by Tia Nevitt
He opened his mouth to object, but no sound came out.
“See?” she said. “Even you can’t argue.”
“I have to admit it is a good idea. We could be Stump and Stumpy.”
“No. I refuse to have a nickname.”
He looked at her askance. “Stump and Gretchen would hardly work.”
“No, but Lars and Gretchen would.”
His eyes widened, and then he smiled. “Yes,” he said, his voice a murmur. “I like the sound of that...very much.”
Her heart began to hammer when she realized he was going kiss her. This time, when his lips touched hers, it was as if she felt a shock deep within her. It was the same sort of visceral unidentifiable feeling within her that had led her to follow him in the night and watch him as he bathed. She felt his arms wrap around her, and she could not help but to cling to him as their lips merged together. She hardly felt in control of herself as she returned his kiss. She remembered the wonder and terror she had felt at the thought of Lars in love with her. Now she felt that same wonder and terror at the strength of her response.
Love? Of course it was love. How could it be anything else?
And she knew this was what she came here for. She would have been satisfied to go home with a man who met her standards of decency.
Instead, she’d found someone she could love.
* * *
All through the night, Richard sat by Angelika’s side, administering the antidote as the doctor had prescribed and keeping watch for any sign of change. The minstrel, Johann, stayed with him. Gradually, her breathing grew stronger until Richard could see her breasts lift with every breath. The color returned to her face, and she began to stir in her sleep.
He leaned forward, recalling the last time he had tended a sleeping woman. Except this time, the woman in question had already claimed his heart.
“Angelika,” he said softly.
Her head turned his way.
She was so beautiful in repose. Hers was a simple, delicate beauty, the everyday blossoming of the rose, rather than the rare flowering of the bamboo. He recalled the way he used to think, the way he wanted to possess that beauty of which had never been seen before. His heart cringed at his selfishness.
And then, perhaps to atone for that earlier kiss, as a way of erasing that deed in his mind and starting over, Richard kissed her.
Her brows lifted. Then her eyes fluttered open. And she looked at him with bleary eyes.
He smiled and realized that the time he had awakened Sybelle had been a sham. A woman waking after an unnatural sleep does not smile and stretch. She would look slightly green, as Ange did now.
“‘And he woke her with a kiss,’” Johann said from his corner.
Richard cut him a glare. “She was already waking up.”
Johann smiled. “It makes a nice addition to the story.”
Richard looked down again at Angelika. “How do you feel?”
She tried to sit, then her face paled and she fell back onto the cot. “Like...like I’m going to be sick.”
Johann popped up. “I’ll get Frau Marta.”
While Johann ran for the door, Richard lunged for the basin. Ange leaned over the edge of the bed, and then Richard held her head as her stomach released such a stenchful bile that he wondered if it would kill her yet. However, within a very short period, Angelika lifted her head and asked for water. He took away the basin and fetched her a cup. After a few careful sips, she reported that she was feeling much better.
Wondering what had become of the minstrel, Richard looked up. Both Johann and Frau Marta stood in the doorway.
Richard stood. “I’ll leave her in your care, Frau. However, if you please, I need a word with her when she is able.”
“I am able,” Ange said.
“You may be sick again,” he said gently. “It can wait.” With a nod at Frau Marta, he left.
* * *
An hour later, Ange accepted Marta’s help to the parlor, where she found Richard attempting to pace in a room that was too small for him. The sight almost made her want to smile, but he looked so grave that he did not. He bowed and Ange curtsied. Then she sat in one of the chairs. Richard knelt beside her chair and sat back on his heels.
“I have a proposal to solve your problem and mine.”
“My problem?”
“The matter of your stepmother.” He sighed. “Your stepmother has the guardianship of the throne until you turn twenty-one, which, I am told, is a few years off. I fear your stepmother has no intention of letting you live that long.”
“Yes,” she said, “that much is clearly correct. I tried so hard to be a good stepdaughter, but she just...hates me.”
“I think it’s more that you are an obstacle to her.”
“Then why would she come after me simply because you told her that...that I was...” She pressed her lips.
“That you are more beautiful than she? I’m not certain. She knows of her beauty. She even told me that she doesn’t need me to tell her she is beautiful. There’s something missing here...some other reason she always asks me that question, and I think I’ve puzzled out what it is.”
She looked at him with a frown. “What is it?”
He leaned back. “I think, years ago, she cast a love spell on me. And I think she asks the question because while it is working, I will always think she is the fairest one of all.”
“And when you find someone else who is fairer than she?”
“Then she will know that her spell is weakening.”
This made sense, except for one thing. “Why would this love spell be so important to her?”
