Chapter Ten: Tears and Trouble
Mary made a speech at the opening of the French environmental conference. It was exciting because she believed that the oceans were important and she wanted to protect them from pollution. But the early morning news only focused on what she was wearing!
"It's not fair," the king's teenage daughter groused, clumping into her stepmother's luxurious hotel suite with a frowning face.
"I told you that black dress would get people talking." Queen Jane was having breakfast from a tray in bed. She stopped long enough to give her scowling stepdaughter a top to bottom look. "Now in those boots and scruffy jeans and that gray sweatshirt, you could be any old girl. The boys won't even notice you."
"I'm not trying to turn boys' heads and attract attention," Mary protested. "I'm just going to the offshore sea lab to examine the coral growths and the seawater samples. Bernard arranged it."
"Oh he did, did he?" Queen Jane gave Mary a look over the rim of her elegant china coffee cup. "Playing out of your league, dear?"
"I went for a walk on the beach this morning." Mary blushed, because she'd gone out while her stepmother was still resting. "The Deputy Science Minister was just having a morning swim. But he said thank you for the fabulous time last night. He said you went to a club together after I went to bed. He said you were, uh, magnifique!"
"It was a dance club." Jane shrugged. "The French love to dance."
"But with the scandal . . . don't you think father . . ." Just then the phone by the bed gave a trill, and Jane snatched it up like a baby eating sweets. "Bernard? Non, non, je ne dors pas encore. J'ai passé un moment fabuleux! Oui, j'adorerais déjeuner . . .
"I'm really worried about my stepmother," Mary sighed, late that afternoon. She was sailing back to shore in a Sunfish, a small two-person craft that the sea lab staff used to get back and forth.
"Worried how?" Doctor Daphne Dumont was steering the craft, her strong brown hands confidently controlling the wooden tiller. Mary thought she was the most amazing woman. Daphne's credentials as a marine biologist were top notch. She was athletic, attractive, and terribly magnetic, yet even though she was in her forties she had never married. Her career clearly came first, and all the male scientists who worked with her were okay with that.
"Jane is so good at looking good, but I'm not sure she understands about being good. If my father finds out . . ."
"Ah!" Daphne didn't need to hear the whole story. Her suntanned face and dark brown eyes were full of knowing sympathy. "You love your father, but you love Jane too. The king sees nothing. And you see it all. But you do not want him to see!"
"I want Jane to grow up! I want her to be someone I can count on, like . . . like my mother Katherine." Mary was angry, too angry to even care when she began crying in front of a total stranger.
"Ah, sweet girl, you are not to blame." The French lady scientist leaned forward. She only wanted to wipe the tears from Mary's face. But somehow when she touched Mary's cheek she lost control of the tiller. Just then a wave hit and the craft capsized.