Page 21 of Crowned In Sin

“Not on my account, there wasn’t. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go back out? I will ride with you, if you do.” Her eyes are prying and they force my gaze away, lest she sees too much.

Licking my lips I wonder what all she surmises as I undress my boots. I know I’m being unfair to her. I tell myself it is because I have been riding, and I am sore, and I need fresh clothes.

“I just need to change.” I offer her a warm smile, though I think we both know it is not genuine. “Will you wait downstairs, or do you want to come up?”

“You’ll need a quick bath,” Alice states from a few feet away. It appears she accompanied Isabel. I nod, understanding and at the same time wipe a bit of mud, partially dried, from my arm.

“I’ll come with you,” she says, as if she might be worried about me. “How was the stream? Did you go to that adorable pavilion? I quite liked it there, when we visited last.”

“Next time, we can go together. It was…spontaneous. I would have written to you, but I left quickly.”

“I understand,” she says. “You will feel better after a bath.”

A hot bath does sound enticing. “Let me prepare it with Alice and then she can bring you in?”

There’s a settee in the bathroom where she’s sat more than once while advising me on her adventures. It should have a plaque with her name on it. It brings me back to when we were children. The two of us were close because we were the only princesses for miles until her sister was born, often spending time at each other’s castles so we would not be alone. I’ve not heard much of her sister lately.

While I’m in the bath, I tell Isabel about the stream of suitors that has suddenly appeared at the palace. Staring blankly at the ceiling to avoid my nakedness, she asks a few questions about them, but the longer I talk, the more her frown deepens. The bathing oils that sit just beneath the steam hide my nakedness her from but still she looks away. The water sloshes as I clean myself of the grime from the day and the stench of the horse. No offense to my dear Galen.

Alice and Blanche help me out of the bath. Isabel goes to get my underdress, and when I am in it, she joins me in the dressing room along with Alice, who takes pride in my hair.

The room itself is fairly small, with a thick damask wallpaper and carved wood sitting chairs with fabric-fastened cushions that match. My eyes dart to the dresser; it was my mother’s. The painting has chipped, and I make a mental note to repair it.

“Cora,” Isabel says gently. “Forgive me, but it does not sound as if you are giving these suitors a chance.”

“Doesn’t it?” I question. Alice rearranges my hair in the mirror. Faced with my own reflection, I know that I do not look as placid as I should. I try to smooth out the line in my brow and at least set my mouth in a neutral line instead of letting the corners turn down. “I have sat with them. I have had tea with some of them. I have even walked in the garden.”

“I have heard…”

“From whom?” I immediately question, my tone accusatory. Alice, who’s busied herself with my hair, stills at my tone.

“I have heard from your father that you do not seem to want to speak to these men. He says you hardly look at them. He says you only speak when it is necessary, and sometimes not even then.”

“Well,” I say, uncertainty spiking in me. “Well, I…I did not choose them. I do not even know why they are coming in droves when they have had a year to do so. More than a year! Some arrangements are made for princesses when they are seventeen. Yours was!”

“It was,” she agrees, “but Prince Philip and I knew each other as children. We had lessons together, and grew up together, and it only seemed to be a natural conclusion that we would be betrothed, then wed. If I had an objection, I surely would have given it. But you⁠—”

“I wasn’t allowed to know anyone.”

“Cora,” she says softly. “Your father—” She starts but doesn’t finish.

“My father what?” I question, looking her in her eyes.

“Your father cares for you. And he cared for your mother. And of course it’s not for me to say, but⁠—”

Isabel hesitates from where she stands idly by the dresser, peering out the window. I want to snap at her. I want to tell her to say nothing about my mother. An agony I’ve done my best to bury resurfaces. As tears prick at the back of my eyes, I want to say that she knew nothing of my mother and has no right to speak of her. But Isabel did know my mother before she passed. We grew up together as closely as she did with Philip, and she did know her, and now that my mother is gone, I should not give up any opportunity to hear what she might have thought. To know how another person might have seen her. This is all I have left of her, really.

My throat tightens with unspoken pain. Still I urge her. “Say it.” Alice finishes with my hair and slips away, leaving the two of us to our conversation.

“Your mother wanted you to have a chance to marry for love,” Isabel says and her tone is gentle. Needing fresh air, I open the small arched window and allow the breeze to come in. Then I retake my seat. Isabel continues standing and this time, her arms cross as if holding one another. “She knew it was not a guarantee. It’s never a guarantee, for royalty. But she wanted you to have a chance. Perhaps she wanted it so badly that she wanted only the finest suitors to come to you. Perhaps…after she passed away, your father took that idea to an extreme.”

“He told suitors not to come?” That’s a bit more of an accusation than Alice let on.

“No, no,” Isabel says quickly, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. “I am only suggesting that there may have been a…feeling at court that your father did not want you to be overwhelmed with young men. Perhaps he meant to have others at court and time slipped away. I do not know for sure, but I do not think your mother and father kept you from meeting a boy, or a man, out of malice. I am certain it was out of love.”

All of this makes me feel worse, not better. “Alice hinted of such things,” I tell her when her expression falls. “I already had an idea of what had happened so you don’t need to feel guilty,” I admit to her and my words seem to give her reassurance.

With a soft sigh she offers me a smile and then finally takes a seat next to mine.