“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Prince Aethelbald said and nothing more, which did not, Una decided, speak volumes in favor of his imagination. She refused to raise her gaze as he came around and took his place beside her, but instead made a detailed study of her fork.
King Fidel clapped his hands, and musicians began to play while servers scurried about bearing their great silver platters. Una twisted the ring on her finger, sucked in her lips, and felt Prince Aethelbald’s gaze on the side of her face for what seemed like ages, though it was probably less than a minute.
At last he said, “I trust that – ” just as she began, “I hope your – ”
They both stopped, and Una darted a glance his way. He was smiling, which irritated her. “Please continue,” he said.
“I . . . I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.” Bother those red blotches! She could feel them creeping forward, but she set her chin, hoping to force them back.
“Then allow me to inquire,” said the Prince, “after your hands.”
Her hands? The red blotches burst forth in full glory, and no amount of chin setting could drive them back. Was this some awkward form of proposal? Was Nurse right and he’d already fallen in love with her? Despite the feathers?
She glanced at him again, hoping the droop of the purple plume would hide most of her reddening face. “Sir?”
Aethelbald was smiling still, but his eyes were serious. He reached out and touched one of her hands, which was resting just beside her fork. She removed it hastily, wondering how many eagle-eyed ladies of the court had spotted the gesture, and folded both hands tightly in her lap.
“I believed you burned them earlier today,” Aethelbald said in an even quieter voice, drawing back his own hand as well.
“Burned?” Una frowned down at her lap. When she said the word, a brief memory shot across her mind’s eye, a memory of heat and the scent of roses. But, now that she put her mind to it, she couldn’t quite say where that memory had come from. Was it something she’d seen? She opened her hands and looked at them but could discern no trace of a burn. “You are mistaken, sir,” she said.
He did not reply, and when she dared raise her eyes to his face once more, he was no longer smiling but earnestly studying her. Heaven help her, this was going to be a long dinner!
Felix, on her other side, had placed his elbow on the table and leaned in to hear their conversation. She forced herself not to pinch him; he knew it and grinned from ear to ear. Desperate to break the silence, she managed a brave, “Are you intending to stay long in Parumvir?”
“A very long time,” Felix said.
“I wasn’t talking to you!”
“Oops.”
Aethelbald smiled again, and Una wished she could take both the plumes from her hair, flap them hard, and fly away. But the Prince of Farthestshore only said, “I do not yet know how long I shall enjoy your father’s hospitality.” He took a sip from his goblet, then, setting it back down, added, “That depends on many things.”
Felix snorted. Before Una had a chance to jab her elbow between her brother’s ribs, in a voice that carried across the room, he piped up, “What, pray tell, brings you to Parumvir this fine spring, Prince Aethelbald? Did I understand you’ve come to pay your respects?”
Una’s eyes widened. Felix! she screamed inside but kept her mouth shut in a tight line.
“To my sister, yes?”
The court murmured. From his place beside Felix, King Fidel cleared his throat meaningfully. But Prince Aethelbald sat a moment, contemplating his goblet. “None here need pretend ignorance of my purpose,” he said in his quiet but authoritative voice. “I, for one, am not ashamed to announce it.”
The next moment, to Una’s horror, right there before the entire assembly, before soup had even been served – which somehow made it more horrible – Prince Aethelbald pushed back his chair and got down on one knee beside her. She found herself staring down into his kind, boring face. She looked away, mouth open, for some sign of help, but all the court of Parumvir was watching with held breath.
“I love you, Princess Una,” Aethelbald said. “It would be my honor and my joy if you would consent to be my wife. Will you have me?”
4
"You refused him?”
“Of course I refused him, Nurse!” Una sat once more before her vanity as Nurse undid her work of the afternoon, pulling curls and feathers from their places and letting Una’s hair fall down her back. “How could I do otherwise?”
“Umph,” Nurse said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing at all, Miss Princess, nothing at all.”
Una turned on her seat to look up at Nurse, who was scowling like a storm cloud. “You think I should have accepted him.”