ABIGAIL

“Would you like more tea?” The waiter leans over my right shoulder expectantly, but I cover the dainty cup with my hand and shake my head.

“No, thank you.” If I have any more tea, I’m going to be waddling like a fat duck to the ladies’ room.

Two hundred guests — the royal family, foreign dignitaries, high-ranking members of the court, and assorted celebrities — are seated at large round tables under an expansive white tent on the East Lawn. There’s a late season cold, crisp in the air, and thousands upon thousands of tiny lights are woven throughout the tent. The effect is like luminous fairy dust.

Dinner is almost over, and dessert will be served soon, but I’m too stuffed to take another bite. The legendary late night Black Diamond event — the charity poker game which has brought in wealthy card sharks and high-rolling celebrities from all over the world — is about to begin, which will last well into the night. A man’s event, mostly, ending in cigar smoke and unbuttoned tuxedo collars.

As luck would have it, I’ve been seated at the same table as Henry. The seating arrangements are supposed to be random — as each guest arrives, they draw a playing card and find the numbered table matching their card. But something tells me Henry skipped over luck of the draw and went straight for an empty spot at my table. Royal prerogative. Not like anyone’s going to reprimand him.

He’s sitting across from me, a wide expanse of white linen between us, enough to prevent a polite volume of conversation, especially with the buzz of chatter and clinking of silverware and dishes filling the tent. He’s talking to the Duke of Fellsworth, but his eyes are on me, as they have been all through dinner.

Every time I look up, he’s staring, and I blush like a schoolgirl making eye contact with a cute boy for the first time. Over and over. Or perhaps I’m staring at him, I don’t know anymore. I can’t keep track of who is looking at who at this point. It’s a shock no one has noticed, or if they have, at least they haven’t said anything, except for Emily, who has elbowed me at least a dozen times over the past hour and is currently muffling a giggle behind her teacup.

I lower my eyes, embarrassed at the rosy shade of my cheeks, and hiss at her. “Emily, for heaven’s sake, shush. You are not helping.”

She’s already making me regret telling her about the private moments with Henry on the balcony last night, but I still love her anyway, and besides, who else was I going to tell? It was too big to keep to myself — a momentous occasion worthy of shouting from the rooftops, if I could.

He literally took my breath away and rocked my world, ooooh did he ever. My God, I had no idea I could even come that hard. I’d wanted more, I wanted all of him, every hot, firm inch of him inside me — his tongue, his fingers, his cock. But a moment after my legs stopped shaking from my earth-shattering orgasm and my vision swam back into focus, Henry pulled my dress down.

“Sorry, Abi,” he’d whispered. He rose from his knees and pressed his lips to my cheek in a tender kiss, his skin hot against mine.

Bewildered, I’d sat forward, reaching for Henry, but he was already walking away. I thought the flashing of lights behind my closed eyelids had been orgasm-induced, but upon opening my eyes, I noticed the dim lights of the sconces along the exterior wall of the balcony were indeed blinking on and off. A second later, the glass door swung open and the royal guard stuck his head outside.

“Your Highness?” the guard had called hesitantly, his eyes lowered to the ground. “So sorry to disturb you, sir, but your father, sorry, His Highness the King, is having another of his migraines. He needs you to step in as host.”

“Yes, coming,” Henry said, already halfway to the door.

The lights had stopped blinking by then, and I realized it had been a signal to the Prince that our private moment was about to be interrupted. Just before he slipped through the door into the ballroom, he’d turned and looked at me, a lingering gaze that I couldn’t quite read. And then he was gone.

Emily’s continued giggling pulls me back to the present. The noise level at the table has increased now that dinner is finished and large quantities of wine and spirits have been consumed.

I can still feel Henry’s eyes on me, undressing me in front of everyone, this intense sparkle in his gaze. And is that a hint of jealousy I’m catching once in a while? I think it might be. Every time one of the men at the table talks to me, Henry is on instant alert.

I’m supposed to be chatting politely with the guests seated at the table, including two of the suitors my parents have picked out for me, but there is a growing wetness between my legs that is entirely distracting, because I can’t look at Henry without thinking about his mouth on me, and how he knows exactly what to do with his tongue. It sends a pulse of pleasure through my pussy every time he lifts his champagne glass and parts his mouth to take a sip.

It doesn’t help that he keeps licking his lips — whether intentionally or not, it’s driving me crazy.

I want to climb across the table, draped with crisp white linen and crystal stemware, directly into Henry’s lap and wrap my legs around him, proper dinner party be damned. The fantasy is playing itself out in my head so vividly that all my attempts at conversation have been awkward and short lived.

