Page 14 of Royal Daddy (Silver Fox Daddies #21)

Luc

“A re you listening to a word I’m saying, girl?”

“Os car ! You simply cannot speak to the princess that way!”

“Princess or not, she needs to learn!”

I had to admit, I was entertained.

Madame Giselle, along with her business partner, Oscar Townsend, were in the middle of the first of what would likely be many etiquette lessons for Ava.

“She will learn!” Giselle said, her voice thick with the French accent of her native Marseille. “But she is not going to learn if you keep berating her this way.”

“It’s how I get results,” Oscar, a native Londoner, barked back, his hands on his hips. “And I’m not giving up until I get the results I seek.”

Oscar and Giselle were dressed in their usual effortlessly stylish outfits, Giselle’s luminous blonde hair in curls, Oscar’s ink-black hair slicked back, his mustache in a slight twirl. Both were around my age, and both, despite their brash attitudes, were very good at what they did.

“How about easing up for a dang second?” Ava asked. Her casual clothes of jeans and an oversized Nirvana T-shirt were a stark contrast to both the outfits of her instructors and the surroundings of the ballroom where the lessons were taking place. I was enjoying the show, coffee in hand, from the second-floor balcony. “This is lesson number one, right? What’s wrong with, you know, easing into this stuff?”

Oscar huffed. “Because every time I think we need to start from the drawing board, you give me a new, even blanker drawing board! For example, what you just said… stuff is not a word that should ever pass the lips of a princess.”

“How about shit?” Ava offered with a smile. “Got a little more punch to it, if I do say so myself.”

Oscar groaned, grabbing onto the side of the nearby table as if her words were making him weak.

“My God !” he said, shaking his head. “What crime did I commit in a previous life to be given a princess such as this?”

Ava laughed, seeming just as amused as I was by the whole thing. “Oh, lighten up, Oscar. I get it, I shouldn’t say stuff .”

“It goes beyond that mere word,” he said, his accent as posh as they came. “It’s… emblematic of the problem as a whole.”

“But it is a good place to start,” Giselle said. “Here is what we mean. As the princess, it is imperative that you express yourself clearly and eloquently.”

“No swearing,” Ava said.

“ No swearing,” Oscar echoed, exasperated. “Not even a little.”

“Instead of stuff,” Giselle went on, “try another word. Perhaps… matters .”

Ava laughed. “Like if someone wants to pull one over on me, I should say ‘this is a whole load of bull matters !’”

Oscar let out another sigh, and I had to do my best to keep myself from bursting out laughing.

“Let’s try it one more time,” Giselle instructed. “Unless your goal here is to send our friend Oscar to the madhouse.”

“Alright, alright,” Ava said. “So, if someone talks about something ridiculous, I can say ‘I don’t know about such matters.’”

“Slightly better,” Giselle said. “ Even better would be something like… ‘I’m not familiar with such matters.’”

“I’m not familiar with such matters,” Ava repeated. “Have to admit, that does sound a little nicer.”

“Thank the good Lord above,” Oscar said. “She can learn.”

Giselle placed a well-manicured nail on her chin. “I am thinking that language studies might be a little much for our first lesson. To really begin, we ought to start with walking.”

“Walking?” Ava asked. “I can walk just fine. Watch.”

To prove her point, Ava strode forward. Her walk was American through and through, a square shouldered, confident stride that made it clear she wasn’t afraid of anything. As unladylike as it might’ve been, I couldn’t help but like it. Ava was like no woman I’d ever met before.

“My God,” Oscar said. “Where do you even begin with a walk like that?”

Giselle stepped over to the nearby table and picked up a small stack of three books.

“You begin with these, my dear Oscar. You are acting like the princess is the first rough around the edges woman that we’ve had to straighten out.”

“The books,” Oscar said. “Yes, a good place to begin.”

“What’re those for?” Ava asked, striding right over.

