CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I went at once to the bedroom where I knew Princess Isabella and Katherina slept, no doubt secure in the knowledge I would succeed in my quest to regain the princess’s ring. I opened the door and —
“Rosie!” Both girls leaped off the bed and ran to hug me.
I had forgotten how, at that age, I could stay awake all night talking about nothing and everything, solving Verona’s problems while simultaneously discussing acne cures, speculating on life and marriage, giggling about my parents’ lifelong love affair and secretly longing for what they share.
Personally, after the walking, the running, the stress, the thievery, the fighting, the encounter with the prince...I was pooped.
I must have sagged in their arms, for together they supported me as they led me to a chair—I cautiously sat—thrust watered wine into my hand and placed a platter of fruit, bread and cheese on the table at my elbow. They knelt on the floor beside me and watched worshipfully as I raised the goblet to my lips with shaking fingers and drained it.
Katherina poked Princess Isabella with her elbow and pointed at my left hand. “See? I told you Rosie would get your ring.”
Princess Isabella gasped, leaned forward to touch the diamond with tender fingers.
To me, Katherina said, “She was worried, but I never was!”
“I had faith in Rosie,” Princess Isabella replied sharply. “I worried about her health and well-being. As I should, for look at her! She’s exhausted.”
“I was worried about her, too!” Katherina protested.
Probably she wasn’t; as did most of my family, Katherina had an exaggerated opinion of my competence, one that I had fostered and tonight had been stripped from me.
So to speak.
Princess Isabella tore a chunk from the bread and handed it to me. “I’m in your debt, and I’ll never forget this as long as I live. You are indeed my sister of the heart.”
I looked at the ring. “You have no idea.”
“Let me see it!” Katherina held out her hand, palm up.
I shook my head and nibbled on the bread.
“C’mon, Rosie. It’s my one chance to see a diamond up close. Isabella doesn’t mind if I look at it.” Katherina cajoled Isabella. “Do you?”
“No,” Isabella said. “But you have to promise not to put it on, because the next person to wear it is—”
“I know. I know. Prince Escalus’s betrothed, whoever she is. I mean, really. It won’t be too bad for her. He’s deadly boring and he has those scars, but he has an air about him. I don’t know what it is...”
“Competence,” I said. After all, he had very competently handled me.
They looked at me as if I’d grown a gorgon head.
“Rosie, you have no romance in your soul!” Katherina didn’t spare me her little-sister judgment.
“I used to,” I said wistfully.
“You never!” Katherina said.
“Except about Lysander,” Isabella reminded her.
In unison the girls clasped their hands and pretended to swoon.
In a businesslike tone, Katherina said, “Really, Rosie, let me hold the ring!” When I didn’t move, she began tugging on my hand.
I curled my fingers into a fist and shook my head.
“It’s not yours!” Katherina said. “If you won’t give it to me, give it to Isabella! It’s hers. Her mother’s!”
I felt sad at being the one to deprive Isabella, but I had no choice. I had made my vow. Again I shook my head.
Isabella figured it out first. She drew back, stared at my face, stared at the ring, stared at my face. “Oh.” The word dropped from her lips, and like a pebble in the pond, its effect spread outward, breaking into Katherina’s determined discourse, making my sister sit back on her heels and look at me, too.
“Rosie? What is it?” When I didn’t reply, she said, “Rosie!”
“It’s not Lysander she’s betrothed to,” Isabella said gravely. “It’s Escalus.”
Katherina flopped onto her butt as if someone had pushed her. “No.” She looked between me and Isabella. “No!”
I couldn’t stand to see those disillusioned young faces staring at me as if I’d betrayed their sweet dreams of love, so I stood and walked to the marble-topped table. “Yes. I am the betrothed of Prince Escalus.” I poured water from the jug into the basin, splashed water on my hot face, and wiped it carefully with the towel. “Tonight, after he’d recovered the ring, he placed it on my finger and told me I was under no circumstances to remove it tonight.”
“No!” Katherina seemed unable to budge from that disbelief. “You were going to meet Lysander. What happened to Lysander?”
“How do you know I was going to meet Lysander? Why do you think something happened to Lysander?”
“Because I overheard Nurse plot the scheme to get you wed to him!”
I bent my stern gaze on Katherina. “Overheard?”
“Nurse honks like a goose,” Katherina declared.
“No one else heard her.” I knew this because otherwise the plan would not have been set into motion at all. My parents would have seen to that.
“I may have been standing close to the open door,” she conceded.
