Cream Puffs and Courtship

Chapter 5- The Tea Party

The tea room was a lot bigger than what Evie expected. There was a bay window that had fluffy red pillows and let massive amounts of sunlight in. There was a fireplace on the left side of the room and a chess table on the right. In the center, there was a large, circular table surrounded with comfy wooden chairs.

A man and a woman sat next to each other on one side. They looked nearly identical so Evie concluded that they must be siblings. The woman was wearing a long, blue dress with minimal makeup. The look was completed with a simple forehead tiara similar to the one that Tina was wearing. The man was wearing an official military coat with a crown sitting upon his head.

And sitting at the head of the table was an older woman who was dressed in a navy blue pegged dress. The large crown that sat on her head was a symbol of the amount of power she had and her posture was rigid.

Tina strutted into the room and gave a soft smile and curtsied.

"Mother. Prince Alexander. Princess Elianna." She greeted. "It's lovely to see you again. I hope your travels were satisfactory."

"They were excellant. Thank you, Princess."

"It was my pleasure." Tina said with a smile. "I would like to introduce Evelyn Delany. She has brought us the lovely pastries that I have told you about. I invited her to sit down with us before she returns to her place of work if you do not object?"

Evie stepped forward slightly and curtsied.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Evelyn. I do hope you'll accept our invitation to join us?" The queen said.

"The pleasure is all mine your highnesses. I would love to stay for a little bit." Evie said, giving a sigh of relief when she didn't stumble over her words.

"Wonderful. Please, take a seat."

Evie looked over to Tina who was moving towards the seat near the prince. That left the seat next to the queen open. Evie sucked in a breath and then sat down as gracefully as she could. She crossed her ankles, just like she had read in her favorite books, and then straigtened her shoulders to a point where it was slightly painful.

"Now that everyone is present. I would like to firstly give my official welcome to you, Prince Alexander and Princess Elianna. I don't think my daughter could have phrased it any better so I simply say welcome."

The pair nodded towards the queen.

"It is customary for us to welcome new guests with the pastries from Lexia's most popular bakery, Carla's, so please enjoy yourselves."

The boxes that Evie had brought were placed onto the table and opened by the guards. No one moved until the guard carefully took one out of the box and took a bite. After 30 seconds and of nothing happening, Evie started to panic. Was the guard testing to see if the cream puffs were good enough? Did he decide that they weren't and that's why no one was doing anything?

Then just as silently as they had come, the guards left. The queen then smiled and took the nearest cream puff. Evie looked at Tina to see what she was doing and when Tina nodded at her, she eagerly dove into a cream puff. The group ate in silence for a while until the queen was done eating.

After a little bit more talking, which Evie expertly decided to stay quiet during, Tina stood up and signaled for Evie to follow her. Once they were well out of the queen's hearing range, Tina lifted her hand for Evie to give her a high five.

"You did bloody brilliant! I told you my mom is harmless." Tina said.

"I barely said anything." Evie said.

"That's what made it great. I cannot tell you how many people I have brought over who just blab about themselves the whole time. So when you just sat there quietly, that was great."

"Oh well thank you? I was just trying not to say something stupid."

"Well you didn't so good for you. Now, I'm going to give you my number so that you can call me to come bake cream puffs. I trust that you won't give this to anyone else?"

"Of course!" Evie said slightly overwhelmed.

"Alright great. Please put my contact name as Tina because that's no one suspects that Tina means Princess Valentina."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Well I mean I'm just a random student who got lucky and now you, the princess, are giving me your phone number."

"You brought me cream puffs. Isn't that enough reason?" Tina said in complete seiousness. "Anyway, I should probably let you get back to your job."

"Oh, yeah, right." Evie said.

The pair made their way down the stairs and then, just as Tina was going to open the door, someone else opened it. The man was dressed in a white dress shirt and black pants. Something that Evie could only assume was the jacket of his suit was slung over his shoulder.

"Hey Dev! I thought you didn't get home til later?" Tina said flinging herself onto her brother.

Evie's jaw dropped when she realized who he was. She stood staring but not at his muscles that were cearly visible through his thin shirt and not at his chisled jaw line that made girls drool. She was staring at his eyes.

His bright, hazel eyes.

A/N-  Hello lovelies!!! Sorry for the slight cliffhanger but, you can come back on Friday to see what happens next! If you enjoyed this chapter please give it a vote and maybe leave a nice comment. Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you Friday!