Royal Wedding - Meg Cabot Page 0,103

possibly hurt them? Shielding them from bullets, the way Prince Albert had shielded Queen Victoria, was one thing.

But kids whose parents shield them from the truth—censoring their reading material, lying to them about who their parents really are, cushioning them from every possible blow—are the ones who tend to get hurt the worst once they get out into the real world . . . not because the truth is so awful, but because they haven’t been taught the skills they need to handle it.

And suddenly it hit me—with even more force than Dr. Delgado’s announcement a few hours earlier—that this is what my grandmother’s princess lessons, tedious as they’d seemed, had been about all along. Not standing up straight, or using the correct fork, but preparing me for the real world. The wonderful, amazing, but occasionally distasteful and sometimes even horrifying world where most people are incredibly decent and well meaning, but occasionally you do encounter someone who is going to try to use you, or even abuse you, and when that happens, there isn’t always going to be a bodyguard—or a parent—around to rescue you.

Grandmère never cushioned a single blow, and this is why: I needed to know the truth, just like Olivia, because a princess needs those skills to survive.

Well, I wasn’t going to be quite as brutal with Olivia as our grandmother had been with me, but I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it either.

“There’s some stuff about your uncle that we recently found out—it’s why I came out to Cranbrook in the first place to get you, aside from the fact that I wanted to know you, because you’re my sister,” I explained to her, pulling her down beside me on the wrought-iron bench as, below us, taxi horns honked. “Nothing’s been proven yet, since the Royal Genovian Guard is still investigating. But we believe your aunt and uncle have been using money meant for you to fund their business—”

Olivia didn’t look particularly surprised to hear any of this. In fact, it almost seemed as if she’d suspected it herself.

“Oh,” she said. “I get it. They don’t want to give me up because they don’t want to give up the money Dad sends for me every month.”

“No,” I said quickly. “We don’t know that at all. I’m sure your aunt loves you very much.”

Seeing the skeptical look she shot me, I added, wanly, “In her own way.”

“Then why,” Olivia demanded, “did they bring Annabelle’s dad with them?”

“Well,” I said, “your aunt has legal guardianship of you. So if she’s changed her mind and doesn’t want you to stay with us any longer, there’s nothing we can do . . . at least for now.” Seeing the look of growing dismay on her face, I added, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “But, Olivia, I promise that Dad will never rest until he gets permanent custody of you, if that’s what you want. It just might take a little—”

“Noooooo!”

This is what Olivia cried as she leaped from the bench and ran back inside, Snowball bounding after her. It took me completely off guard, since it was so totally unlike her. She was a quirky kid, but normally pretty calm . . .

Until she wasn’t.

I hurried after her to see where she’d gone, and was relieved when I saw that she’d only rushed back into the library . . . to throw her arms around her father.

He, of course, looked as surprised as me, but was running a hand through her new spiral curls, saying, “Shush, Olivia, it’s going to be all right.”

“I won’t!” she yelled, quite loudly for such a tiny thing. “I won’t go back with them to New Jersey!”

My dad leaned down to whisper something in her ear. I have no idea what it was, but it caused her to loosen her hold on him a little and appear somewhat more composed, though she was still giving her aunt and uncle the stink eye.

I could see then that she’d inherited more than a love of poodles from her paternal grandmother’s side of the family. She’d also inherited Grandmère’s ability to dress someone down with a single look.

“Well,” her aunt Catherine said nervously. “We’d better be going if we want to beat the traffic.”

From the look in Dad’s eye, I could tell he wanted to beat something, too, but it wasn’t the traffic. He was nobly holding himself back, however.

Grandmère appeared in the foyer as Olivia was leaving, Snowball on a sparkling rhinestone leash.

“Do not forget this,”