He eyed her. “You should know the answer to that question.”
She stared off behind him. “Ah, yes. Envy.”
“She has been the fairest so long that she will do anything to keep it that way.”
“And she would do even more prevent me from being the one who supplants her. How long have you been under this spell?” Ange asked.
“Since shortly after that summer you and I met at the wedding. For all that time, it seemed like I had a madness. I could only think of her, of hearing her each morning and night, and of telling her that she was still the fairest in the land, even as I dreaded the questions she would ask.” He looked up at her. “And then I met you. I already thought you were lovely, but when I saw your outrage concerning that poor flower girl, and when I saw you passing out the coins, my heart was lost to you. And when the mirror called that evening after the procession, I was in dread of what she would do to you.”
She shifted uncomfortably at his words and wondered where all of this was leading. “What did you want to propose that would solve both of our problems?”
“Yes. Propose.” He pursed his lips. “We should marry.”
Her heart felt like it dropped within her. For a moment, she could only blink at him. Despite her supposed beauty, this was the first marriage proposal she’d ever had. And it was more like a marriage suggestion than a proposal. “Marry?”
“By marrying me, you render moot your requirement to be of age before you inherit. I am already of age, thus enabling you to inherit the throne through me.”
“And what do I bring to you?”
He paused. “Perhaps you can release me from this spell for once and for all.”
She shook her head. “It would be a sad thing to marry only because it would solve our problems.”
He gaped at her and seemed unable to spe
ak for a moment. “But it would not be that way! At least not for me! By God, Angelika—I love you. You were like the dawn to me. You showed me what royalty should be.”
She felt her brows lift as he spoke. He seemed so earnest, but...
“You saw what I was like years ago, during the summer of that wedding,” he was saying. “I was wealthy and pampered and admired for nothing more than what I was born into. But you—” His gaze shifted somewhere beyond her. “I saw you walking through the streets looking as poor as a church beggar, yet holding a ransom in coins. And you were so beloved that no one tried to take it from you.” His eyes met hers again. “It seemed unreal. In that moment, everything changed.”
She was silent for a long moment, and she bit her lip. He must have realized that she had something difficult to say, because he backed away and took a seat near her. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them as she thought of what she needed to say.
“You said I was fairest,” she finally said. “You should know that it’s hard for me to trust men who find me beautiful. I agree that we can help each other, but when you say you love me, well...” She looked up at him. “Is it me you really love? Or my appearance?”
The prince was silent. She watched him as he sat with his forearms on his thighs and his head bowed.
“You see,” she said, “now you want to possess me. Now you feel you must have me. Don’t you think this has happened to me before? I know what beauty does to a man. I saw it happen to my own father.”
“It is not for your beauty alone that I propose to you.”
“Oh? What happens in ten years, when my breasts are sagging from nursing and my hips have spread from childbirth? When my hair turns dull and gray?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. She wondered what he would say. More protestations of love? A meaningless oath of undying devotion?
When he lifted his head, she was surprised to see a wry smile.”Do you have any idea how tired I am of beauty?”
She felt her breath catch.
He lifted his head and met her eyes. “Every day for years I have looked upon the face of a woman who had a beauty that was almost supernatural. I’m sick of it.” His slashing hand cut the air.
She stared at him in silence for a moment. “But you just said you thought I was lovely when you first met me. You said I was the fairest. If beauty sickens you, how can you stand to look at me?”
“When I first met you, I was indifferent to you. Yes, you were lovely. So are a thousand other girls.” He fell silent, as if to stop himself.
“So?”
“You didn’t become fairest to me,” he said with a steadfast gaze, “until you became my friend and I saw who you were behind all that beauty.” He sighed. “If you had been a plain woman, I might have found it easier to love you.”
“That’s easy for you to say now that—” She stopped. Abashed at what she was about to say, she did not continue.
His warm chuckle filled the room. “Now that I have fallen for the fairest woman of all?”
“No!”
His voice became teasing. “Are you so convinced of your own beauty that you can’t comprehend someone wanting you in spite of it rather than because of it?”
She felt her mouth drop open. This marriage proposal was getting worse and worse.
“No,” he said with another insufferable smile, “I can see that I’ve gone too far. Your stepmother has provided ample example of the evils of vanity. That will not be your flaw.”
“My flaw?”
“Yes, you must have one. Do you snore?”
“No, I don’t snore!”
“Of course not. Perhaps you pick your scabs?”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I—”
“Silly question,” he said. “Such flawless skin has never been picked at.”
“What of you?” she shot back. “What is your flaw?”
“My largest flaw at the moment,” he said at once, “is my inability to make a decent proposal of marriage.”
