Page 33 of Falling for the Queen Mother

"That's good, right?"

"It is. Frederick and Paul weren't ready for them to tell the public that we might have a problem. Either someone is working for the seamier side of the media or..." Her voice trailed off. She wasn't certain what the other options were, but there had to be some.

Nathaniel yawned. Despite his earlier nap, he looked tired.

"Are you ready to get some rest?" It would give both of them a bit of relief from time together. "I did speak with the captain earlier and unless we change our minds, we can easily stay at sea for a few days before we need to get to shore."

"I like that idea and yes." He nodded. "I think I would like to get some rest. I didn't sleep well last night, and even with the nap earlier, I'm beat."

"You can use the suite we were in earlier. I can have someone make up one of the other beds for me." She'd wandered around a little bit earlier and noticed that none of them had fresh bedding on them. "I think most of them have already retired for the evening, but I can submit a request on my phone and someone will come up."

"Or..." He hesitated before going on. "We're both adults. We're legally married. There's no reason to bother them. The night crew can do whatever they normally do, and we can... share. Just sleep. Nothing else."

The thought had already occurred to Alaina, but she wasn't going to be the one to mention it. She wasn't even sure she was okay with it, but she nodded. "We can do that. Just sleep. I can make sure another room is made up for tomorrow night. If you want to head that way, I'll follow in a few minutes."

He nodded and stood. "That sounds like a good plan." Nathaniel nodded toward her. "I'll see you shortly."

Alaina debated opening her phone and scrolling social media to see what was being said about the situation. Her assistant would let her know when the time came - by morning at the latest - but did she want to wait that long?

Before she could change her mind, she opened one of the apps and prepared to scroll, but the first thing that popped up was a post from one of the local media networks about the interview. It wasn't the one who had aired the interview so it had obviously made it to other outlets.

The press release would have been sent out a few minutes before the interview aired and included information about the interview, so it would be clear where people could find out more immediately.

Queen Mother Married Thanks To Ancient Law

The photo was one from a few weeks earlier when she visited an early childhood center. A skim of the post itself showed a brief summary of what happened and that a link would be included in the comments. With a deep breath, she opened the comments. The reaction emojis attached to the photo were mostly shocked or caring emojis, at least those that weren't merely a thumbs up.

The comments deemed to be most relevant showed shock and concern for her well-being. Most of those comments were from shortly after the post was made and didn't reflect what they might have learned from the interview itself. After a couple of dozen similar comments, they started to appear to be posted during the interview.

I don't know how I feel about this for the Queen Mum, but he is cute.

Wonder if that's who she went to see at the resort last week.

He seems nice. Distinguished looking.

Queen Mum is now a GrandMum! Maybe the king and queen will take the hint! ;-)

The winking emoji told Alaina the person wasn't completely serious about wanting a new prince or princess, but she suspected there was some truth behind the statement.

It hadn't really occurred to her that she was a grandmother, or step-grandmother to be technical about it. She wasn't even certain how many grandchildren Nathaniel had.

Before she could think about it further, or read any more comments, a call came in. She put her earbud in, hit the accept button, and greeted her daughter. "Hello, Victoria."

"Good evening, Mum." Her daughter's voice sounded surprisingly cheerful.

"Shouldn't you be asleep? It's much later for you than it is here." She also knew her daughter would have stayed up to watch the interview regardless.

"What did you think about it?" Victoria skipped straight to the heart of the matter.

"It could have been much worse. I didn't love that it needed to be done in the first place, but since it did, it went as well as I could have asked."

"That's a very noncommittal answer, Mum. You wouldn't let us get away with that."

"I think the word you're looking for is diplomatic." Alaina smiled anyway. Her daughter had learned well how to answer without saying anything you didn't want to say. All royals had to learn that, regardless of country, otherwise, anything you said would be taken and twisted out of context and into whatever someone wanted it to be - and usually it was twisted into a worse statement than it really was.

"Right. Diplomatic." Victoria's smile came through the phone. "When do the rest of us get to see both of you as a married couple?"

Alaina's daughter had met Nathaniel when he was working in Dellisole on their potential artwork heist. As far as Alaina knew, they still didn't have any real answers there either.