Queen of Babble in the Big City Read Free Page B

them!
     
    But supposing you are one of the millions of women who aren’t tall and slender? Which gown best suits you?
     
    Well, if you are short, with a fuller figure, why not try a gown with an empire waist? The flowing silhouette will make your body look longer and more slender. That’s why this style of gown was favored by both the ancient Greeks and the very fashion-conscious Josephine Bonaparte, Empress of France!

    L IZZIE N ICHOLS D ESIGNS ™

Chapter 3
    Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
    —Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950), American humorist
    I t’s my own fault, really. For believing in fairy tales.
    Not that I ever mistook them for actual historical fact, or anything.
    But I did grow up believing that for every girl, there’s a prince out there somewhere. All she has to do is find him. Then it’s on with the happily ever after.
    So you can only imagine what happened when I found out. That my prince really IS one. A prince.
    No, I really mean it. He’s an actual PRINCE.
    And okay, he isn’t exactly recognized, really, by his native land, since the French did a pretty thorough job of killing off most of their aristocracy over two hundred years ago.
    But in the case of my particular prince someone in his family managed to escape Madame Guillotine by hotfooting it to England, and years later, even managed to get the family castle back, probably through intense and prolonged litigation. If they were anything like the rest of his family, I mean.
    And okay, today owning your own château in the South of Francemeans about a hundred grand a year in taxes to the French government, and nonstop headaches over roof tiles and renters.
    But hey, how many guys do you know who actually own one? A château, I mean.
    But I swear to you, that’s not why I fell in love with him. I didn’t know about the title or the château when I met him. He never bragged about it. If he had, I would never have liked him in the first place. I mean, what woman would? That you’d want to be friends with, anyway.
    No, Luke acted exactly the way you’d expect a disenfranchised prince to act about his title—as if he were embarrassed by it.
    And he IS embarrassed by it, a little. That he’s a prince—an ACTUAL prince—and the only heir to a sprawling château (on a thousand-acre, sadly not very productive vineyard) a six-hour train ride from Paris. I only found out about it by accident, when I noticed this portrait of a very ugly man in the main hall at Château Mirac, and I noticed that on the nameplate, it said he was a prince, and he had the same last name as Luke.
    Luke didn’t want to admit it, but I finally pried it out of his dad. He says it’s a lot of responsibility, being a prince, and running a château and all. Well, not the prince thing, so much, but the château part. The only way he can do it all—and turn enough of a profit to pay off their taxes every year—is by renting the place out to rich American families, and the occasional film studio, to shoot period movies in. God knows his vineyard doesn’t turn much of a profit.
    But by the time I found out about it—the prince stuff—I was already head over heels for Luke. I knew right away he was the guy for me, the minute I sat down next to him on that train. Not that I thought he’d ever, in a million years, feel the same way about me and all. He just had such a nice smile—not to mention really long eyelashes, the kind that Shu Uemura try so hard to emulate—I couldn’t help falling for him.
    So the fact that he has a title and an estate are really just frosting on what’s already the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted. Luke isn’tlike any of the guys I knew in college. He isn’t the least bit interested in poker or sports. All he cares about is medicine—it’s his passion—and, well, me.
    Which suits me just fine.
    So I guess it’s only natural that I started planning my wedding immediately. Not