She stared at him for a moment. Then she managed a weak chuckle.
He took her hand and just held it for a moment. His hand was warm.
“I realize that you are frightened, and I know you don’t love me now,” he said. “But if you marry me, every day you would be queen of my heart. Even when you are great with child, your face blotchy with the exertions of labor, I will find you fairest of all.”She could almost feel his eyes upon her as he watched her. “You, I think, are not used to being loved. Your mother died before you could feel her love, and your father loved himself more than anyone else. You must crave love. I will give it to you, and you will come to know me and love me in return.” He smiled gently. “I know in my heart that it will be so.”
She thought about what she had said to Gretchen. She did have respect for Richard—and admiration for the valiant way he never stopped fighting his curse. He had an intensity about him that she had found attractive even when she was thirteen. And because of the hardships he had endured, he was more thoughtful than any other prince or noble she had known.
Yes, she was frightened. But not of him, only of the future. And what he said had the ring of truth, not only in his conviction in his own words, but his prediction that she would love him. Perhaps it had started already. Perhaps they could make it come true.
“Then,” she said, her voice husky, “I suppose we must marry.”
Chapter Fifteen
Gretchen was no longer accustomed to people staring at her. She shrank away as the people stopped to point, as if she and Lars were a wonder while they walked through the streets.
“There’s two of them!” someone said in delight.
“Imagine what they’d think of Dieter’s farm,” Lars murmured.
And suddenly—she wasn’t sure why—Gretchen felt better.
At the gates of the castle, no one stopped them. In fact, a grizzled captain let them through with a wide grin, as if anticipating the entertainments they would provide. Nor did anyone stop them until they reached the great double doors that led to the throne room. Lars seemed to know what to do.
“Lars and Gretchen to see the queen,” he said as he began to juggle three coins. He kept them spinning for a few moments before he caught them one by one.
A guard opened the door, conferred for a moment with someone beyond, and after a wait of a few moments, they were waved through. To Gretchen’s astonishment, Lars didn’t walk through—he cartwheeled. Over and over, he turned from one end of the hall to the other, as if he were a runaway wheel. Not knowing what else to do, Gretchen walked alongside him. There were a large number of people here—courtiers and petitioners. And they all watched Lars’s entrance with amusement.
When he reached the front of the room, the last cartwheel turned seamlessly into a bow. Hurriedly, Gretchen curtsied.
“Well!” the queen said.”It seems like small people have invaded this town.”
Gretchen wondered what that meant. In the meantime, she looked distractedly at Lars, for he was still bowing. But a moment later, his feet popped into the air and he was walking on his hands.
“Other dwarfs such as I?” he said. “Such as my small friend here? Remarkable! Have them summoned! We shall shake hands! Or rather—feet!”
He wagged his foot. A ripple of laughter went through the room.
“Very well,” said the queen. “Have my newest guard summoned,” she
said to an aide, who hurried off.
In the meantime, Lars rolled toward the back wall. This time, he went hand over feet, first down on his hands, then flinging his feet over his head to land on the other side. He kept this up until he was under a large ornate mirror. Gretchen was glad no one was looking at her. She had never made a spectacle of herself, and she tended to avoid situations where it might happen.
“Is this the famous looking-glass I’ve heard tell about?”Lars asked. “The one that tells any truth, whether known or unknown?”
“The tales have apparently grown tall, but yes, it is.”
The queen watched him with amusement. Gretchen was a bit fascinated herself. She had never seen him behave this way before. It reminded her of the way the Spielmann was before his audience.
“I’m curious about something, as well,” the queen said as Lars jumped up to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. “Are you...in every way...a man?”
A titter rippled through the hall. Gretchen’s mouth fell open at the audacity of the question.
But Lars seemed unsurprised. “In every way, madam.” He grabbed his codpiece and gave it a tug. “In size, shape and function.”
As she recalled seeing him under the moonlight, Gretchen blushed.
Lars looked around the room. He spotted a chest, went over to it and with a grunt, started pushing it toward the mirror. Gretchen looked at the queen to see her reaction, but other than a lifted brow, she seemed unperturbed.
Then the queen smiled. “Now you really have me curious. Perhaps I’d like a demonstration.” Gretchen gasped in outrage. “With one of the servants, possibly. Or maybe even with your little companion here.” At this, Gretchen became alarmed, and she looked at Lars. He, however, made no response. Instead, was climbing onto the chest. He looked into the mirror, and Gretchen thought she saw him mutter something. Then he suddenly started windmilling his arms as he almost fell backwards off the chest. A titter rippled through the room. Gretchen ran toward him, and the queen laughed again as he steadied himself. Gretchen frowned.