“It’s Babbette, isn’t it?”
I burst into giggles again.
Back in my suite,I toss and turn in bed, unable to sleep. I always thought smoking weed was supposed to make you lethargic, but it’s having the opposite effect on me. No matter how hard I try to keep my eyes closed, I can’t seem to relax. It’s too quiet. Too dark.
Tooeverything.
After steering us safely into our respective rooms, Galizia headed back to the Gatehouse barracks to sleep. Chloe evidently had no issues passing out immediately, but I’ve been staring at my ceiling for the past forty-five minutes and I’m still wide awake.
My head has started spinning and my breaths are growing increasingly short the longer I lay here in the darkness. But that may have more to do with the cloying smell of flowers saturating the air of my bedroom than it does the drugs in my system.
I glance at my side table, where an elaborate bouquet of pale blue Germanian lilies sits. Just behind them, on my dresser, a dozen pink roses bloom brightly even in the darkness. I know if I turn my head, I’ll see an arrangement of orchids gracing the wide sill by the window… and wildflowers over by the chair… and daisies on the mantle…
I pull a pillow over my face to muffle a scream.
The arrangements started arriving yesterday — one after another after another, carried in by page after page. So many, it was almost laughable. So many, you’d think some mass memo went out to every eligible male in the country.
She didn’t answer your note… Better try flowers this time, lads!
I’ve lost tally of how many have arrived, at this point. All available surfaces in my suite hold a vase — or three — and that’s not even counting the bouquets I passed off on every maid who crossed my path in the castle corridors, yesterday.
Take them home with you, please. Enjoy them. I’ve run out of room.
Even Hans, the gruff Master of Stables, got a bouquet to bring home to his wife after my morning equestrian lesson. His reluctance to take them was no match for my determination to reduce my pollen intake by any means possible.
If I’d been smart, I would’ve faked a damn allergy. Too bad I didn’t think of that excuse when the first delivery arrived. Little did I know, fifty more were close behind.
If it were up to me, I’d simply toss them in the garbage… but I know that would no doubt spark huge amounts of castle gossip. Hell, it would probably make the national news. I can practically hear the commentary now.
Princess Emilia threw away all those pretty flowers from her suitors, isn’t she an ungrateful cow?
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture; I’ve simply never been a big fan of flowers. They’re a rather strange way to express love, in my opinion.
Here, take these pretty things I cut down in the prime of their life and watch them slowly waste away over the next several days before throwing them in the garbage to rot.
Who decided flowers were the best way to declare your intentions, anyway? Call me crazy, but… I think it would be infinitely more romantic to receive a potted plant. Something that will grow and flourish, instead of wither and die. Something I can nurture for years, thinking of the person who gave it to me every time I glance at it…
But that’s sentimental drivel. After all, these particular bouquets are less about love than they are a stark reminder of the deal I struck with Octavia. Of the promise I made to her, but have yet to keep.
My dreaded courtship.
Despite my most fervent hope that if I ignored the issue for long enough, it would simply go away… there’s no avoiding it anymore. I received official word from Lady Morrell this afternoon; my first palace-sanctioned suitor is meeting me tomorrow afternoon for a very public, highly publicized stroll along the banks of the Nelle River.
I didn’t ask any details. Not even his name.
It doesn’t matter who he is. Because even if he’s a forty-five-year-old perpetual bachelor with saggy balls and a receding hairline… there’s no getting out of this.
I am, for all intents and purposes, trapped like an archetypal princess in a tower.
With an angry huff, I yank the pillow away from my face and hurl it blindly across the room, only narrowly avoiding a large vase of purple irises. The irrational, emotional half of my brain might enjoy the satisfaction of watching it shatter against the stone floor; the slightly more logical half knows the loud clatter would likely bring every on-duty guard running full-tilt toward my bed chambers, guns drawn, prepared to execute intruders.
Hey! Maybe they’ll shoot me accidentally and I won’t have to go on my date tomorrow…
Throwing off my thick duvet, I swing my legs to the floor and shove my feet into a pair of sheepskin slippers. I can’t be in this room anymore, with only dying flowers for company. It’s like sleeping in a funeral parlor, for god’s sake.
I need fresh air.
I need cold wind.