Valencia's POV
I feel like I'm floating. Though breakfast started off rocky, John and I found a little pergola nestled amidst the garden, out of sight from the hustle and bustle of the preparations to take breakfast and talk. We hurried with our plates that we quickly prepared in the dining hall before anything or anyone else could intervene and steal my nerve. We literally piled just about everything we could on the dishes and darted from the hall like pirates after a siege. My face was flushed with embarrassment when I realized what we had just done, and they fact that I had done it with reckless abandonment of my age, status, and responsibilities. In that moment, I was no longer the widowed mother of two incredible, teenage children. No longer the Queen’s maid or even Nicholi's former
