Chapter Seventeen #2
“A small mishap,” I explained. “We came to enjoy a picnic.” I gestured back toward Rosie and Mathilde, who were looking on with wonder. “The horse spooked. He is, thankfully, fine, as are we, but I am afraid our carriage is not.”
Behind Prince Simeon, his caravan was coming to a noisy halt, horses stamping at the ground and men talking, calling ahead. He turned and declared to those milling closest: “We must help these women!”
The prince began to dismount, leaning into one of the stirrups and throwing his other leg over the top of the horse with ease.
Two attendants rushed forward as he landed on the ground and he waved them away, saying, instead, to me: “Their entire role is to help me on and off a horse. And people wonder why the royal coffers run low. Now.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see about that carriage.”
He strode over toward the ditch and, in one quick motion, hopped down and landed in the muck at the bottom. He circled the chaise, muddying himself in the process. “I see the predicament. We won’t be able to just push it out.”
“I—we are much beholden.” I was at a loss for words.
“Do not thank me yet.” He smiled up at me from the bottom of the ditch. “The chaise is still stuck in the mud.”
“Regardless, we owe you our gratitude for your willingness to help—” I paused, hearing hoofbeats approach behind me.
Otto, the royal counselor and the stranger from the woods, was making his way from the back of the caravan.
He rode a muscular steed with a shiny black coat that had been brushed and cleaned well. My spirits plummeted.
“Lady Tremaine,” he said, barely touching his brow. I curtsied. “What is the problem?” Otto addressed the question to Simeon.
“You know one another?” The prince was rolling up his sleeves. “How disgustingly small our kingdom is.”
“Allow me to present Lady Etheldreda Tremaine … Bramley,” Otto replied, stiffly, as if the words were sour in his mouth. He surveyed the cart and then glanced over at Arno, who was ignorantly switching his tail in the grasses yards away. “The horse did this?”
I lowered my gaze. “I am afraid the wheel has cracked.”
Otto stared down into the ditch from the back of his steed. “Why is the wagon perpendicular to the road?”
Something in his tone made me forget my timidity and restored my voice. “It is strange indeed.” I held his eyes, lifting my chin slightly. “I was setting up the picnic and did not see what spooked the horse.”
“And yet the horse is untouched.” Otto looked at the cart and back at me with the prowling, feral energy of a watchdog. Despite his nose, which looked to have been broken more than once, he might have been handsome—except he held a constant look of distaste.
“Come, Otto,” Prince Simeon called. “And get down here and help me push it out.”
“You have a crowd of thirty waiting to hunt.” Otto turned to face the prince. “It will be quicker to pull it out with the ox.”
“You’d give my opportunity to be chivalrous to a bull?” Simeon raised his hands—a mock gesture of defeat.
“Wouldn’t want you injuring yourself again.” Otto turned his horse around. “I’ll get the men.”
Simeon scrambled up and out of the ditch, and held out his arm to show me his injury: nothing but some cuts and a bruise.
Lips pulled sideways in amusement, he explained: “Otto will use even the smallest hunting accident to keep me from having any fun. No enjoyable activity is worth doing without a little bit of risk. Not that Otto would agree. All he does is try to reduce risk. And here I am, unable to help a maiden in distress.”
I was no maiden. Under the force of those clear eyes, I blushed as if I were.
With a quick gesture, Simeon rolled down his sleeves and buttoned them once more.
He had an ease in his own skin—and a tall frame with broad shoulders—that reminded me, a little, of Henry.
I tossed my head in the direction of Rosie and Mathilde, waiting on the carpet behind us.
“Might I introduce you to my daughters?”
He met my eyes with a broad smile that was impossible not to mirror. “Certainly.”
The girls were nervous, Rosie reaching self-consciously to twirl a lock of her hair, and Mathilde measuring her words so carefully she had pursed her lips in concentration.
But Simeon turned to me after our introductions and said: “Lady Bramley, your daughters are as charming as this setting.” I surmised he meant the undulating grasses that surrounded us and not the massive ox that was twenty feet away, being led toward the ditch.
But he soon put us at ease, listening as Rosie and Mathilde answered questions about our home, the apple paintings, and the provenance of the biscuits, which were quickly offered to him.
My daughters’ nervousness turned into a flirtatious kind of alertness when the prince settled himself onto our carpet.
The picnic had been prepared as a prop—a diversion to be observed through a carriage window from afar.
I couldn’t help but see the bruises on the fruit and the crumbs on the carpet, but Simeon appeared to notice neither, taking an oversized bite of a biscuit and then returning the rest to the plate in front of him.
“Forgive me for trespassing on your lunch. I would dine outdoors more—the point of a picnic is to experience the peacefulness of nature. But I can’t go anywhere without people in tow, which defeats the purpose.