Isabella used a light finger to touch the diamond, not with longing but with reverence. “You’re in truth my sister. Legally, in all ways, my sister.” She hugged Katherina. “And you! We are family. I’ve always wanted to be part of a large family, and yours is so merry and loving and loud!”
“Wait until we get the Montagues and the Capulets together,” I warned her. “You’ll long for silence.”
Isabella disregarded that; such a genteel princess could not be expected to comprehend the volumes and the controversies that our families generated. She asked, “The ring—does it fit you?”
“It’s a little tight.” I flexed my fingers. “Then again, it’s supposed to cut off my circulation,” I jested, but my voice cracked and betrayed my true sentiment.
That convinced Katherina as nothing else could. “No, oh Rosie, no,” she said again, but softer, more tenderly. “Love star-crossed and marriage bound by duty. It’s not fair!”
“Not fair.” I laughed a little, although my humor was lacking. “You know what Mamma says about not fair. ”
“‘Justice and life seldom walk hand in hand,’” Katherina repeated grudgingly. Of all of Mamma’s bromides, we children hated that one the most. “But it’s not fair,” she repeated.
“No.” I took another bite of bread, but it was dry in my mouth, and I cast it aside.
Katherina’s eyes widened and she sat straight up. “The play! The playwright! We paid Guglielmo to write the sonnet for you and Lysander!”
Isabella gasped in horror. “They performed it tonight—”
“I caught them in time,” I assured the girls. “Instead, now he’s writing a sonnet exalting Papà and Mamma. He imagines Romeo and Juliet could become a splendid play, too.” I left off the part about Guglielmo writing it as a tragedy; one did not tempt the Fates.
“Er...may I ask, how did it happen that Escalus was in the right place at the right time?” Isabella began.
“It must have been an accident!” Katherina said.
“No.” Princess Isabella was firm. “Accidents don’t happen to my brother. He plans and plots everything, especially something as important as his marriage. I should have known when he urged me to visit you. He’s so protective but he seems to think...well, not that you’re not part of one of the foremost families in Verona, and he’s commented that everybody shouts...” Under the combined focus of both Katherina and me—I hesitate to call them glares—she started to look a little panicked. “I...I should have suspected he had...” She whispered, “Ulterior motivations.”
“He could not have developed his resolve so long ago as that!” Katherina objected.
“Most definitely,” Isabella and I answered together.
I added, “When it comes to long-term strategizing, the prince of Verona casts his shadow lightly but inescapably.”
Katherina’s eyes grew round in awe. “Zoinks!”
“Don’t swear, dear,” I said. That was for me.
In a worried tone, Isabella asked, “Does he know what I did?”
“Not for certain, but he has suspicions.” I took the damp towel and wiped my face again. “Think carefully before you answer his queries.”
She lifted her chin in a regal movement. “I’ll tell him the truth. It’s my duty.”
“Nay nay.” Katherina flopped back on the bed, her forearm over her eyes.
Isabella stared at her as if confused. “What?”
Katherina lifted her arm and looked at her.
Isabella contemplated her friend, then looked at me. “Will...do you think Katherina will get in trouble with Escalus?”
“He is, as you said, a stodgy man who takes his duty as prince very seriously.” I chose my words carefully. “If confronted with the evidence of misbehavior, he may feel he must take action, and what would follow wouldn’t reflect well on...any of us.”
Isabella’s high, fair forehead crinkled with thought. “Oh. Yes. I see. I did something I shouldn’t have while under the Montague roof, and therefore, while I should bear all responsibility for my actions, others might not view the matter in a like light.”
I’ll say this for her; she caught on quickly, probably the result of princessly training.
“Yet I should also confess to my brother...” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I don’t know what to do. What’s right?”
“Sometimes what’s right isn’t easy to know.” After that diplomatic banality, I added, “However, I believe your brother is willing to...overlook the details of this transgression in return for the unspoken assurance you’ll never again engage in such an adventure.”
“Never! I loved it so much until the end. It was like eating a delicious apple, and in the last bite, finding a worm!” She shuddered. “I’ll say nothing.”
Katherina groaned in relief.
“Although I must confess to Friar Laurence.” Isabella turned to the outstretched figure of my sister. “You too, Katherina.”
Katherina groaned in dismay.
I laughed and left them to their mutual commiseration, and probably some pleasurable reminiscing, and quietly retreated along the gallery toward my bedroom.
From the atrium below, I heard our footman call softly, “Lady Rosaline, you have a visitor.”
Gentle reader, I know you comprehend my next thought.
Now what?