. "That's why I worry about Sebastian. When he meets his future wife he should know, like that," she explained with a snap.

"Then why are you worried?" Kat asked.

"Because my stubborn brother will need to pay a bit more attention for that to happen. He does not seem to be serious enough yet to notice when he meets her."

"Well, how did you two meet?"

Roman and Anastasia shared a look but their eyes quickly flickered to the Queen. She was talking with Baba Katya in Sezynian. "She was a damsel in distress that needed saving," Roman said.

"I could have managed by myself just fine you know."

"Whatever you say Feyalka," Roman replied. They shared an intimate look before turning back to Kat.

"How did you and Sebastian meet?"

"At a party. He thought I was a damsel in distress that needing saving too." Kat wasn't sure if she should elaborate, tell them how back home she wasn't the person that sat at the table, she was the one that served it. After a beat, she decided that she had nothing to be ashamed of and continued. "The emba.s.sy was throwing a party and I was on the catering staff. Sebastian kept following me around."

"As would have I," Roman said. His wife shot him a raised eyebrow and he elaborated, "I always follow the people with the food." Anastasia turned back to her plate and he winked at Kat behind her back.

"How long ago was that?" the Queen asked, surprising them all that she had shifted her attentions.

"About two months ago."

"Well thank you for getting him to come back home. I was starting to worry he had become an expatriate and wouldn't ever return." Anya looked so much like her son when she smiled it almost made Kat forget what she was saying.

"I can't take the responsibility for that. Coming home was all the Prince's idea. I just came along for the ride."

Anastasia glanced at her grandmother, conversing with a cousin beside her, and asked, "Is he serious about finding a wife?"

All eyes seemed to bore straight into her and Kat made a concerted effort to choose her words carefully. "I was there when he decided he wanted to be King. He seemed very sincere. He finds faults in everyone though so how sincere he is about actually settling down is another matter. A wife is just his means to an end. He could use some reminding that the end is near."

"And is that your job? To remind him?" the Queen questioned.

"No that's Sergei's job. My job is to focus him. I think I got the short end of the stick." They laughed.

Sebastian heard Kat's husky laugh and couldn't stop himself from glancing down the table. He would much rather have been sitting next to her, trying to goad his mother into a repeat of her interrogation and watching that fl.u.s.tered smile unfurl across Kat's face as she rolled her eyes at him. Instead he sat talking about economic theory with his cousin Nicolai and surrept.i.tiously watching King Viktor, Prince Vlad and Anton. The three of them sat huddled together like musketeers plotting his demise. The fact that it was Anton, not Sebastian, at his father's side had not been lost on anyone.

"Sebastian?" a voice questioned. He looked up and locked eyes with his father.

"Yes Your Highness?" he responded mildly. He could practically feel Sergei's eyes firing warning shots at him and he only half cared. Being an insolent playboy was what they expected of him anyway, wasn't it?

"Have you found a wife?" All talk at the table seemed to halt. It was the question everyone had been silently asking but none had dared voice aloud.

Sebastian smiled that secretively self-satisfied grin and took a sip of his wine. "All in good time Father, all in good time."

"Glad to hear you're finally starting to settle down. Like Anton here." The King clamped a hand on his nephew's shoulder but his eyes never left Sebastian's face. "Good Sezynian stock, appreciation of our heritage, made an appropriate choice."

Sebastian pursued his lips in a thin line, unamused at his father's show of affection. But just as he was getting ready to speak, another voice entered the fray from the other end of the table. "You mean unlike me Father?" Anastasia asked.

She was the only one at the table still daring to eat. She brought the fork up to her lips and ate a bite of venison. "I'm not sure your approval is all that necessary, is it?" she continued in a questioning tone.

"Not necessary?" he whispered, his serious voice edged with something lethal.

"Well it is the person I have to spend the rest of my life with, not you. Truth be told it would be quite a scandal if you were sleeping next to my husband every night. Though he might prefer it more apparently I snore."

"I am the King of Sezynia does that no longer garner any respect?" her father asked in a voice rising in impatience.

"You never liked the pets we had as children or the company we kept as teenagers. You aren't the kind that mellows with age, are you Father? If I had listened to you I would have married a beady eyed banker. Appropriate indeed."

King Viktor puffed his chest out, looking like he was about to explode with indignation. "Enough," the Queen said in a whisper. But it was sufficient to silence the table and cause all heads to turn towards her. Kat was amazed that she could command such authority with just a slight tilt of her head but she did. "Let's not ruin Sebastian's return with such petty infighting just yet you have a month for that." Her eyes hardened, focusing first on her son then on her nephew, before sweeping back to encompa.s.s the table. "Back to pleasant conversation please."