“They are for posture,” Giselle answered. “A classic technique that will have you walking correctly in no time.” She marched over to Ava and placed the books on top of her head. “The object is for you to keep them steady on the top of your head as you walk. You will find that in order to do so, you will need to walk a certain way.”

Sure enough, Ava straightened her back to keep the books in place.

“Woah. OK, this is a little trickier than I would’ve guessed.”

“And it is the least of what we need to accomplish in the next four weeks,” Oscar said. “The Harvest Ball will be here before you know it, and that’s when the elite of Edoria will see you for the first time. It will be your first impression, and you only get one of those, you know.”

“Now,” Giselle said, “walk carefully over to that table. Do not let a single book fall from your head.”

“I think I can do this,” Ava said. “Watch me go!”

With that, she started toward the table. I leaned forward on the railing, my eyes on her as she walked with careful steps. Sure enough, she did it. She moved with poise and precision, walking at a steady pace. I held my breath as Ava reached the other table.

“Ta da !” she said when she made it all the way, pulling the books off her head and holding them in the air. “Easy!”

Oscar sighed. “Better than nothing. Now, come back to us.”

Ava placed the books on her head once more, making careful steps back toward Giselle and Oscar.

“Is this seriously how a princess is expected to walk?” she asked. “Can’t I do this with a little more, you know, va-va-voom?” To illustrate her point, Ava began swinging her hips widely, the books only lasting about a second before falling off her head and onto the ground.

“ Mon Dieu ,” Giselle said.

Oscar sighed, pulling out the nearby chair and dropping into it in a defeated sort of way.

“Princess,” Giselle said. “You might be content to treat this as one grand joke, but I can assure you that it is most certainly not. You must make a good impression at the ball. Edoria is in desperate need of a young princess who will set a high standard of quality and be a good role model to young girls.”

“I know, I know. Just not sure how walking like I’ve got a stick up my butt is going to help with that.”

I allowed myself a slight chuckle at the scene before me.

“Having a laugh?” a familiar voice spoke behind me. I turned and was greeted with the sight of Alaric.

He wasn’t amused in the slightest.

“Your Majesty,” I said, standing up straight and nodding as he approached, taking position at my side. I didn’t have to call him that. I was the only member of the servant staff on a first-name basis with the king. All the same, I liked to show deference now and then, especially when he wasn’t in a good mood.

As he looked down at his daughter joking around with Oscar and Giselle, I could see that he most definitely was not in a good mood.

“This isn’t what I expected.”

“I have to ask, my friend, what did you expect? Your daughter has been living in the States since she was a very young girl. Royal breeding isn’t exactly common over there.”

“I understand. All the same, part of me had hoped that she might remember something of where she came from.”

“She is only Edorian because of the DNA in her blood,” I reminded him. “Other than that, she’s all American. She was too young to remember anything about this place when she left it.”

Down below, Ava let out a wicked laugh at her latest stunt on the beleaguered pair. “This is going to require more work than I had anticipated. Those two are going to have to put in their time to make sure she is up to the standard of the naming ceremony and ball a month from now.”

“She’ll come around,” I said. “I know it.”

He sighed. “I hope you are right.”

“I know that I am, Alaric. Ava comes from a world all on her own, one where all of this,” I swept my hand toward the ballroom, “is totally alien to her. She’s used to doing things for herself, making her own decisions. Being prim and proper and docile isn’t in her nature.”

“Then how can we expect her to perform as a princess should?”

“By teaching her duty, service. For now maybe it’s a matter of confidence. Maybe she just needs a little taste of home.”

Part of me hoped that Alaric would see the wisdom of my words, that he’d step up to the occasion as a father ought to. No doubt that the coldness he’d offered his daughter wasn’t helping matters.

“Sounds like a task that you could handle,” he said instead. “Find a way to help her along. And keep me abreast of your progress.”

Without another word, he turned and left. Once I was alone, I returned my gaze to Ava, wondering just how I was going to turn this American free spirit into a princess.