"You are not focused today," Miss. Dolloway stated as I stared at the different color splotches that had been delivered to the house. The queen wanted me to choose the flower colors that I believed would best match the maroon and gold of the wedding.
I looked up at her before back down at the different pinks, blues, and tans. "I just do not want to choose the wrong colors. My wedding is going to have every eye of the kingdom on it."
"That is not what has you unfocused," she replied as she sat down on the couch next to me. "Tell me what it is."
I shook my head and sat back on the couch. As much as I wanted to tell her, I knew that I couldn't. If the king were to find out that Piers had shared confidential information with me, then we would both be punished. I could not put Piers into that position. He could lie, but the truth would emerge in the end.
"I cannot tell you."
"Yes, you can. You open your mouth, form the words, and say them aloud," she replied as she crossed her ankles. "I shall not tell a soul."
I put my head in my hands. "I was trusted to keep it a secret."
"Secrets shall be the death of us all," Miss. Dolloway murmured. "Then you need to speak with the person who shared the secret with you. I need you to focus on the tasks at hand, not on secrets that do not concern you becoming the princess." I could feel her eyes on me when I did not reply. "Unless they do concern you becoming the princess. Who did the secret come from?"
I shook my head. "I cannot share that information, either."
"You must learn how to cope with this, then," Miss. Dolloway said. "Now you are inexperienced, but once you are the princess, you will need to know how to deal with keeping secrets. Most of what you do shall be involved in will be confidential."
"This is a secret that I would love to shout to the mountains, but to protect myself and this person, I cannot," I told her as I lifted my head.
"Have you spoken to the prince? He is your future husband and someone that you should be able to turn to in such times," she replied. "I understand that he may have inflicted punishment on you during your first day, but if the reports come from one of the king's eyes, then he must enforce the punishments. He is a kind person, Adelaide. You can put your trust in him."
I stacked up the color splotches. None of it made any sense to me. How could you see how it was going to work without it all being put together?
Perhaps that was why Piers and his father did not see why the proposed law was so terrible. It would not affect them, other than for Piers to lose his wife to be. Piers saw it as being a better alternative to the facility; his father saw it as an improvement of a system already in place.
I didn't know how to change Piers's mind. How could I change something that he already supported, at least to a small degree? I did not believe that Piers' intentions were bad, as the kings were. Piers truly believed that it was better than the system in place. He was blind to see that it was as inhumane as the system in place.
"Adelaide?" Miss. Dolloway asked softly, placing a hand over mine. I looked up, swallowing the lump in my throat. "You need to talk to someone, dear. I can see in your eyes that this is not something you are capable of handling on your own now, nor should you."
I nodded, picking up the color swatches and holding them to my chest as I stood up. "I will," I told her before I turned and walked out of the room, wiping angrily at my eyes.
I climbed the stairs and turned right, walking towards Piers' office. As a guard turned the corner at the end of the hall, I knocked lightly on the door even though I knew that Piers was in a meeting in the library. To my surprise, the door opened and I found myself looking into the eyes of a blonde man.
"Yes?" he asked softly. I swallowed hard and cast my eyes down to the ground.
"I brought these for the prince to review for his feedback," I replied.
"Come in, you can put them on his desk," the man said as he stepped aside. I walked into the room and over to Piers' desk, quickly setting the splotches down. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lysander Smythe, the prince's personal secretary."
As I looked up at him, I realized that I had seen him before. He was the man that Maureen had spoken of at the ball, the one who had banished his first wife.
"Adelaide," I replied, giving a short curtsy.
"I am very pleased to meet the girl who has stolen the prince's heart," Lysander replied as he took my hand and pressed it against his lips. I fought the urge to jerk my hand from his, to find a place to wash him off me. "I have not seen you around the castle much since you arrived here."
"I have been very busy preparing for my public welcome," I replied, my heart racing as he still held my hand delicately in his.
He arched an eyebrow slightly. "Oh, is that so? And who is the lucky man who has been chosen to tutor you?"
"Miss. Dolloway," I told him, watching with pleasure as a look of shock ran across his face. "She was trusted to be Piers' tutor when he was a child and now she has been trusted to be my tutor."
"I see," he mused, pressing his lips together.
Behind us, I heard the door to the office open. "I have the papers on the-," Piers' voice started as he entered the room. He cut off abruptly as he noticed us. Lysander quickly dropped my hand and took a step back. "What is happening in here?"
"I was just getting to know your future wife and our future queen," Lysander informed him. I cast my eyes to the floor as Piers stood next to me.
"And that involves holding her hand?" Piers asked bitterly.
"It was a simple greeting that you were not privy to witness," Lysander informed him.
"What were you doing in my office, Adelaide?" Piers asked, turning towards me. I swallowed hard, raising my chin.
"I brought color splotches. The queen would like to know what color flowers we would like to match the maroon and gold of the wedding," I replied, not looking at him or at Lysander, but instead keeping my eyes on a spot on the wall above Lysander's shoulder.
"And have you done so?"
"Pardon?"
"Have you brought the color splotches?"
"Yes."
"Then you are free to leave," he said as he brushed past Lysander and me to his desk.
I took a deep breath before I turned and crossed the room to the door.
"Good day, Adelaide. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Lysander said as I opened the door. I paused before I turned the handle and left without saying a word.