"Was that really necessary?" the Queen asked her daughter, the jut of her chin easily telegraphing her annoyance.

"Necessary, no. Needed, yes."

"Do you have to aggravate him on purpose?"

"He's the one that thinks I'm an embarra.s.sment, Mother. Why not act the part?"

The Queen sighed. "He does not think you're an embarra.s.sment."

Anastasia just shook her head. "Well he definitely doesn't think I'm of promise. I don't know why he raised a self-sufficient daughter if he didn't want to see what she'd decide for herself."

Roman sighed, as did the Queen. "Is this still about the economic progress resolution?"

"He is letting Dya Vlad lead him astray!" Anastasia lowered her voice at the look on her mother's face. "It is a horrible plan and nowhere near what Sezynia should be focusing on!"

"That is not of your or my concern," the Queen said, over annunciating every word to make her point.

"I am a citizen of this country. The King should answer to me, as he should answer to us all. It is definitely of my concern."

"What a lovely dinner," the Queen remarked as she entered her suite.

"And what part, Anya, was lovely? When Sebastian showed up with a matchmaker and refused to speak, when my mother kept looking irritated that we were arguing in English, or when Anastasia decided to challenge me in front of everyone? Please explain to me what part of that disaster was lovely."

"You're overreacting again dear." At those words the King puffed himself up, seeming to swell three sizes in annoyance. "They're just children Viktor."

"They're not children! They're the future rulers of our country! And they act like this, in front of everyone! Insolence!

"Well maybe," she said, slowly, removing her jewelry, one earring at a time, "if you didn't treat them like children then they wouldn't act that way."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Viktor, I love you but so help me G.o.d I'll leave this room and won't return if you don't quit acting like a stubborn old goat." The King was used to hearing this his wife said it often.

"Speak then Dragotsennya, say your peace," he replied. The Queen had long been one of the only people able to reason with her husband. The reason she was considered so powerful, she could focus the King long enough to clear the tides of his boundless enthusiasm and unwavering confidence. They didn't always agree but he respected her enough to listen. No one knew of their bedroom conversations and her allegiance was always to her King. This became a problem as their children grew and learned to question a skill taught at the steps of the throne though not always appreciated by it.

"You cannot treat this like a war Viktor. They are our children, not an enemy you met on the battlefield."

The King paced, peeling off his dinner jacket as he did so. "I did not start this Anya. Sebi was the one not taking this seriously. I did not start it but I will finish it. You think I wanted this to happen? I did not. This was never my intention."

"Well maybe you should have considered that before you decided to lose faith in our son." The Queen watched him continue to pace behind her in the mirror of her vanity "Oh, so now he's our son?"

She turned in her chair to glare at him. "And when has he ever not been our son? You might be King, Viktor, but you cannot show such blatant disregard for our children. Sebastian stays away as long as he can; Anastasia believes you view her as an embarra.s.sment. This is not how our children should view us."

"Us," the King groused, dropping down into his favorite wingback chair by the fire. "Us, Anya? No me, you mean me. They love you. As does everyone else, Dragotsennya. As does everyone else."

"Viktor," she said as she rose, a small smile signaling her impatience was dwindling, "what is this? Jealousy?" She placed a kiss against his cheek. "There needn't be. I stand with my King."

"Without you I may not have been King."

"Well then it's a good thing you had me then," she said. She winked at him and he just shook his head. "You have done much good as King."

"I will not be King for much longer. Who will come after me?"

The Queen tut-tutted. "That is not for you to concern yourself with my love. You told Sebi you could not back a losing horse but this is not a horse race, Viktor. You should not care who can sprint to the finish line but instead can last the long haul."

"And who is that Anya? Who?" The King sounded sincere when he asked it, truly a man worried about the fate of his family and country.

She smiled kindly at him and slipped her arms around his neck from behind for a quick embrace. "That is for Baba to decide."

"I fear she will not make the right choice."

"She knows what she is doing she did choose you."

"It may not matter at all. Your son is still unmarried."

The Queen ignored his use of the word 'your' and walked back to her vanity. "Oh he will be. I'm fairly certain the American already has his heart."

Her husband blanched. "The American?!"

"At the very least it should engender you to Roman, no? At least he's Sezynian." There was just a hint of recrimination in her tone.

"What? So now I can't have an opinion on anything?" Roman was a subject they never could manage to resolve.

"You can have as many opinions as you want, Viktor. Just as long as you make sure you know when to keep them to yourself."

The King considered that in silence. "The American matchmaker, eh? How does he do it?"

"That he gets from his father," she said. "Before you were King you had all the ladies a twitter."

"Never noticed. You know I only ever had eyes for you. Still do Dragotsennya." The Queen smiled demurely she knew.