The Fairest Beauty

“I think he would.”

 

 

Sophie thought for a moment. “Valten must be brave then. And kind.”

 

Gabe was quiet, so she glanced up at him. He didn’t meet her eye. “He is. He is very brave and strong and capable of rescuing your friends. And I imagine the king will have something to say about the way Duchess Ermengard has treated you after Valten informs him.”

 

Sophie decided to change the subject again. “Tell me more about your family and your life as a child.”

 

He gave her a crooked smile. “Do you truly like hearing about it so much?”

 

“Yes! It fascinates me.” She liked to imagine what it was like to have a real family, and he could tell her. Besides, she wanted to know more about the family she was marrying into, more about her husband to be, and most of all, more about the mother of this family.

 

Gabe told her stories about all six of his brothers and sisters, but he didn’t mention the sister who died.

 

“Will your mother have more children?”

 

He shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose.” He smiled down at her. “Now it’s your turn, little sister.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You have to tell me some stories about you when you were a child.”

 

Sophie shook her head. “My stories aren’t as interesting as yours.”

 

“Come now. I’ve told you all my family’s funniest quirks and antics. You must entertain me for a while.”

 

It was true that she felt she knew his family pretty well now. She even felt she knew Valten. He sounded like a serious child, but even he had had his share of boyish adventures. Any maiden would want to marry him, no doubt. He had everything: wealth, power, fame — especially fame, since he was a tournament champion — a wonderful family, and he would one day be Duke of Hagenheim. He was in a position to make his wife famous as well. But those things weren’t what Sophie had dreamed of. She did not want wealth or fame or power, but simply to be loved, to be cherished, to feel safe, cared for, and protected. She wanted someone to be kind to her and love her.

 

But a person didn’t always get what they wanted. Sophie knew that all too well. Would Valten love her and cherish her?

 

“My stories are mostly sad … things you wouldn’t want to hear.”

 

“No putting me off,” Gabe said as he guided Gingerbread up yet another mountain trail. “We have nothing else to occupy us, and I can handle sad. So start talking.”

 

Sophie couldn’t help smiling. “Very well. You asked for it.” She would soften her stories as best she could, especially the parts about being hated and mistreated by Duchess Ermengard. Instead, she’d try to mostly talk about the happier stories of Mama Petra and her “sisters,” the other maids.

 

Gabe listened while Sophie told of climbing trees and swinging on vines while the duchess was having her afternoon nap. She told of one of the stable men falling and breaking his leg and how Sophie, an eleven-year-old girl at the time, had set the bone with two sticks. The man had immediately asked her to marry him. Sophie laughed when she told the story, but she wasn’t laughing at the time, she said. Instead, she had shaken her fist at him and dared him to come near her with such talk, warning him that she would break his other leg if he did so.

 

She told of rescuing a maiden who’d fallen into an old, dry well. The maiden was unharmed, but the duchess had refused to send a guard to help get her out. So Sophie and another servant had sneaked some rope out of the stable and pulled her up. The duchess had locked Sophie in the dungeon for a day and a night for that.

 

Sophie certainly had courage. But the duchess locked her in the dungeon for the merest infractions. The duchess’s every whim controlled the castle, and although Sophie had defied her many times, it also sounded as if Sophie had also tried her best to appease her.

 

She described a time when, at thirteen years old, her long black hair had been cut up to her ears, because the duchess had flown into a rage. She told about keeping her precious portion of the Bible hidden until the duchess was asleep, only taking it out at night and reading it to the other maids that slept with her in the small chamber off the kitchen. She told about diving into the river to save a sackful of puppies the duchess had ordered destroyed. That was what had gotten her thrown into the dungeon the week before Gabe came.

 

Her face got sadder as she continued to talk. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to make her talk about her childhood, but he felt a desire to know all about her, all her stories, no matter how sad they were.

 

“You must hate the duchess. I know I hate her right now.”

 

Dickerson, Melanie's books