” He leaned back, sinking his weight into his palms, which pressed into the carpet behind him, and eyed the men of his caravan.
He huffed—a private acknowledgment of a thought I couldn’t read on his face.
A desire for freedom? Autonomy? It occurred to me, not for the first time, that privilege was its own kind of burden.
He sighed, nodded to his men, and added: “Even now, the few feet of separation makes them nervous.”
I laughed. “As if three ladies in the grass could cause you harm.”
He joined my laughter and turned to Rosamund. “That was an exceptional biscuit.”
“The best in the kingdom.” She offered him another with a sweet smile.
“Though I would be scared to say otherwise to our cook,” Mathilde mused.
“She is formidable,” Rosie agreed, gazing at the prince through her eyelashes and fingering some of the ribbons at her neckline.
He leaned closer to her. “The world is afraid of kings and armies, but there is nothing scarier than the wrath of a woman.” Simeon’s hair, which was naturally wavy, had been brushed and lay back, but as he leaned closer to Rosie, a lock fell across his forehead and into his eyes.
He flicked it away, mindlessly, and when he looked up, he caught my eye. Or rather, caught me looking at him.
I hadn’t expected to like him. He was a prince, but he was also flesh and blood, and, if I had wanted to, I could have reached out and pinched him. “We are lucky you happened to be here,” I said. “And we had a chance to meet before we attend your name day celebration.”
He looked pleased. “You are coming?”
Over Simeon’s shoulder, I could see the men working to right the chaise. Otto was nearly out of sight, for he had gone down into the ditch himself. I hoped he would be down there a long while.
Simeon tilted his head, observing us. “It is I that am the lucky one—for I never would have gotten a taste of the kingdom’s best biscuits otherwise.”
“A fair trade, I hope, for keeping you from your hunt.” Rosie’s face was soft and open.
With a quick gesture, Simeon affectionately fingered a lock of her hair.
“You ladies have so many options when it comes to being accomplished. Apple paintings! And all the things you do with a needle and thread. Books. Poetry. Language. Art.” He gave an appreciative nod to the two easels and dropped his hand.
Rosie reached up to touch her curls where his fingers had lingered, listening.
“I have but cards and hunts. We go out nearly every week and I do not even like hunting.”
“Then why go?” Mathilde interjected.
He nodded at the men of the caravan. “They like it. And they are my friends.” Seeing that the counselor was striding toward us, he added, “Even Otto.” He called out so Otto could hear him: “Have we succeeded?”
Otto waited until he had reached the edge of the carpet to respond. He stood stiffly and clasped his hands behind his back. “The chaise is righted, but you won’t be able to drive it away. Needs a wheelwright.”
“Alas,” I exclaimed, though that outcome was more than obvious: The chaise stood upright in the road and one of the wheels was missing a piece.
“We’ll escort you home,” Simeon reassured us.
“You’re lucky no one was hurt.” Otto towered over us. He glanced at the easels. “You were painting?”
“The girls love to paint.” I widened my eyes at Mathilde.
“Oh, indeed,” she added, quickly.
Rosie, a moment later, hand still tangled in her own lock of hair, managed: “The meadows are so inspiring.”
“And yet, I cannot help but notice you are not painting them.” Otto looked over the canvases on the easels, both of which were filled with apples. He leaned forward with an extended fingertip, as if to test the paint’s wetness.
“Nature is inspiring to one’s senses,” I called, my tone a reprimand, “no matter the focus of the piece. Is it not?”
Otto straightened and turned to Simeon. “We’ll lose daylight.”
“Good gods.” Simeon sighed, pushing himself up off the carpet.
“The carriage will take them.” He turned to me, conspiratorially.
“I’m afraid we seem to have upset dear Otto’s plans, but then Otto is invariably upset by almost everything I do.
If I were to do as he suggested, every one of my days would be boring.
I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for a ride in my carriage. And I will see you all at the ball.”
I matched his tone. “There is nothing boring about a ride in a prince’s carriage—even if he is not inside of it.”
Otto grunted and turned on his heel.
Making promises of having our chaise returned to us—Arno was led by an attendant who was to follow—Simeon himself handed us up into his carriage, which was every bit as opulent inside as its exterior.
He paused for a moment at the open door, offering his well-wishes, which we accepted and returned with our thanks, and then a moment later the door was closed and we lurched forward.
I stopped Rosie and Mathilde from speaking by raising a finger to my lips.
We clutched one another’s hands and squeezed—grasping, grasping, at our wonderful turn of fortune.
There was a world of riches and splendor, inaccessible to most, that shone so brightly.
But we had just touched it—Rosie was still twisting that same lock of hair—and could see the sheen on our fingertips.