The Courtly Masquerade

Which left me with brown, black, or a pale yellow. My skin appeared sickly whenever I wore yellow and courtiers only wore black in mourning. So like the servants, I wore brown. But because I am a duchess, my gowns are made of rich velvets, satins or silks, and then I stitch colorful flowers or bright green leaves to brighten the dull color. The king had declared he didn’t wish one more suitor or courtier to mistake me for the princess. So until I marry and can leave Foxmoor, I will wear brown.

Most of the time it doesn’t bother me, except when I saw the most beautiful blue satin fabric at market that I would have made into a gown for my seventeenth birthday. Lynet swiped it from me and made it into her seventeenth birthday gown instead.

I try not to think about that day a week ago, but sometimes the image of Lynet ripping the silky fabric from my hands and declaring, “Oh, dear cousin, you have found just the right material for my birthday gown,” comes back to me all in a rush. At these times I want to slap her, take the fabric back, and tell her she can take a flying leap into yonder canyon. But this is only on really bad days. Like this evening.

Lynet studied me with a simpering smile on her lips. Was it from the sickness, or was it something else?

“Are you feverish? I could wipe your brow,” I asked.

“No, no, I’m fine. Well, not fine, mind you. But I don’t want cold, wet compresses on my head, messing up my hair.”

I nodded.

Not only did we look alike, our mothers gave birth to us only minutes apart. They were sisters, only her mother married the king, and mine married a duke. When my parents died, I inherited the dukedom of Cambria. But I could not possess it, until I wed a duke. Oftentimes I wished my mother had been the queen, but now with Lynet having to marry this disagreeable Prince Renault, I was almost glad, she was the princess.

Almost. As for now, I was to marry the despicable Duke Farthington, a forty-year-old, balding, out-of-shape, surly man who’d already buried two wives.

Prince Renault couldn’t be that bad. Could he?

“He has never met us, so he would never know it is not I who joins him,” my cousin said, touching the three-inch lace on the sleeves of her blue silk bed gown.

I studied my cousin’s healthy-looking complexion. “I can’t marry the man who is to wed you. He could have me beheaded for pretending to be you if he found out.”

“You are to ensure you do everything to make him dislike you.”

“What?” Now this really was going too far.

“I wish to marry Prince Sumaria from—”

“Our mountain border. The prince in line for being king of Creshion.” Handsome, blond, extremely charismatic, from what I’d heard tell, though I’d never seen the prince. I wondered when Lynet had met him.

Lynet nodded.

I took a deep breath trying to settle my raw nerves. Pretending to be a princess, especially one that the king was using to forge an alliance with another kingdom, was an extremely dangerous thing to do.

“I am to marry Duke Farthington in a couple of months. How will my absence be explained?”

“It’s taken care of. I didn’t think you were fond of the duke.” The princess’s lips twitched up.

Of course, I didn’t care for him. Most people didn’t. But he had power and money and the king’s ear. He wanted me, as I owned my own dukedom, had power and money and mine added to his would benefit him greatly.