Royal Weddings. Joan Elliott Pickart
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for a chance to make things right in their family at last? She wanted to go now, to meet her father face-to-face, to see the land of her birth. As it stood now, Hauk would have had to lock her up and throw away the key to keep her from going.
Her father said dryly, “Perhaps I was in error, not to call first.”
“You certainly were,” she chided him. “And what about Liv and Brit? Are you having them kidnapped, too?”
“No, Elli.” She could hear the humor in his voice. “Only you.”
“Why only me?”
He chuckled. “As a baby, you had curious eyes. I see some things haven’t changed.”
“So far, you’re just like this refugee from the WWE you sent here to strong-arm me.” She glared all the harder at Hauk and then accused into the phone, “You keep evading all my questions.”
“Come to me. You will know all.”
“That’s what he keeps saying.” He didn’t so much as blink. He was doing what he always did, sitting utterly still, staring steadily back at her.
Her father coaxed in her ear, “Elli, I do long to see your face, to talk with you at length, to get to know you, at least a little….”
Her throat closed up again. She swallowed. “I said I would come. I meant it.”
“Good then.”
“But first—”
Even through the static, she heard her father sigh. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Father, be reasonable. I can’t just…disappear. I have a life and my life deserves consideration. I have to get someone to feed my cats and water my plants. I have to call my principal at school, arrange for some family leave. And I have to see Mom and tell her—”
“Not your mother.” Her father’s voice was suddenly cold as the steel blade of Hauk’s knife. “Absolutely no.” It was a command.
Too bad. “There is no way I’m disappearing without explaining to her what I’m doing. She would be frantic, terrified for me. I could never put her through something like that.”
“If Ingrid knows where you’re going she’ll never allow it.”
“You don’t know that for certain—and besides, Mom doesn’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”
“I do know for certain. I’ve already approached her on this issue. She flatly refused me.”
That was news to Elli—big news. “You spoke with Mom about my coming to see you?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
“You…you called her? On the phone?”
“I did.”
“But you two haven’t spoken in—”
“A very long time.”
“She hasn’t said a word to me about it.”
“I don’t find that in the least surprising.” Her father’s voice wasn’t as icy as a moment ago—but there remained a distinct chill in it.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s quite simple. I called your mother. I asked that she send you and your sisters for a visit. She refused. I tried to get through to her. I pointed out that I’m your father, that I’ve waited all these years and I have a right to know my daughters. She wouldn’t listen. She told me that you and your sisters wanted nothing to do with me, that I was to leave you alone and stay out of your lives. And then she hung up on me.”
Elli knew for certain now that she wouldn’t leave Sacramento before she’d had a serious talk with her mother. “Father.” The word still felt strange in her mouth. “I’m an adult, past the age when my mother decides what I can or can’t do. I make my own plans. And I plan to come and visit you. It’s Monday night. Give me two days. By Thursday morning at the latest, I will be on a plane, on my way to Gullandria.” She added, with a meaningful glance at the Viking sitting still as a statue across from her, “You have my word of honor on that.”
There was a silence on the other end. Even the static stopped. And then her father said thoughtfully, “Your word of honor…”
“Yes. My word of honor.”
“Put Hauk on.”
She felt irritation rising. “Why do you need to talk to—”
“Please, Elli. Put him on.”
Elli marched over to the Viking. “Here. Tell him my word of honor can be trusted.”
He took the phone. “Yes, my lord…yes…yes, I do…” He listened. His face remained expressionless, but something in the set of his jaw told her he didn’t much care for whatever he was hearing. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said at last and gave her the phone back.
She spoke to her father again. “Satisfied?”
Her father answered calmly. “I think we have an agreement.”
“We do?”
“That’s right, my daughter. Speak with your mother if you must. And be on that plane by Thursday morning.”
Elli smiled. “Great. Thank you, Father. I’m looking forward to seeing you at last.”
“And I’m looking forward to seeing you.” His voice was tender again. “So very much.” Then he added offhandedly, “Hauk will stay with you. He’ll see you safely to my side.”
The Viking was still staring at her. Elli spun away from him, stalked back to the couch and plunked down onto it. She sent a fulminating glance across the room before she muttered into the phone, “You have my word. There’s no need for—”
“Elli. He stays with you.” Her father’s tone was flat. Final.
She could speak flatly, too. “You know what this tells me, Father? You don’t trust my word.”
His tone softened and acquired a wheedling note. “Humor an old man. Please.”
Her father was in his early fifties. Old, by Elli’s standards—but not that old. “Oh, stop. I know you’re working me.”
“This is one point on which I cannot back down.” He was all firmness again. “Accept it. You will have the time you want to do whatever you say needs doing—including visiting your mother. But Hauk will not leave your side until he’s delivered you safely into my presence.”
“You think Mom is going to talk me out of coming, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“She won’t. I swear it.”
“Better safe than sorry. I do, after all, know your mother.”
She looked across at Hauk again. Till Thursday—and beyond—with him right there, watching, every time she turned around. “I’m really not happy about this.”
“It’s my only condition.” He said it as if it were a tiny thing—something so inconsequential, it meant next to nothing. “Accept it and we’ll find ourselves in perfect agreement.”
Elli said goodbye to her father and immediately called her mother. She made that call brief. She wanted to speak to Ingrid in person about her trip—and about the call Ingrid had received from her father, the one Ingrid had failed to mention up till now.
“Are you all right?” her mother asked. “You seem…pensive.”
Elli glanced across the room. Hauk was still there, in the chair, looking