Killer Queens by Rebecca Chance

Author:Rebecca Chance [Chance, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dpgroup.org
ISBN: 9781471101700
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2013-07-31T23:00:00+00:00

Lori

Lori was very calm. Blissfully, transcendently calm. It was rather unusual for a young woman on the verge of matrimony, when severe attacks of nerves, mood swings, and panic about her dress were much more to be expected. But ever since her attempted flight home, the intervention of the Dowager Queen, and Lori’s reconciliation with Joachim, she had been on a keel so even that her family, who had arrived the week before the ceremony, were beginning to be concerned at her lack of any normal pre-wedding jitters.

But Lori didn’t feel jittery. Not at all. Everything had been resolved. She had had her pre-wedding crisis already; every bride went through one, according to the Dowager, and hers had simply come earlier than usual. Mihaly had been sacked, Kristin and Katya had apologized to her profusely and explained that they had completely misunderstood the situation, the Dowager was petting and cosseting her as if she were her own daughter, and Joachim had put aside most of his urgent business with the tax haven crisis meetings to spend a good part of every day leading up to the wedding at her side, and every night in bed with her.

She had moved into the Imperial Suite, and they were leading a very cosy life together, watching box sets in the private cinema every night; they were working their way through The Killing, a gloomy Danish serial killer series which went on for ever, mostly in the rain, yet couldn’t fail, for some reason, to cheer one up. Also, the heroine’s sweater had been slashed by a knife-wielding thug and then had mysteriously knitted itself up again. Lori was endlessly amused by that, Joachim a little less so, especially when she couldn’t help reminding him of it at least once an episode; she had noticed that recently she did seem to obsess about little things that didn’t really matter, but that just seemed to get stuck in her head . . .

Of course, she and Joachim weren’t spending every minute of every day by each other’s side; that would have been suffocating. No, Lori was also absorbed by the wedding plans. The Dowager was involving her in every single aspect of the coming ceremony, every detail, particularly the guest list and seating plans, which were absolutely crucial when dealing with the highly complicated question of hierarchy for visiting royalty. Philippe was a positive mine of information, and the Dowager also had a royal etiquette expert, an old, gay Count – ‘call me Bobby, dear’, he had said to Lori in perfect English, kissing her hand – who had an intimate acquaintance with, apparently, every single noble family on three continents.

Still, Lori was expected to absorb a great deal of information. The wedding would effectively last for three days, with state banquets and activities before the ceremony itself; she would have to learn to recognize the major dignitaries, and she was kept busy studying photographs of them and memorizing the correct way to address each one.

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