The Crown Prince Chose the Size 18 Commoner, and the Palace Can't Stop Him novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Tart Tray
Tilda carries the lemon tarts into Choosing Night, and the crown prince ignores the court's list and picks her aloud.
The pastry chef shoved the tray into my arms and said, "Walk slow, and don't look at anyone."
Forty lemon tarts, still warm, and the whole great hall of Calder Palace waiting beyond the doors.
"Why me?" I said. "I'm an assistant. I roll the dough."
"Because the girl who was meant to carry it just fainted from nerves," she said. "And you have steady hands."
I did have steady hands.
I was twenty-six, I was a size 18, and I had been carrying heavy trays since I was eleven.
I tucked my apron straight, pushed my short black curls behind my ear, and walked.
The hall was a blaze of candles.
A thousand people in silk stood along the walls, and every one of them was watching the dais.
It was Choosing Night, the first night of autumn, when the crown prince read the Council's list of approved brides and picked one.
Everyone in Halvery knew the story.
Seven noble ladies, seven white gowns, and the prince of the realm said a name and the kingdom had a future queen.
I was supposed to put the tarts on a side table and vanish.
I got three steps from the table before the prince stopped reading.
I didn't look up.
I heard the paper lower.
I heard a hall full of people stop breathing.
Then boots came down the dais steps, slow and heavy, and a pair of polished black shoes stopped in front of mine.
"Is that lemon?" a man's voice said.
It was deep and a little rough.
"Yes, Your Highness," I said to the shoes.
"Look at me."
So I looked.
Lucan Ardenne was six foot three in a white uniform with gold braid at the shoulders and a crimson sash across his chest.
He had thick dark curls, a hard jaw with no beard on it, and gray eyes the color of a storm over the river.
A small white scar cut through his lower lip.
Everyone said he was the most beautiful man in Halvery.
Everyone was wrong, because they hadn't seen him from three feet away.
His gaze went from my face to my bare forearms, down the blue work dress that hugged my hips, and back up to my mouth.
He did not hide it for a second.
I felt it everywhere.
"I've eaten these every Friday for a year," he said. "Nobody would tell me who made them."
"I make some of them," I said. "The pastry chef does the rest."
"Which are yours?"
I could have lied.
"The ones that don't fall apart," I said.
Someone behind him laughed and turned it into a cough.
Lucan took a tart from my tray, and his hand closed over mine on the edge, warm and huge, his thumb pressed flat on the pulse in my wrist.
He ate the tart in two bites with his eyes on me.
Then he licked a crumb of sugar off his thumb.
My knees went soft.
"Perfect," he said.
"Thank you, Your Highness. I'll just put these down."
He did not let go of my hand.
"What's your name?"
"Tilda," I said. "Tilda Valera."
"Tilda Valera," he said, as if he were tasting that too.
Then he turned around, still holding my hand and the tray with it, and faced the hall.
The Lord Chancellor stood on the dais with the list of seven names in his fist.
He was a thin, bald man with white whiskers and a gold chain, and his face had gone the color of old candle wax.
"Lord Chancellor," Lucan said. "I have decided."
"Your Highness, the Accord requires you to read the names first," the Chancellor said.
"I read them."
"Then you will choose one."
"I choose her."
The silence was so total I could hear the candles burn.
Seven ladies in white gowns stared at me.
The first, a tall blonde with a braid down her back, looked at my apron, my hips and my flour-dusted hands, and her lip curled.
I should have been afraid.
I was furious instead.
I'd spent four years in this palace being invisible on purpose, and he had just turned the whole court into a firing squad with me standing in the middle.
"No," I said.
Lucan turned his head.
"No, thank you, Your Highness," I said, loud enough for the whole hall. "I came to deliver tarts, and I'd like to go back to the kitchen."
Somebody gasped.
A slow, wicked smile pulled at one side of his mouth, and the scar in his lip pulled with it.
"Not accepted," he said.
"It wasn't an offer."
"It was an order. I'm told I'm allowed to give those."
"Guards," the Chancellor said sharply, and I heard armor move. "The girl will be removed from the hall."
Two soldiers started across the floor toward me.
Lucan did not look at them.
He took the tray from my hands, set it on the floor like it weighed nothing, and put his arm around my waist.
His palm spread wide over the curve of my hip, and he pulled me flat against his side in front of a thousand people.
"Touch her," he said to the guards, quietly, "and see what happens."
The soldiers stopped dead.
His mouth was next to my ear.
"Mine," he said, so low that no one else could hear it.
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