The Crown (The Selection #5)(25)

I laughed. “I’ll remember that for down the road.”

“You do that,” she said, rubbing my cheek. “And if you don’t mind, get yourself a husband as soon as you can. I’m not getting any younger, and I’d like to see at least one great-grandchild before I’m dead.” She stared at my stomach and shook her finger. “Don’t let me down.”

“Ooooookay, Grandma. We have to get back to work here, so you head on home and make sure to call when you get there.”

“Will do, honey. Will do.”

I stood in silence, basking in the insanity that was my grandmother.

Neena leaned over. “Now, which of your top five do you think would be the most eager baby maker? Should we put that on a checklist?”

Even my most violent glare did nothing to diminish her giddiness. “Don’t forget, I can call in a firing squad at any moment if I like.”

“You can call that firing squad whenever you want, but I’ve got Grandma on my side, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I slumped, letting the silliness of it all settle in. “Sadly, Neena, I think you’re right.”

“Don’t feel too bad. She means well at the heart of it all.”

“I’ll try and remember that. So are we okay for now? I need to go learn some Finnish.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I said, bursting into the library. The boys cheered at my entrance, and I scurried over to an open seat at a table with Henri, Hale, and Ean. “Duty called.”

Erik chuckled, placing a small packet of papers in front of me. “You’re excused. Don’t worry. We haven’t gotten too far. Look over the first page, and Henri will help you with pronunciations while I check how everyone else is doing. Then we’ll move on.”

“Okay.” I picked up the paper—a copy made of Erik’s handwritten notes with hand-drawn pictures in the margin—and smiled. First task of the day was learning to count to twelve, so we could tell time. Staring at this simple lesson made me instantly embarrassed. All I could think of was that it seemed there weren’t enough vowels in the words, and the ones that bothered to show up were all in the wrong places. “All right,” I said, looking at the first word: yksi.

“Yucksey?”

Henri giggled and shook his head. “Is said yoo-ksi.”

“Yooksi?”

“Yes! Go, go,” he encouraged, and though I couldn’t be anything close to perfect, it was still nice having my own personal cheerleader. “Is said kahk-si.”

“Kahk-si … kaksi.”

“Good, good. Now, is kolme.”

“Coolmay,” I tried.

“Ehhh,” he said, still trying to be positive. “Kohl-may.”

I tried again, but I could see I was getting it wrong. I was being foiled by the number three. Ever the gentleman, he leaned in, preparing to take as much time as I needed.

“Is said oh. Kohl-may.”

“Ooh. Ooh,” I tried.

He lifted his hand and gently put his fingers on my cheeks, trying to change the shape of my mouth, and it tickled. I broke into a smile, unable to even make the sound he was going for in the first place. But he held my face all the same. After a moment, the humor left his eyes, and I recognized the look in them. I’d seen it before, in the kitchen, when he’d turned his shirt into an apron for me.

It was such a captivating stare, I completely forgot there were other people in the room.

Until Erik dropped a book on the other desk. “Excellent,” he said, and I pulled away from Henri as quickly as I could, praying that no one had noticed what had nearly just happened.

“It looks like you’re all doing well with the numbers, so we’re going to start using them in sentences. If you’ll look up at the board here, I’ve got a written example; but as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, the pronunciation is a bit tricky.”

The boys laughed, seeming to have struggled with the numbers as much as I had … and also seeming to have been too engrossed to have noted my almost kiss. I focused my gaze on the board, trying to take in the phonetics of the words in front of me instead of focusing on how close Henri was sitting.





THE FIRST FREE MOMENT I had that day was lunch, and I knew I needed to use the time to focus on damage control. While everyone headed off to the dining room after our Finnish lesson, I went back to my office and pulled Marid’s card from my desk drawer. It was clearly made from expensive paper. I wondered what his family was doing now to afford that. They must have done well for themselves, wherever their path had taken them.

I dialed the number, kind of hoping he wouldn’t pick up.

“Hello?”

“Yes, um, Marid?”

“Eadlyn, is that you?”

“Yes.” I fidgeted, straightening out my clothes, even though he couldn’t see me. “Is this an okay time?”

“Absolutely. How can I help you, Your Highness?”

“I just wanted to say, I saw some speculation about our relationship in the press the other day.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry about that. You know how they can take a thing out of context.”

“I do,” I nearly exclaimed. “And really, I wanted to apologize to you. I know what an upheaval it can be when someone’s life is caught up in mine, and I’m sorry you’ve been going through that.”