The Decoy Princess (4 page)

“Looks aren’t everything,” I said, running the brush over my hair and getting it stuck in a curl.

Heather’s face was masked in a mocking horror as she met my gaze in the mirror. “Listening to you, one would think looks were nothing!”

I cocked my head. “If one thought that, one would be… half-right?”

She threw a cushion at me, which I easily knocked aside. “Your royal blood is showing,” she said in disgust. “Looks are
everything
.”

I gazed at myself in the mirror, hoping Garrett didn’t think so. “I want a husband as smart as I am,” I said, thinking wistfully of Prince Rupert’s witty letters still at the bottom of my wardrobe drawer. “One who can play a decent game of thieves and kings.”

“Games,” Heather said with a sigh as she came and took the brush from me. “Is that all you think about? Men are pigs rooting in the mud, royal and common alike. The sooner you realize that, the happier you’ll be.”

“A man with high standards,” I continued, knowing she didn’t understand. “Dangerous, maybe?” I said, and her eyes went bright with repressed laughter. “A man with power, not necessarily wealth.”

Heather snickered as she brushed my hair. “You have a better chance to catch a punta by the tail than finding a man that meets your standards, Tess. Especially when you have such a small inlet to cast your net in.”

I sighed. “Use a mythical creature to catch a mythical creature,” I said, thinking that it was a good analogy—and not very encouraging. Puntas were large, ferocious cats with tufts of silver on their ears, able to vanish in a whirl of wind when surprised, which wasn’t very often. They haunted the beach as well as me mountains, reputed to be able to heal the sick, bring rain to end a drought, or call wandering herds of goats to their doom. I’d seen a punta pelt before, dry and dusty, cracking with age. They avoided people to the degree that it was questioned whether there were any yet alive.

I stood, running my hands down my white linen dress. It wouldn’t be my fault if Garrett and I met in the corridors. “Do I look all right?” I asked anxiously.

Heather sent her gaze over me, shaking her head in dismay. My eyes dropped, and my face went slack. It didn’t matter how tall I stood or how courtly my accent was, I was not built right. My curves were too shallow and my figure hidden under the yards of fabric was too defined by my afternoons on horseback. It hadn’t seemed to matter before. It did now.

There was a heartbeat of silence, then clearly realizing what she had done, Heather bustled close, fluffing my skirt. “Oh, your hair looks fetching,” she asserted brightly, her face flushed. “I’ve never seen longer, and it’s that lovely rich brown, like freshly turned earth. Just like your eyes. You look—nice.

Princess nice.”

I gave her a thin smile. I wasn’t ugly, but we both knew I wasn’t the one the palace guards were sighing wistfully after when we went down the hallways together.

“All you need is your circlet,” Heather said as she turned to my vanity.

A small, pained sound escaped me, and I said nothing, keeping my eyes on my reflection.

“Tess!” Heather wailed, her shoulders slumping. “Heaven help you, again? I swear, you’d lose your feet if you didn’t use them to stand on.”

“I didn’t lose it; I traded it for Garrett’s knife,” I said defensively. “Could you slip out to the smith’s for a new one for me? I’d be
ever
so grateful.”

My voice was entirely reasonable, hiding my sudden flush of worry for what my mother would say if she found out. It had sounded like a good idea at the time, and it was my crown, drowned it all. I was tired of being told what I could and couldn’t do. One would think that being a princess meant making your own decisions, but I never got a say in anything, always bending to do what was proper, what was expected. And I was weary of it. My thoughts drifted to the picture of Garrett hanging in the receiving room. Oh, I was so weary of it.

Heather stood with her hands on her hips, waiting. She wasn’t supposed to leave the grounds unchaperoned, and I’d have to sweeten the deal for her to risk it. “I’ll tell everyone you’re cloistered away sewing,” I offered, recalling her unending prattle this morning had been exclusively about her latest suitor, and how long it had been since she had seen him. Alone. In the spring air. Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

Sigh, sigh.

My shoulders slumped. If I couldn’t follow my desires, at least she could. And maybe she’d tell me about it in the morning. “Take as long as you want,” I added. “I can get out of my dress tonight by myself.”

