2
" The bride's sleek dark hair was smoothed into an unusually restrained knot, but she'd stuck to her guns with the heavy black eyeliner. Her lacy black dress was a little funereal, but clearly a compromise between her own preference for Victoriana and the palace's idea of appropriate styling for a photo shoot that would make the history books. The groom was wearing a pink shirt, and his curls were fluffy.
It was like a grown-up Emily the Strange marrying Bertie Wooster.
The smiles were natural, the body language extremely affectionate, but their knuckles were white. Nerves or tension?
Sylvie studied the cover shot for a few more seconds, then scrolled down to the article. The journalist would have had a lot of the copy sitting ready to go. This had been on the rumor mill since their first joint public appearance. The union between the king's eldest granddaughter and the youngest son of a baronet, who, according to this tabloid, had inherited neither land nor brain cells from his parents.
The overgrown Goth princess and a stuttering social climber with all the poise and sophistication of a golden retriever.
Charming. "
― , Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1)
3
" Each layer was a clean, crisp white. Marzipan over rich Vienna cream icing, edged with sugar lace, a delicate spidery web of lines, the perfect allusion of the bobbin lace that Princess Rose liked to weave. Or at least claimed she wove as a useful anecdote. His notes stated that she gave biannual speeches as patron of the City of London Arts and Crafts Guild.
Flowers wound up the side of the cake, the blooming vine of a fairy tale.
He studied the effect with distaste.
A tap of the leftmost flower, and the petals changed color from an iridescent pink to a deep, brooding blood purple, almost black in tone. He swept his hand in front of the cake. One after another, the edges of the peony poppies bled, thee dark color leaching over the celestial pink. Still fairy tale, but with the inevitable malevolent element.
Better.
Also better suited to a dungeon or coffin than a reception table, but from the impression he got of the bride, the Tim Burton vibe was strongly in her wheelhouse. "
― , Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1)
9
" His control started to waver in round two with her witch's cauldron, a Black Forest gâteau that spilled out sinuous curls of smoke, teasing the taste buds with an elusive hint of... toffee? No, bourbon. Honey?
"Caramel brandy." Dominic severed the speculation of the other judges. He was correct. She had infused the dry ice mechanism with caramel brandy. Bending in a very limber motion for a man with those shoulders, he examined the exterior of the cauldron, breaking off a tiny piece with a satisfying snap. She'd meticulously assembled the structure from white chocolate that she'd hand-painted to mimic rusted iron, using a customized pigment of a powdered food coloring mixed with--
"The chocolate has a bitter aftertaste." Again, he cut short her explanation, rising to his feet. "Did you taste-test the pigment first? "
― , Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1)
11
" Dominic was rubbing his cheek against her head when his body stiffened. "What is that?"
"What?" She was trying to wiggle her fingers in between his shirt buttons without anyone else seeing. She liked the feel of his chest hair beneath her skin.
Although her onetime comment comparing it to petting Humphrey was a mistake she wouldn't repeat.
"In the sugar bubble on the second tier." Dominic was dropping into his Operation Cake tone, which only made her want to open all the buttons. "What is that?"
"Probably another dragon," she said airily, rubbing him and making a shiver run through his big body. "We agreed on including Caractacus."
"Yes. We agreed on the dragon. We did not agree on other crea..." He couldn't seem to help running his fingers down her spine, but she felt the moment he realized what he was looking at. His words became dangerously even. "It has a horn."
"You're seeing things." A soothing pet on his pec.
"It has hooves." Unmistakable outrage.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
In public, he was still usually a little more reserved, but he swung her around now, properly into his arms. His brows had lifted pointedly, but he was unable to fully repress that laugh she loved so much. His forehead came down to rest on hers. "God, you're lucky I adore you."
Sylvie was smiling as she slipped her arms around his shoulders. "And despite your hopeless lack of imagination and tragic inclination toward minimalism, I love you madly. "
― , Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1)
15
" But it wasn't the photograph that caught her attention. It was what was tucked into the frame.
Dominic's eyes followed hers. And a tinge of color appeared in his cheeks.
Walking over, the butterflies skittering about her stomach, Sylvie reached out and touched the intricate little silhouette portrait of her own face. Her eyes lifted to Dominic's in-the-flesh face, which was currently much stiffer than that paper.
"Pet," he said. "She cut a couple of portraits in here one day when we were talking about Operation Cake. Yours and Mariana's."
"Yes. I saw Mariana's after you gave it to her." She ran her fingers around the paper contour of her plait, dropped her hand to the desk. "You didn't give me mine, though."
"No, I didn't."
"Because... we didn't get along? And you wanted to keep Pet's artwork?"
"I did want to have some of Pet's art." Dominic's jaw ticked. "And somewhere along the line, I wanted that one in particular."
Sylvie swallowed. "
― , Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1)
16
" It's evident which drawing came from which mind," Johnny said with a small grin, and certainly, the pâte de verre flowers and spiraling tiers of Sylvie's cake said "Sugar Fair" as distinctly as the clean lines and elegant piping pointed to De Vere's. "But..."
But at the essential level, the cakes were remarkably similar. They had both chosen a stained-glass effect, constructed entirely from blown sugar, each tier designed to catch the light and cast a shimmering cascade of color. Peony poppies, primroses, and petunias glittered within the sugar glass.
And on the highest tier, the Midnight Elixir cake, they had both incorporated a trinity knot. "
― , Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1)
