Apollo

Chapter Seventeen

Remember when these used to get posted on Wednesdays? Well, here's a little extra surprise to help pull us through Hump Day! :) x Leanne

"I WILL BE OUT OF THE PALACE TODAY," EMMELINE INFORMED HER husband at breakfast a week later. "Father has scheduled for Emmett to meet another potential wife. I hear she is rather agreeable, although her father is baron to a less wealthy area. Perhaps this might spare us some snobbery."

    "Perhaps," he agreed. "I wish you all the best of luck."

    "Thank you." She smiled. "I will return as soon as I can."

    "You can tell me about it then," he said.

    She nodded. Had finding a man a wife always been this difficult, or was her brother somehow jinxed?

    "Emmeline, dearest, you should invite your brother over for luncheon or dinner sometime. We would all love to have a good meal with him, since the two of you share such a wonderful relationship. In fact, I would not mind having him over today, after your business with his marital prospects."

    Javier grumbled at this assumption. No one paid him any mind.

    "I will extend your invitation to him, Sarah," she replied politely. "Thank you. He will be flattered."

    "And he will accept, hopefully," the Queen said eagerly. "Does he prefer chicken or beef? Or any other meat, for that matter?"

    Emmeline laughed. "Emmett is fond of all foods. He has never been picky."

    Sarah beamed at her. "Excellent, then, we shall have some of each kind!"

    "That will prove a very tempting offer to him," she laughed.

    The rest of the meal was uneventful. An hour after the royals finished breaking their fast Emmeline Lockhart was out of the palace gates in a carriage, on her way to Wellington House. She was glad to have been granted freedom to enter and leave the palace as she wished. Before she married Alexander she often worried she would be literally caged. Now she saw that it was all metaphorical, though not much better. For a princess must behave as a princess should, and Princess Emmeline you should not do this, that, or the other...it certainly helped to have a husband as free-minded as hers, who viewed her as a person rather than a possession, but she was still very much at the mercy of the wagging tongues of the ton and public humiliation.

    Her father stood at the gates of his estate, ready to greet her when she arrived. She offered him a slight curtsy and a brief embrace, which he returned affectionately.

    "Where is Emmett?" she then asked, drawing away from him.

    "In the drawing room," he replied tiredly, "with the guests."

    "Oh, goodness, I do apologise for being late." Her eyebrows were up to her hairline as she realised that she had left her father and brother to deal with the intricacies of hosting guests in her lateness. Yet she must not have arrived much later than she was due to, for she had been brisk about her preparations and quite efficient, and with any luck, the lack of a woman of power in the house would not have frightened the guests quite yet.

    William smiled at her, as lovingly as ever, but it was clearly strained. "You are not a minute late, dearest, they are early."

    She frowned. "Is something wrong, Father? You seem absolutely exhausted."

    "Nothing," he said with a chuckle. "Come, now, and see for yourself."

    She did as she was bidden, and followed her father into the drawing room. There she found herself in the presence of the most ostentatious gown in the world, doubtlessly purchased to impress. It was a tacky shade of orange and full of frills and crepe, paired with gold jewellery which might not have been genuine. The girl wearing the dress had a remarkable amount of makeup on, and her entire head of flaming red hair had been curled into alarmingly large hoops framing her slightly rounded face.