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Chapter 4
Cheerful music from violins and flutes made its way up to my chambers from the ballroom downstairs. Under any other circumstance, I’d have enjoyed it, but this time, it was unbearable. I knew my father would be calling for me soon. The dinner hall was festively decorated with hundreds of candles and flowers. The most exquisite food and drinks had been served on a rolling basis all day—honey-mustard roasted turkey, in rosemary grilled veal, and desserts from truffle chocolate to mango ice cream. I had successfully managed to hide out during that dreadful luncheon today. Some servants whispered that guests thought I was so ugly, my father tried to hide me until the last minute. It played a bit in my favor, making suitors less eager to seek me out before the ball for private conversations, so I had been safe in my room. But the ball, which was dedicated to me alone, would be a different problem, one I couldn’t hide from. I’d be on a bright display, attackable from all sides with requests for dances and strolls.
I was sitting on the bed and had been fully dressed, with my hair done almost an hour ago. Yet, I refused to leave my room.
My green silk dress was tight around my waist, a long train with bows in the back in darker and lighter green. It was a truly stunning dress, made specifically for today. My hair was put up into an immaculate bun, a golden tiara with glittering green diamonds pinned into my golden hair. A matching choker rested heavily around my neck, the large diamonds feeling cold against my warm skin.
“Your Highness, if you don’t leave this room soon, your father will be angered,” Frida said, her whole face wrinkled in worry. She had been sitting with me on my bed the entire time.
“Then let him be angered,” I said as I put on my white, elbow-length gloves.
Frida looked at me with those serious, blue eyes of hers. “By God and all the fairies, I haven’t seen a more beautiful creature since your mother.” She sighed. “And what for? God could have given your beauty to a horse. It would have been put to better use.”
I smiled. “It would have, then we could have married that horse to one of those barbarians. They wouldn’t know the difference, anyway.”
Frida shook her head. It was apparent how frustrated she was with me. Yet there was a certain sympathy in her eyes as well. The look of an older woman who had seen it all. Both happy marriages and the arranged ones from hell.
“I heard the Lord von Wilbrandt will be here tonight.”
I tilted my head. Wilbrandt? That name was so familiar.
“He is very handsome and brave in battle, they say.”
“Wilbrandt. Is that not the noble family from the North with all those fine horses?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“I remember them from my seventh birthday. They were the ones who gifted me Fiona.” I frowned. “Isn’t Heinrich von Wilbrandt an old man by now? Why is he even here? Do the barbarians have more than one wife?”
“It’s not Heinrich who is present for the ball, but his son, Alrick.”
Alrick! Yes, of course!
“The boy . . .”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. So his son is here?”
Frida nodded. “God has taken both his father and his mother. His mother by illness a few years ago, his father on the battlefield recently.”
“Oh.” The memory of that boy Alrick flashed in front of me for a brief moment. Hair as dark as the night with blue eyes as bright as the sky. In the corner of my eyes, I noticed Frida following my reaction.
I straightened my back and raised my chin. “Handsome or not, he came for nothing. They all came for nothing.”
Frustration returned to Frida’s face, as if I had taken chocolate from a child.
A soft knock came from the door.
“Your Highness,” a maid’s voice called from the hall. I rolled my eyes. The maids were now too frightened to even open the door to talk to my face. Frida stood and opened the door wide, the young maid stumbling a few steps backward.
“Your father—”
“I heard you the first time,” I barked at her and rose to my feet. It was actually the third time she had come up. I knew I couldn’t send her away again without my father coming to drag me downstairs himself. The young maid stared at me, then, much to my surprise, her terrified expression turned into a soft smile.
“What is it now?” I asked.
“You look so beautiful, Your Highness. Like an angel.”
