“I suppose it would.” She took a deep breath and stared up at him with the strangest look in her eyes.
“What?” Tove asked, fearing he’d done something wrong.
“There’s just so much I don’t know about you, and…” She trailed off, but he waited until she found the words to finish her thought. “And I’m spending the rest of my life with you.”
“Well, that’s plenty of time to learn, isn’t it?” Tove tried to sound cheerful about it, but he knew what she meant.
Eventually, blessedly, the song ended, and they returned to their seats. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the reprieve Tove had hoped for. Guests were now allowed to come up to the table, supposedly to wish them well on their marriage, but mostly they seemed to be complaining about something.
The Chancellor managed to hog a disproportionate amount of time. There was a line of people waiting behind him to get up to the table, but he continued to blabber on, oblivious to how he inconvenienced everyone else.
Poor Wendy always got the worst of it. His beady little eyes were focused directly on her. The one bright spot was that he was apparently too upset about the current state of things to be thinking anything dirty about the Princess. It was a nice change for Tove, not to see that horrible man’s perverse thoughts.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to bother you,” Markis Bain said, pulling Tove’s gaze to him. He’d been too busy glaring at the Chancellor to notice the Markis had come up to the table.
“Um, no. You’re no bother.” Tove tucked his hair behind his ears and leaned forward on the table. “No bother at all.”
“I kind of cut in line,” Bain admitted sheepishly and motioned to where the Chancellor continued to prattle on to Wendy. “But I didn’t really want to talk to the Princess anyway. I mean, I did, but you were … available.”
“I am available, so … that’s fine.” Tove smiled up at him.
Bain was in charge of changeling placement, so Tove had seen him around the palace before, but they’d never really spoken. But Tove had noticed him right away since Bain had the most brilliant blue eyes he’d ever seen—an incredible rarity in the Trylle community. In fact, it was so rare, Tove only knew of one other Trylle in the entire kingdom who had blue eyes.
It meant that somewhere, a few generations back, one of Bain’s ancestors had been from the Skojare—a smaller tribe of trolls known for their affinity for aquatics. But Tove didn’t care what Bain’s bloodlines were. His mother would, but in matters like these, her opinions did not count.
“I wanted to wish you luck,” Bain said.
“Luck?” Tove asked, unsure of what he meant.
“On your impending nuptials.” He gestured over to Wendy sitting next to him, and Tove realized dismally that he’d actually forgotten she was there.
“Right.” Tove forced a smile and nodded. “Thanks.”
“I have to admit, I was a little surprised to hear that you were engaged to the Princess.” Bain ran a hand through his dark hair and lowered his eyes, as if embarrassed that he’d said that. “Not that you’re not a good choice. Because you are. I just…”
Tove leaned farther forward on the table, his voice hushed. “I assure you that no one else is more surprised than I am that I’m marrying a Princess.”
Bain looked up at him then, letting his gaze linger a bit longer than was polite. He was only a few years older than Tove, and he was slender and almost delicate-looking, like a young Johnny Depp. That made his eyes stand out even more, and seem incredibly entrancing.
“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around more,” Bain said, taking a small step away from the table. “With you living and working here now.”
“Good,” Tove said, then hurried to correct it with, “I mean, yeah. I’ll be seeing you.”
Bain left the table then, and Tove was reluctant to look away. He leaned back in his chair and sighed, then noticed the Chancellor was still blathering on to Wendy.
“You’ve had your turn,” Tove said, interrupting the Chancellor midsentence. “Move along.”
“Beg pardon?” the Chancellor asked, his tiny eyes as wide as they could get. Aurora coughed under her breath, trying to dissuade Tove from being rude, but he ignored her.
“You heard me.” Tove glared at him. “Move.”
The Chancellor stammered but did as he was told, wringing his hands as he walked away from the table. A woman came up to the table after him, but before she could say anything, Wendy offered Tove an appreciative smile and mouthed the words Thank you.
The woman just gave them quick congratulations, which was a nice change of pace, and Tove tried to thank her for it, but he’d forgotten her name. Fortunately, Wendy swooped in to supply it, so he didn’t look like a complete jerk.