THE next morning, Bertine personally delivered Lady Dalila’s breakfast to her room because she wanted to know her thoughts on the hotel. The woman welcomed her exuberantly.
“Bertine, this truly is a paradise! Wild birds perched on the third-floor railing, singing their songs! They weren’t frightened of me at all as I sat on the settee. They preened while they trilled then flew off in a flurry of wings. Tiny, scarlet birds!”
“Oh, yes, their birdsongs are quite long and a pleasure to listen to. I love them as well.”
“And dinner last night! My goodness! I could not get enough of the ball rabbit meat. So wonderfully delectable and completely different from the wild rabbits in the Empire!”
Bertine didn’t want to interrupt Lady Dalila’s effusive feedback, so she quietly placed the tray of food she carried onto the table. It was loaded with a platter of fruits, fresh bread, eggs, butter, jam, and tea.
“Wow! You were not joking about the variety of fruits to be found here! As much as I love the jams and marmalades made in the Federation, I must confess I’ve been dying to taste fresh fruit here. I know I’m only here for a week this time, but on my next visit, I plan to stay two weeks. No, a full month actually. Oh, but the more people learn about this place, the harder it will be for me to make a reservation in the future. Bother.”
Yes, yes, I completely understand how you feel, Bertine thought with a satisfied smile.
“I highly recommend you go for a stroll after breakfast,” Bertine said. “So many different flowers are blooming in the forest. Also, the hotel’s guests have free reign over the fruits in the nearby orchards because the owner and I have an agreement in place. You can also see flocks of emu walking down various paths in the orchards.”
“Emu, really?! I’ve only ever seen them in field guides. Bertine, you really did choose the perfect place for your hotel.”
Before she could stop herself, Bertine let slip a pleased chuckle.
Lady Dalila was particularly pleased with the star fruit liquor and declared that she would buy fifty bottles as souvenirs to share with people back in the Empire. When Bertine told Chief Bruno, he immediately made plans to produce more, saying, “If we don’t make more soon, we’ll find ourselves running short.”
✦ ✦ ✦
AT the end of her weeklong stay, Lady Dalila told Bertine over and over again how much she would have loved for Diana and Claudio to experience this as well. Then she left with a fond farewell.
It went without saying that soon after, Bertine received a flood of letters from the Empire to her home in Ybit requesting reservations at the Bilva Hotel. Bertine was so convinced of its success that she decided to budget for another hotel to be built a short distance away.
Sometime later, she sent Lady Dalila the two picture collections she had requested. The volume included illustrations of the hotel’s exterior, nearby flora and fauna, the hotel’s menu, and more. Bertine wrote the descriptions for all the pictures.
In her letter to Bertine, Lady Dalia complained that her friends would hold on to her books for much too long whenever she lent them out. Bertine also started receiving requests from others for the collections as well, so she ended up placing a rush order with the artist to produce even more copies of the drawings.
One year remained until Claudio’s birthday. The Chancellor of the Kingdom of San Luenne, Marquess Maxim du Jeanne, made steady progress on laying the groundwork for the boy’s success. Knowing that both the king and his son possessed neither the energy nor the desire to lead the country, the country’s other leaders immediately agreed to his confidential plans. If the Empire and the Federation joined forces, then they knew the path they needed to choose to survive.