The grand duke had instructed me to build a friendship with the imperial crown prince, and this looked like it would make things much easier.
Honestly, few things are more grueling than getting close to a total stranger.
"You do know the Bavarian princess will be your stepmother, Your Highness?"
"I'm beside myself over that too. A mother the same age as Eva."
This may be a world where political marriages run rampant and couples with staggering age gaps come about all the time, but from a child's perspective, it's the same in any era: having a mother younger than yourself is horrifying.
But since it was a political marriage between states, the crown prince's opinion didn't matter. Meanwhile, strange rumors about me and the princess who'd become his stepmother had also been spreading, and the imperial crown prince apparently found this immensely entertaining.
