I bent over the bouquet obediently; a warm, heady essence rose to meet me, the very scent of sunshine.
“Oh!” I could not help but smile.
“How marvelous,” said Donella. “Your Highness, however did you come by them?”
“I needed to send a messenger to that part of the world and asked him to try and bring me back a few blooms. I must say, Mistress Bulgar, your smile makes it more than worth the trouble.”
Emotions such as I’d never before experienced swamped me. Warmth, comfort, gratification. For the first time in my life, I felt truly valued.
“Your Highness, will you stay and take some refreshment?” Donella asked.
“I’m afraid I cannot. I’m on my way to a state reception and just stopped in to deliver those.” He tipped his head. “I don’t suppose, Mistress Bulgar, you would care to accompany me?”
“To a reception?”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t possibly.” Mother might be there. My sisters might. I sought desperately for a viable excuse. “I—I am not dressed.”
“Of course. I should have afforded you more notice. Perhaps next time?”
What could I say? There he stood, magnificent from head to toe, requesting my company. Mine. Cinder-Ugly.
“I—would be honored.”
“As would I.” He bowed again, bid Donella good day, and left the parlor.
I sank into the nearest chair, the exotic flowers in my hands.
For several long moments neither Donella nor I spoke. Then I said brokenly, “Of course I can never go. Mother might see me. At the very least, she’d find out.”
“That’s not fair.” Donella stamped her foot. “Cindra, she no longer controls your life.”
“You don’t understand. She does.”
“No, you’re free of her now.”
I shook my head. The golden flowers blurred before my eyes.
Donella came and knelt in front of me. “Cindra, dear, he likes you.”
“No.”
“He does. He got you those flowers and brought them to you with his own hands.”
I could feel my heart breaking. “He’s wonderful. But he’s the Prince. Donella—look at me.”
“He’s been looking at you, dear. It hasn’t turned him away.”
“How could I accompany him to a reception, or anywhere? I’m clumsy. I’d drop my food. Trip. Say the wrong thing. There are scores of pitfalls.”
“I think we need to order you a ball gown. Lavender, I imagine. Or no—gold. Look how the color of those flowers warms your eyes. A glorious, golden gown.”
“No.” I seized her hand. “I can’t do it, Donella. I never can.”
I think Robin spoke with the Prince after that—explained about me. He must have filled Rupert in on at least some of the details of my background, for though Rupert continued to visit the house often and sometimes stayed for dinner, he did not press his invitation to any upcoming event.
He continued to treat me gently and kindly, and while in his company I sometimes forgot about how ugly I was.
Chapter Ten
My father visited Robin’s house on occasion, my mother and sisters never. Once or twice Robin and Donella went to affairs at my parents’ home; I never went along. My one happiness—outside of Donella’s company and seeing the Prince—lay in the garden, which reached completion before the end of that summer.
By then we’d learned that Donella was expecting. She bloomed like one of her own flowers, becoming even more beautiful, her eyes shining and her skin aglow. We spent most of each day in the garden, where she chatted while she watched me work; I no longer let her do any heavy lifting. We spoke of names for the child and decorations for the nursery, and ignored the increasing rumors of war.
Then one evening Donella and Robin returned from dinner at my parents’ and came directly to me.
“Dear,” said Donella, “there is something we must tell you. Your mother is unwell.”
“Is it the ague?” She used to take that badly at least once a year.
“No. Something quite other than that, I’m afraid.”
“Just tell her,” Robin said. “Perhaps she’ll appreciate the irony.”
I looked at him askance. His voice carried the hard edge it always assumed, now, when he spoke of Mother.
Donella sat down beside me. “Several weeks ago, she put herself in the hands of a surgeon and went under the knife.”
I didn’t understand. “Why?”
Robin answered tersely, “Apparently, she no longer believed her face to be perfect. She found a surgeon willing to take a stitch here and make a tuck there.”
“She had an operation? On her face?” But Mother’s face epitomized perfection—nose narrow and regal, blue eyes set slightly atilt in a complexion like pale rose petals.
“Yes, and the procedure went badly. There’s a reason none of her regular doctors would agree to touch her. Now she’s taken an infection and is quite ill.”
“She stayed in her bed the whole time we were there,” Donella added. “We did go up and see her. She is very swollen and unhappy. The point is she won’t be attending any functions for a while. You might accompany Rupert, if you will.”
“He has stopped asking me.”
“Only because I explained to him how things stand between you and Mother,” Robin told me. “Oh, not the details. But he understands there’s been a break between the two of you and you don’t wish to encounter her.”
“I still can’t…Bethessa and Nelissa…”
“Are you going to let them run your life? Don’t you think they’ve hurt you enough?”
“I couldn’t. I can’t possibly face them.”
Robin sighed. “Forgive me, but I believe Mother’s got exactly what she deserves. And both Nelissa and Bethessa are riding for a fall. They’ve thrown themselves at Rupert relentlessly, and it won’t be long before he puts them in their places and no mistake.” Robin’s dark eyes met mine. “Neither of them has what he wants. I believe he knows exactly what he wants.”