I couldn’t—at least not without hurting myself—but I knew I had won when a sound of anticipation slipped from her. “All night?” she questioned. “You won’t tell anyone I’m gone?”

I nodded, relieved the price of Garrett’s knife wouldn’t be a lecture from my mother but an evening of sewing buttons back on my dress when I popped them off to get out of it tonight.

“Oh, pig feathers, it’s a deal!” she said, licking her thumb and extending it. I did the same, and we pressed them together, sealing the bargain with spit as we had when we were giggling fools keeping secrets. Apparently not much had changed.

She looked to the door, clearly eager to be gone. “I hear there’s a new fish in the solarium’s pond,”

Heather said as she picked up the basket in which she had brought me my noon meal. “Very pretty. You should see it. All glittery with black and green…”

Black and green. The same color as the uniforms of Garrett’s guards
. I met her grin with my own. I would have been surprised had she not known where Garrett was.

Standing by my door, her smile faltered. “You aren’t really going to force an introduction, are you?”

Seeing her troubled brow, I shook my head, bowing yet again to what was expected of me instead of what I wanted. Chu, I was so weak of determination, it was pitiful. But to do more than steal a look at Garrett would be a severe breach of etiquette. “No,” I said. “Just look.”

She gave me a satisfied nod and tugged open the door. Leaving it propped for me, she sashayed down the hallway with her empty basket on her arm, giving each sentry she passed a flirtatious hello, her mind obviously on—er—other things. I headed the other way, getting only cursory greetings until I turned the corner since most of the guards were watching Heather. All I had to do was get to the solarium before Kavenlow intervened. And he was gone for the day.

Nervousness began to creep up my spine like a wolf spider, and I gathered up my skirts so I could move faster. The halls were bright with noon, and my father’s soldiers posted at the corners were wearing their best uniforms of gold and blue. They looked j unusually dapper. I gave each a nod as I passed, and got more than a few encouraging winks in return. We had grown up together, and I felt as if they were overly protective brothers. They I knew where I was headed, but only Kavenlow or my parents had the authority to stop me.

Anticipation tingled to the tips of my toes when I found four guards at the door to the solarium. Two were unfamiliar, dressed in the well-appointed uniforms of black and green that I had seen in the streets.

Lavish hats with drooping black feathers sat perched upon their heads. I eyed them, thinking the gaudy things would blow off in the first breeze from the bay. The men were undoubtedly part of Garrett’s personal guard. One looked too young, I the other too old.

I shook my head at my father’s sentries to tell them not to announce me. One smiled and opened the door, taking care to shut it softly behind me. The sun was glaring, and I squinted about the empty-seeming indoor garden. I heard my mother’s laugh and placed them at the unseen table by the orchid pond. The space was draped in vines to make a private nook. I had often used it for a classroom, and there was an ongoing game of thieves and kings between my father and me on the fishpond’s retaining wall.

Following the voices, I crept down the tiled path between potted ferns and lavish vines from the south border islands. The heat of the day was thick, caught between the stone walls and the high glass ceiling. I wished I had worn something lighter. My pulse quickened as I heard what had to be Garrett’s voice. He spoke with great precision, hitting every syllable with a clarity that hinted at a clever mind and swift wit.

I eased around a large potted tree, well-hidden behind the captain of my father’s guard and another, unfamiliar man in black and green. My father looked up across the distance when the sentries shifted to recognize and dismiss me. Brow furrowed, he started to rise but then turned the motion to that of resettling himself. “Leave now,” he mouthed at me, distracting my mother and the young man standing beside her by shuffling the papers on the table.

I scrunched my face up in rebellion. I’d leave, but how fast I obeyed remained up for interpretation.

Hunched with my skirts held tight to me, I studied Prince Garrett.

As promised, he was handsome, making a trim figure beside my squat, dare I say rotund, father.

Garrett stood a shade taller than I, I guessed. His hair was straight and fair, cut short about his head. My brow rose in appreciation at his clean-shaven features. I liked a tidy man. Freckles scattered across his narrow nose made him look young.

