Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [33]
Surely he wasn’t foolish enough to fall in love with a princess. …
He shook his head and turned his mind instead to Jonquil’s appearance. Her hair clearly had been done for a formal occasion, and it looked as if she had been wearing a ball gown and jewels. So then, they were going somewhere to dance. She would not be so elaborately dressed merely to dance in her room with her sisters.
He waited all night on the south side of the palace. The lights never dimmed in the princesses’ rooms, and though Galen stared at the filmy curtains, willing them to part so that he could see inside, no one came to the window again. Only when dawn came were the lights within snuffed out one by one.
Galen did not give up hope. According to the king’s letter, he could return to the palace after hours as often as it took to uncover the secret, and he would. He would check every door and window that the princesses might possibly use, might even climb the ivy that Rionin had attempted to climb and peek in their windows, though the idea made him flush.
He also decided to confide in Walter. The aged gardener had a keen eye. Galen would set him to looking for any sign of footprints in the soft earth of the flower beds. Surely twelve pairs of feet could not pass through the garden without leaving a mark.
Breton
Do you care for roses, Princess Rose?” Prince Alfred of Breton smiled at Rose in what he probably thought was a flirtatious manner. It revealed a great many long teeth, however, and made him look even more like a horse. Rose said a silent prayer of thanks that she didn’t have teeth like that. Alfred was her second cousin on her mother’s side and the possessor of a host of traits that Rose felt lucky not to have inherited.
“Yes, yes I do,” Rose said, keeping her voice level. She did not find the pun on her name amusing, and refused to show any emotion that might be construed as amusement by the clueless Alfred.
They were standing in the rose hothouse, admiring the flowers that bloomed there all year long. This was Head Gardener Orm’s pet project: he was breeding new colors and types of roses, something that keenly interested King Gregor as well. The bush that Rose and Prince Alfred stood before bore pink roses with scarlet centers. Each bloom was the size of a saucer.
“Then I shall pluck a rose for your hair,” Prince Alfred brayed, lunging forward and snatching at one of the flowers. “Even as I shall pluck out the secret that haunts you every night!” His horsy laugh was cut short by a cry of pain as a thorn pricked him.
“Serves him right,” Rose thought. The princesses all knew that these roses were not for picking, and Rose had warned Prince Alfred when they entered the hothouse. Once the blooms were almost blown, the head gardener carefully cut them and brought them to the palace to be displayed for a brief time, but otherwise they were purely for “floral experimentation,” as her father called it.
Besides which, this Bretoner prince was getting on Rose’s nerves. His obnoxious laughter and alarming teeth were only the half of it. He peppered his conversation with clumsily suggestive remarks, and clearly thought himself quite the gallant. Rose’s sisters had all managed to flee after only a few minutes in his presence, leaving Rose to entertain Alfred on her own.
She gritted her teeth as she offered him a handkerchief, plotting the revenge she would take on her sisters for abandoning her with Prince Horseface. She told herself that the week would go by quickly enough, and then he would be sent away in disgrace like all the others. But as he bled into her clean handkerchief and complimented her tender touch, she remembered that once he was sent away, his life would likely be cut short in some mysterious accident. She should want him to succeed, but he was not remotely the dashing figure