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“Someone with whom he can be at ease, comfortable. A woman with whom he need not be the Prince every moment of his life.”
“I hope he finds her. He deserves to be happy,” I said devoutly.
“Idiot,” Robin said fondly. “Can’t you see the truth? He’s not sending any other woman in the kingdom flowers every day.”
I stumbled to my feet. “Oh, no. I…”
“Don’t push her, Robin,” said Donella at the same moment. “She must do this in her own time.”
“Yes, I know.” Robin shook his head. “I still say Mother has much for which to answer.”
“She’s answering for it now,” Donella told him, “in the most painful way.”
****
All that night I thought about what they’d said and what Robin had implied, and rejected the implication whole. Rupert—Prince of all the land and soon to be King—could not possibly be interested in me. Not but I might wish him to be. But such dreams simply did not come true. Anyway, it would prove half dream and half nightmare. How could I possibly be what such a man needed?
The next day, Robin left the house to attend a business meeting, and Donella went to her mother’s to plan a layette. Alone in the garden, I attempted to sort through my troubled thoughts. No sooner had I begun to relax, however, than one of the servants showed Rupert into the space.
Looking up to see him approach me down the flagged path, I couldn’t prevent a smile of delighted surprise. “Oh, hello!”
He gave a slight bow and waited for the maid to move away before he said, “Mistress Bulgar, I have come crying sanctuary.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I need somewhere to hide for a time, away from the generals and the statesmen and all the others clamoring for my ear. Naturally, I thought of this place. It is the very heart of peace.”
“It is, isn’t it?” I couldn’t help but agree
. “Especially on such a morning as this.” I nodded sympathetically. “Of course you are welcome, Your Highness. Stay as long as you like.”
“Thank you kindly. And here, for a time, might I not cease to be ‘Highness’? Do you think I might just be Rupert while we talk together?”
“Well, if you like.” I began to climb to my feet, but he forestalled me.
“No, don’t rise—you make far too lovely a picture there among the flowers, with the sun on your hair.”
I froze. Me, a lovely picture? Surely not. While working in the garden, I always wore my oldest gowns. My hands bore a coating of dirt, and my hair, never well-behaved, straggled down my neck.
But he went on, “I have no wish to interrupt your work. I’ll just sit here, shall I?”
The old bench had been replaced by a far more comfortable one, close at hand. He sat there, laid his head back, and closed his eyes like a man exhausted—or seeking something. I continued to kneel where I was, trowel in one hand, but the temptation to study him while I had a chance proved irresistible.
How pleasing the lines of his face in repose, how dear to me they had become. I watched as the tension drained out of him, the knot between his brows eased, his jaw relaxed. Oh, how I liked the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and the way the golden-brown hair spilled over his forehead—the tiny golden hairs on the backs of his hands now folded on his knee.
This day, he wore not the costume of state—indeed, he might have been any ordinary man wearing brown trousers and a plain white shirt he’d opened at the neck. I could see a crop of golden-brown hair there, too, rising and falling with his breaths.
Heat suffused me and I fought it back. I had no right to feel thus about this man. A Prince. I’d spent my life subjugating my feelings. Surely I could continue doing so now.
The quiet of the garden returned. The sunlight shone down, birds fluttered and sang, a butterfly visited the blossoms of the bee balm plants, all in turn. Rupert appeared to doze, and I refrained from disturbing him, wondering a little what heavy troubles he’d put aside to come here today.
My own ease had been restored before he said, “What is it you’re doing?”
I looked up to find his gaze resting on me. Steady and green, his eyes appeared to make no judgments, and a faint smile hovered around his lips.
I answered without my usual awkwardness, “I’m transplanting herbs. Donella wanted first to concentrate on the flower beds, but I love herbs, and we saved this plot for them.”
“You love herbs?”
“Yes. I used to tend the herb beds back at my father’s house.”
“Have I been sending you the wrong bouquets all this while? Flowers instead of herbs?”
I sat back on my heels. “Oh, no. I love the flowers you send. Besides, that first bouquet you sent had something fragrant in it—thyme, I think.”
“You remember what was in the first bouquet?”
“Of course. I have it still, pressed in one of my books.”
The smile lit his entire face. “Why do you like herbs so much?”
“I think because they are so fragrant. I sometimes like to carry a sprig with me just for that reason.”
“Ah. Must be why you always smell so good.”
He said it casually, yet heat flooded me again. This time, though, I didn’t look away from his eyes. I gazed at him and he at me.
“Mistress Bulgar…” he began.
I whispered, “Best to call me Cindra, is it not? If I’m to call you Rupert. Especially here.”
“Yes, for it’s an enchanted place, isn’t it? At least that’s how it feels to me when I come. A little bower apart from everything, containing one particularly unique flower.”
My eyes widened. “I…”
“You don’t know how to take a compliment. I understand. Your brother—well, I hope you don’t mind, but he explained a few things to me. Cindra, you don’t have to accept my compliments. Please, just let me speak them.”
The trowel fell from my fingers. I carefully set down the tiny rosemary plant I held in my other hand. I wanted to run, to hide. I wanted to stay there with him more than anything in the world.
