A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,43

I wanted to be a princess when I grew up. But then . . .” She trailed off, clearly wanting Leo to continue the familiar story. Perhaps this was their way of remembering their parents.

“She would say, ‘Princess of our hearts is about the best you can hope for—unless you marry extremely well.’”

“You must miss her,” Marie said, feeling a little awkward stating the obvious but also like she needed to acknowledge the loss.

“Yes,” Gabby said. “Every day. Do you miss your mother?”

“Every day,” Marie echoed.

And there was Leo’s hand again. A quick squeeze, and then it was gone, as in the car earlier. It didn’t mean anything. It was merely a gesture of empathy.

“Tell us about Christmas in Eldovia,” Daniela said from her armchair on the other side of the coffee table, but not before her eyes flickered down to where Marie’s and Leo’s hands had been joined.

“Christmas is big business in Eldovia. We have an annual Cocoa Fest on Christmas Eve day. Restaurants and pubs participate, and so does the palace. We make big cauldrons of different kinds of cocoa and serve them outside on the grounds.”

“Are you kidding me?” Gabby demanded.

Marie laughed. “I am entirely in earnest. And there’s a Cocoa Ball in the evening—though that’s not for children.” She wasn’t sure why she added that qualifier. It wasn’t as if Gabby, whose eyes had grown comically wide, would be around to be told she couldn’t attend the ball.

“Oh my god, you are from a fake Hallmark country,” Leo deadpanned.

Gabby reached around Marie, who was sitting in the middle spot on the sofa, and punched her brother in the arm. “Don’t be rude, Leo.” She turned to Marie. “That is the best thing I have ever heard.”

Marie smiled—that kind of unbridled enthusiasm was hard to resist. “It is rather wonderful.” Not the dancing—never that—but Christmas Eves at home were something special. Or at least they used to be. Before her mother fell ill, there had always been an uncommodifiable spirit about the holidays. A sense of shelter and peace and safety underneath all the hustle and bustle.

Much like here.

Exactly like here. “I like the fireplace.” She pointed at the homemade hearth. “There must be a story there.”

“We have a family tradition of making wishes every year when we hang our stockings,” Gabby said. “Last year was our first year in this apartment. There was nowhere to hang the stockings, so Leo made that.”

Of course he did.

“Do you have stockings in Eldovia?” Gabby asked.

“Yes. When I was younger, we always put stockings up for my parents and me in our private quarters. There’s a public section of the palace, with a big tree and elaborate decorations, but we always used to have a tree in our apartment, too—the real tree, as I used to call it, because that’s where Santa left my presents. And we’d put stockings up over our fireplace there.” She paused, thinking back to the Christmas her mother died. They hadn’t gotten the stockings out that year, because they’d practically been living in the hospital. But when they came home a few days before Christmas, shell-shocked, Marie had hung them—well, she’d hung hers and her father’s and wept as she’d put her mother’s away. She’d planned on filling them the way her mother always had, but when she crept out of bed early Christmas morning to do it, she found that he’d taken them down. She swallowed a lump in her throat, forcing the memory down. “We don’t do that anymore, but there are some lovely stockings hanging on a grand fireplace in the main entryway of the palace, with the formal tree.” Although no one had ever filled those stockings. They were purely for show.

“I bet it’s beautiful.” Gabby sighed. “I bet it isn’t made out of cardboard.” Then she looked stricken. “No offense, Leo.”

He smiled. “None taken, kiddo.”

“It is . . . beautiful,” Marie said.

“Don’t sound so convincing,” Leo teased.

The fireplace she was thinking of was enormous and tiled in creamy white marble topped by a cherry mantel carved into an elaborate scene of cherubim playing. In the center hung a portrait of her mother, one Marie wasn’t partial to because it was formal and stuffy and captured little of her mother’s spirit. The whole thing was beautiful, in an imposing sort of way, and it was a centerpiece of the public space in the palace, but . . . “I like this one better.”

“Are you crazy?” Gabby exclaimed. “How can you like