He reached for a map, the black fabric of his uniform pulling tightly across his shoulders. I felt warm just looking at him. His attire wasn’t flashy, using the cut of the cloth to hint at his wealth instead of distracting medals and jewels. He smiled at something my mother said, and I noticed his teeth were straight and even. My eyes ran down the snugness of his trousers as he turned his back to get a paper resting upon the pond wall, and my lips curved in a sly smile. Heather was right.

I rubbed my finger where the gypsy had pricked it as his pleasant voice joined my mother’s in an easy laugh. It rankled me to be hidden away like a bauble to be brought out for theatrical effect. If I had half the fortitude of my father, I’d force an introduction now. But what I did was sigh and turn to leave.

Protocol and diplomacy. They ruled me.
Coward
.

My foot scraped the slate tiles, and I froze.

“Tess,” my father said as I spun and my mother met my horrified eyes. “What are you doing here?”

He stood with a quickness I’d never seen in him before, dismay in his stance.

Garrett smiled as he straightened to his full height. Our eyes met, and my stomach twisted. I was knee-deep in the chu pits now. Trying to force my face into a pleasant expression, I squared my shoulders and came out from behind the sentries.

“Oh, Tess,” my mother said, touching the yards of ribbon binding her yellow hair in its elaborate coiffure. “Why didn’t you wait?” She and my father exchanged unreadable looks, seeming to be at a loss what to do.

Shaking inside, I curtsied low. “Good afternoon, Father, Mother,” I said with a formal stiffness. “I do apologize. I was unaware you were here.” It was an outright, bald-faced lie, and I approached slowly, praying I wouldn’t trip on a slate tile and fall flat on my fundament. That would be about right for my day so far.

My pulse quickened when my father came forward, taking my arm in a show of ceremony. “I told you to leave,” he whispered, looking unusually stately in his best receiving garb.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered back. “I only meant to look.” But my unease sharpened to a fine point when he answered me with silence. Together we halted before Garrett standing beside my seated mother. Her petite, wispy figure was tight with an unusual tension.

“Prince Garrett, second son to King Edmund,” my father said. “This is our daughter, Tess. I apologize for her forwardness, but she has a mind of her own, as you can see.”

A flash of emotion went through me as my father settled my hand into Garrett’s. It was strong and lightly callused, telling me he had much practice with a sword. He held my hand gently, as if he might break it. “A woman who thinks is a boon to her kingdom,” Garrett said, his voice mixing with the birdsong as if it belonged. “I’m pleased to meet you, Your Highness—under any circumstances.”

I flushed, thankful he didn’t seem offended by me pushing up the courting timetable. “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Prince Garrett,” I said formally. “I trust your journey to join us was uneventful.”

The expected words flowed from me, a well-practiced litany. His nose was small, and his eyes were a riveting green. Both my parents had blue eyes, and I’d never seen quite their like before. They were beautiful, and I couldn’t look away.

As tradition dictated, Garrett brushed the top of my hand with his lips. I smiled, welcoming the age-old promise behind that simple act and the feeling it pulled through me. “The honor is mine,” he said.

His voice was pitched low and his enunciation elegant. “Now that I have found you, the trials of the road have faded to a distant memory. It’s truly a pleasure to see the claims of your beauty have erred on the side of modesty. But why did you have the portrait artist straighten your curls? I think they become you.”

I met his smile with my own, glad to see he had a sense of humor. Straighten my curls, indeed. A flash of emotion went all the way to my toes, raising gooseflesh on the way back.
This is to be my husband?

Oh, the trials of being a princess
… “Please call me Tess,” I said, thinking my face must be red. “Life is too short to stand on formality behind palace walls.”

Garrett glanced at my mother for permission before inclining his head in agreement. “Tess, then,” he said. “I’d be pleased if you called me by my given name as well.”

“Garrett,” I repeated. “Of course.” The formalities observed, Garrett escorted my pounding heart and me to the table. The tension eased as our court manners could now be dropped.

I glanced at the game of thieves and kings in progress upon the wall of the pool in passing. My father had finally shifted his pieces, putting one of his knights in danger to lure me into exposing my king. Pulling Garrett to a halt, I accepted the challenge of taking his piece in the hopes I could return my thief to safety before his second knight could make good his threat. My father made a sound of surprise as I set the black knight aside.