The gentleman on my right — Horace something, I believe — turns to me. “Lady Abigail, I heard you just graduated magna cum laude from Umberland.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What was your field of study, if I may ask?” Horace is easily twenty years my senior, with an actual, bonafide pencil mustache, thin brown hair, and a deeply pockmarked red nose.

Despite staring at Henry for most of the evening, I couldn’t help but notice that Horace had sucked down five glasses of wine already and is currently working on the sixth.

“Environmental engineering, actually.”

He wrinkles his nose, his tone becoming a mix of patrimony and incredulity. “Engineering? Isn’t that a man’s job?”

What the hell? Where did my parents’ advisors find this joker? “Well, traditionally, most positions have been held by men, but that’s slowly changing.” At least outside of the royal court, in the modern world.

“It doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

He waves his hands. “Oh, you know — you’ve got your little piece of paper to show that you’ve accomplished something, a nice certificate to hang on the wall. Very urban of you.”

I blink slowly, unsure if I’ve heard him correctly. “It’s quite a bit more than just a piece of paper. I worked very hard to earn that degree. I studied nearly day and night for years, wrote research papers, helped with field projects, took every related workshop and seminar I could. It did not come easy, I assure you.”

“Well, yes, my Lady, I wouldn’t presume that it would be easy for a woman to achieve such a thing, especially one so young and pretty as yourself, but it’s hardly like you’ll be employing any of that knowledge in your future.”

“Excuse me?”

He rolls his hand in the air, his gaze wandering the tent, sounding the more bored with the topic the more we talk. “Well, you’re not actually going to go gallivanting off to work, now are you?”

I give him a cold stare. “I had been planning to, yes. I’d like to work with a nonprofit in third world countries.” Especially since those places are far, far away from you.

He snorts, and something resembling laughter catches in his throat. “I can picture it now. A woman of nobility in muck boots, slinging elephant shit in Africa somewhere? Pardon my language, my Lady, but really. You’re just having a good one over on me now.” He lets out a chuckle and shakes his head.

“Actually, I’d love to go work in Africa,” I say through clenched teeth. “And elephant shit doesn’t scare me. I have done field work before.”

He clicks his tongue and sucks back the rest of his wine, no longer interested in the topic, dismissing it as only men who have a stately title in this little corner of the world can.

I glance around, hoping someone — anyone — has heard this nonsense and can confirm I’m not crazy. But everyone is busy chatting with someone else, even Henry, who is motioning to the waiter to stop serving refills of wine to the Duke of Fellsworth.

I turn back to Horace the Horrible. “I certainly wouldn’t expect to get served tea and sit comfortably in a plush air-conditioned room all day. I’d pull my weight and contribute valuable data to research programs, help make a difference in the world.”

He sets his glass down with a thud. “That’s all well and good, my Lady, but perhaps you need to rethink these preposterous visions, because what your husband will expect of you is quite different.”

I glare at him and grit my teeth, but refrain from saying what I’m thinking. I’m gripping my fork tightly, imagining what it would be like to jab it into his misogynistic, patronizing leg.

Not knowing when to keep his trap shut, he continues. “I know it’s very easy to be swept away by silly notions at your age,” he goes on, puffing his chest out assuredly, “but I’m quite certain none of your suitors have plans involving Africa, elephant dung, or a wife with career ambitions. I certainly don’t. God forbid my heir is born in some dusty desert in a piss-poor shanty town. I expect my wife to tend her duties at home, where she belongs, as does any gentleman with high standards.”

He looks at me finally, and that look says it all. It says what all my suitors won’t verbalize. That a gentleman of high standards really means a man with an impressive bank account and the right connections. They know I’m for sale. They won’t say it, but they know.

“You shouldn’t mention these things if you want to land a decent husband, dear — just leave the business to the men.”

I swallow hard and take a deep breath, trying not to choke on my indignation or on the vague sense of shame that comes with the position I find myself in. It’s humiliating. I’d almost deceived myself into thinking I could find a good match with a decent man. As I’ve been trained to, I keep my lips sealed, but under the table, my hands are shaking I’m so furious.

Across from us, the Duke’s phone rings loudly, and he stands up unsteadily beside Henry, bumping the table several times. As the china clatters and people snatch up full wine glasses to keep them from spilling, I seize the opportunity to whisper to Emily.

“Let’s excuse ourselves to the ladies’ room. If I have to hear another word out of this guy’s mouth, I’m going to stab him with my fork, and I won’t even be sorry.”