Chapter 17
For two days, arrangements had arrived from people who had not been invited to the ceremony but apparently possessed both influence and access to florists with no concept of restraint. Orchids crowded the foyer. Roses occupied side tables. Lilies stood in vases large enough to bathe in.
Alexander walked past them as if they were furniture.
I could not.
All I could see were the pediatric rooms at the hospital: pale walls, plastic chairs, children learning to be brave under fluorescent lights.
So I asked the estate manager to load the flowers into a van and deliver them to the children’s ward.
I felt useful for approximately four hours.
At eighteen hundred, Alexander found me in the library.
He was still in uniform.
“Where are the deliveries from the foyer?”
Something in his tone made me put down my book.
“I donated them.”
His face changed—not anger in the ordinary sense, but a sudden hard concentration.
“To whom?”
“The pediatric hospital.”
“Before security screened them?”
I sat straighter. “They were flowers.”
“They were foreign diplomatic deliveries to a secured residence.”
The distinction landed hard.
Alexander crossed to the desk and called Ethan.
Within minutes, a sweep team was dispatched to the hospital. Tracking devices. Listening equipment. Chemical exposure. The possibilities came quickly and clinically, each one making me feel smaller.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“You should have asked.”
His voice was too sharp.
My hands folded together in my lap.
“I was trying to do something kind.”
He looked at me.
The words I was not saying must have shown anyway.
His expression eased.
“I know.”
That surprised me enough to look up.
He exhaled slowly and sat opposite me.
“Your intention was not wrong. The procedure was. My world has security rules because people exploit ordinary things. Gifts. Cars. Phones. Flowers.”
“And now I’ve caused a crisis.”
“No. You’ve caused work. Ethan will survive the inconvenience.”
Against my will, I smiled.
“The donation can remain,” he continued. “We will have the hospital record the arrangements as gifts made in the envoys’ honour. It prevents a diplomatic slight.”
“You can do that?”
“It is already being done.”
Of course it was.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise for wanting sick children to have flowers. Learn the protocol.”
The simplicity of that distinction settled something in me.
Alexander did not need me to become afraid of making choices.
He needed me to understand the consequences attached to his life.
It was the first disagreement of our marriage.
Strangely, it left me trusting him more.
