Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,104

between timid, ironically amused, and chagrined. It was impossible to predict what was going to come out of his mouth, and what finally did was mind-boggling.

"I am here to offer a detente, and a bit of an apology for our.. .argument in your stud)-."

She raised a very- skeptical eyebrow.

Eric sighed.

"It was very rude of me to point out the technicalities of our marriage contract the way I did. While it is all still true, it was very bullv-ish of me and highly unmanly. Threatening a woman is the basest of sins." He bowed, but the edge of his mouth twitched in a smile.

"Please leave gender out of this," Ursula said without thinking. But really. Even if he meant it as a joke. "Also, apology- formally accepted—although I don't believe it for a moment."

"Believe what you will, I have no power over that. The fact is I am genuinely embarrassed by the way I acted. At the very least we can be civil while we're together."

"Hmm," she sniffed. She couldn't detect any obvious falsehood, but since he was turning out to be smarter than she thought, nothing he said or did could be taken at face value anymore.

"Here is part one of my peace offering," he said, and gave her the brooch he had been holding.

Ursula looked at it with surprise. She knew about his secret meeting with the head of the metalworkers guild, and had assumed it was to re-explam what she had already said, the way men boorishly did—or to outright contradict her. But apparently this was the true purpose of the meeting: a tiny metal octopus, its tentacles all akimbo and curled, detailed down to its little suckers. The eyes looked suspicious and were rubies. It was made

"Bronze," she said with a chuckle. Eric gave a little bow.

It was really quite delightful. Normally she didn't care about jewelry beyond what was considered trendy and appropriate for princesses to wear, but this...this was an adorable little trinket. No one had given her anything like it... any gift at all, really... in years....

She fastened it onto her collar and tried not to admire it there, sparkling temptingly.

"Part two is that the encore—and farewell—performance of La Sirenetta, I am dedicating to you."

"Why?" She didn't even pretend to be touched. There was a reason behind this that had nothing to do with kmdness—she could feel it.

"We need to present a united front. As is obvious from that horrible dinner, the staff and probably the townspeople think we're—on the rocks, as it were."

"I don't see why what they think is important. Riffraff

"Then apparently you don't understand humans as much as you claim to. At some point one of your friends or enemies is going to use our inimical relationship to drive a wedge through the kmgdom. Many countries are already getting rid of their kings and queens and prmces and princesses—or at least taking away their power while letting them keep their pretty crowns. Royalty that actually rules is a dying breed. Do we really want to give anyone the opportunity to speed it along here in Tirulia?"

Ursula had never thought of it that way before. It was true—a lot of nasty populist places were having revolutions and becoming republics and democracies, patting their royalty on the head and pushing them on their way.

(If the royalty was lucky, that was all that happened to their heads.)

The fact that Eric was concerned about this was a novelty; she had always thought he was just a happy-go-lucky, entitled prince who, yes, cared for his people—but m his own privileged way. She never thought that he actually valued his princehood: or keeping it.

"You may have a point," she allowed.

"Thank you. Thus, ostensibly I am dedicating the opera to you as a promise to spend more time on our...ah...marriage, and to me being a good prmce. We have moved the venue to the town square so everyone can come and we're constructing a raised dais just for you. I'm having this chair made, sort of muse-of-the-arts-y...."

He unfurled a scroll of paper and showed her the plans: where the performers would stand, where the orchestra would sit, and where there was a beautiful velvet-canopied pavilion with an ornate chair that was basically a

She would look like a real queen sitting there.

Not some dumb prmcess.

The royal purple fabric...the gilt chair...the way it was angled so both the audience and the performers could both see her. She would be queen m all but name. All would be watching her as