I choked out, “I don’t know what Robin told you…”
“Not much. Just why you would find it difficult to accompany me anywhere your mother or sisters might appear. That is why I stopped asking, not because I would not like your company, Cindra. But I would never wish to make you uncomfortable.”
“I am always uncomfortable, it seems,” I admitted with shame.
“Surely not here, among your plants?”
“Well, no.”
“Here you can be you, and I can be me.”
Another silence fell. I resumed working, bedding the tiny seedlings into the soil.
“You know,” he said then, musing, “I’ve encountered your mother and your sisters many times. May I be honest with you?”
“Yes.”
“Three less appealing women I’ve rarely met.”
My gaze flew to his, startled; my lips parted.
“And,” he went on, “I’ve met women all over the world. Many beautiful women. I’ve found that what makes them beautiful isn’t what’s outside but rather what’s inside.”
“Oh.”
“One of the most appealing women I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting was in the Sultanship of Kreem. She had a scar on her face that ran from here to here.” He traced a path from his temple to his cheek.
I continued to gape. “Then how could she be beautiful?”
“She had a beautiful spirit. I would have stayed there with her if I could.”
“Oh.”
“But I had duties.” He smiled ruefully. “And she was wife to another—he who gave her the scar.”
“Oh,” I said yet again. “If I might ask—”
“You may ask me anything, Cindra. I hope you’ll never hesitate, with me.”
“What made you wish to stay with her?”
“She had the most wonderful eyes I’d ever seen. Ever seen…up till now.”
“Rupert, I am not…”
“Cindra, forgive me for disagreeing, but you cannot see yourself.”
“I can. Mirrors—”
“No mirror will show you what I see when I look at you. Your eyes, Cindra, are dark and fathomless as a desert night. They reflect the woman you are—kind and compassionate.”
I began to shake my head.
He went on, “I expect you’ve mistaken your sisters as beautiful.”
“Yes.” Oh, yes.
“Well, since we’re speaking honestly, just the two of us here, I’ll confess both of them make my skin crawl.”
That I certainly couldn’t believe. Men had been chasing my sisters with enthusiasm since they’d made their debuts into society.
But Rupert’s brow wrinkled in disgust. “Each of them, in turn, has thrown herself at me in the most shameless fashion. Bethessa even offered me a sample of her…er…charms ahead of the wedding, as it were.”
“And you refused?”
“Good God, do you think I want that in my bed?”
His horror sounded so genuine, it made me laugh. Sudden mirth arose, and I succumbed to it as seldom before; I laughed until I cried.
Rupert laughed with me.
“Oh,” I gasped at last, “I would have loved to see Bethessa’s face.”
“It was a study—insulted and accommodating all at once. Cindra, I like it when you laugh.”
“So do I,” I admitted.
“Then henceforth, I shall have to make tickling your fancy my life’s work.”
Chapter Eleven
Rupert came every day after that, usually in late morning. He would come walking down from the castle, dressed just like an ordinary fellow, and sit with me for an hour or so. He always brought me flowers. And frequently he succeeded in making me laugh.
Robin told me later the Prince had built that time into his day—informed his advisors he needed a constitution
al. If it rained, he came anyway, arriving with the shoulders of his coat wet and his hair darkened to the color of raw honey. We would sit in the parlor together and play a game he taught me, something he’d picked up during his travels in the East.
Since Robin was usually away at his work and Donella invariably left us, citing household duties, we frequently found ourselves alone, which I suppose was not strictly proper. But I lived for those hours and for the moment when, at parting, Rupert lifted my fingers to his lips. This he did even if they bore a coating of garden soil.
Then he would smile, his green eyes would sparkle, and I’d smile too.
“He’s courting you,” Donella insisted, though I refused to consider any such thing.
Robin agreed. “He’s stopped so much as looking at other women.”
Donella ordered me a whole new crop of what she called “gardening frocks.” Simple in design, she chose an assortment of charming prints and blithely told me I must feel free to get them as muddy as I liked.
I began to feel…but I had no words to describe it. Not beautiful, never that, not for all Rupert’s subtle compliments. My standard of beauty—if not his—was too high. Perhaps the word whole comes closest to describing it: I felt whole in his company.
One morning I went so far as to mention it. The time neared for him to leave and return to the meetings, supplicants, and other demands of his life. We’d been very silly that morning, lounging in the garden, playing games, and laughing at nonsense. Rupert had tucked a bloom in my hair—a yellow nasturtium—and the look in his eyes stole my breath.
I asked in a whisper, “Rupert, are you courting me?”
“I am. Couldn’t you tell? I must be doing a damned poor job of it, then.”
“Well, I thought—perhaps we were friends.”
“We are friends. I’m courting my friend, you see.”
“Oh.”
“Cindra, I’m no courtier. I have no glib words. But if you could see what’s in my heart…”
“I think I can.”
“Then please don’t doubt me.” He rose from the bench where we sat and pulled me up also, by the hand. “Life is not easy right now. I fear what must come. I wish a hundred things were different, but yes, I am most definitely courting you.”
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