I took my dinner in my room with Piers' permission and asked Eleanor to stay with me. I paced back and forth, not touching the food while holding the list of what had been accomplished that day from Miriam. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sit still. I didn't know what progress Piers had made with the king's new law, but I knew I couldn't sit back and wait.
I tossed the paper from Miriam onto the desk and picked up my notebook, tapping the pencil against my lips as I still walked back and forth. I could feel Eleanor watching me, but I had no explanation to give her. What was happening did not concern her nor did I want to put her into a position where she could be punished. It was not worth it.
As Miss. Dolloway had said, I needed to work it out on my own. If and when I became the princess, I needed to be able to handle secrets on my own. I prayed that none of them would be as severe as the one I was keeping at that point in time.
I didn't know where to begin trying to find a way around the king's law. All of the books I would need were locked up in Piers' office or down in the library, where he was currently hosting his own group of individuals who were attempting to kill the king's law. While I was sure Piers would not mind my presence, I did not know how the other men would react. I had been in the sitting room when they had entered and what I had learned of them from Miss. Dolloway, who gave me a short background on each of them as they walked through the door, they were not all men who normally opposed the king. Many of them were his most loyal subjects and were either married or were soon to be married to girls from the Bycgan, girls who they had fallen in love with over time.
I sunk down onto the chair across from Eleanor, tapping the pencil against the table as I stared at the blank page.
"Is there something that I could help with, Adelaide?" Eleanor finally asked. I looked up at her, stilling the pencil. Slowly, I was beginning to forget my training.
"There is something that I need to fix," I told her, sitting up straight. "Something that I cannot fix on my own."
"What do you need to fix it?" she asked, clasping her hands on the table.
"That's what I do not know." I sighed and looked away, out at the rain falling steadily from the sky. "Actually, I believe that I do know." I turned back towards her. "I need to speak with the prince."
I pushed my chair back and stood up, walking towards the door.
"He's in an important meeting currently," Eleanor told me as she followed me out of the room. "He said that he is not to be disturbed."
"This may be something that he wants to hear," I replied, not looking at her as I went down the back hallway. There were many unfamiliar guards lurking in the entryway now and I did not want to have each of their eyes on me. "I think I may know how to help him."
"I thought that the two of you were not getting along at the moment," she said in a low voice as we hurried down the servant staircase.
I glanced at her, before down at my feet. "I may be angry with the prince, but my anger towards him is minute compared to what we are dealing with."
"Is it worth disrupting him? There are many powerful people in that room currently and they will not take to you interrupting them as the prince may. He is very lenient, but he has an image to uphold around those men," she said, a worried tone to her voice.
I paused on the bottom stair, my hand resting on the doorknob, as I looked at her in the dim light from the candles on the wall. "I am willing to accept the consequences of my actions, Eleanor, but I understand if you must leave me."
She shook her head. "I'm not leaving you to face them alone."
I smiled softly at her. "Thank you. The kingdom needs women like you now more than ever."
She tilted her head slightly to the side but did not respond. I turned away and pushed the door open, stepping into the hallway near the library. We walked down the hall towards where Fergus and another guard stood outside the doors.
"The library is off-limits until further notice," Fergus said as he stepped away from the door. I stopped a few feet away from him and clasped my hands in front of me.
"I need to speak to the prince. It is urgent."
"Unless it is urgent in the case of someone falling ill or dying, I suggest that you leave. He is to not be disturbed," Fergus replied, not taking his eyes off mine. "I'm sure that you would not want to anger him again."
I tilted my head slightly to the side and opened my mouth to speak, but a hand on my shoulder cut me off. I looked up to find myself looking at Lysander. He stood next to me with his left hand on my shoulder and a cup of tea in his right.
"If the princess requires the prince's attention, then I suggest that you obey him. She would not disturb him if it were not important," he said in a tone that did not allow room for discussion.
"Of course, sir," Fergus said tersely before he turned and disappeared into the library.
"Thank you, sir," I murmured. Lysander dropped his hand from my shoulder and took a sip of his tea.
"The prince has a soft spot for you," Lysander mused.
"No more than you do for Elizabeth, I am sure," I replied, arching an eyebrow at him. It was a risk to speak to a member of the court in such a way, but I could not allow him to treat her as he had his last wife.
Lysander raised his cup slightly at me, however, and a small smile appeared on his face. "As a matter of fact, I do hold a soft spot for her. That is why I am here to assist in whatever way possible on the new law."
"Assist the prince or the king?" I questioned, raising my chin slightly. Eleanor cleared her throat softly behind me. A warning that I was pushing the limits.
"The prince, of course," Lysander replied, his eyes going to Eleanor before back to mine. "No person deserves to be treated in such a way."
"Is that how you felt about your first wife, then?" I asked. He opened his mouth to reply, but the doors to the library opened before he was able to utter a sound.
Piers stepped out of the library, his eyes going directly to Lysander. I watched as Lysander gave a small bow to the prince before he stepped into the library. Piers watched him go before he came over to me and took my arm, tugging me down the hall and away from the guards. I motioned for Eleanor to wait for me where she was.
"What is so important that you had to disrupt one of the most important meetings I have been a part of?" Piers asked in a low voice, the annoyance clear in his tone and on his face.
"I believe I may know how to help, but I cannot do it without your assistance," I told him, pulling my arm from his grasp. "And do not handle me as though I am an object and not a person."
He let out a sigh of annoyance. "What is your plan?"
X.X.X
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This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people is merely a coincidence. This work is a work of my imagination. Any similarities to other works of art are coincidental.