Instead, the few people who cared about politics or the lavish grandness of royalty turned to Princess Gretel for their obsessions. She was infamous for her kindness, generosity, gentleness, and wisdom even in Perintas.
In Heloritas, it was said she was in no shortage of rabid, overprotective, and overbearing fans who would give up their entire fortunes for the privilege of having her say their names.
If Shao’s marriage was one of convenience rather than love, meant to instill respect and admiration for him nationwide rather than distrust and confusion after his long disappearance, he couldn’t have chosen a better bride.
Meanwhile, if Shao’s marriage was one of love…
He still couldn’t have chosen a better bride.
“They shall host an engagement ball at the dawn of this week!” The messenger cried again, breaking me out of my reveries with his signature obnoxious series of trumpet flares that sounded like something dying. Repeat ad nauseam.
Only a month had passed since he’d left our home, and I felt his absence every day like a hole in my heart. Too bad the feeling hadn’t been reciprocated, I guess.
No, shut up, Beatrice, I chastised myself. After all, I was the one who’d kicked him out. I’d rejected him. It was too late to regret my own decisions, although the thought didn’t keep me from gnawing on my lip or clenching my fists.
Of course, he’d fallen for the princess’s charms like every other man on this planet. I couldn’t fault him. It was to his credit that of the countless men who desired her hand, the esteemed Princess Gretel had chosen him.
I suppose he’ll get to be King like this, even if he won’t rule Perintas, I realized. It didn’t surprise me, but it tugged at my heartstrings.
It was another reminder and proof of how far we’d grown apart.
I wished I could cry.
But—oddly enough—Shao had taken my ability to cry with him, and I’d been unable to shed a single tear to vent my sorrows and stresses, no matter how hard I tried.
What an irritating betrayal from my own body. I grit my teeth.
Constance gave my hand a tight squeeze, but I barely felt it. Crashing my teeth together, I twisted away to rush out of the living room. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I had to flee. Had to stop hearing the cursed voice and trumpet noises of the messenger.
I was stopped by my parents, who blocked the door out of the house as if they’d expected my movements. I glared daggers up at them instinctively, and it took me a beat to calm myself down, chastising myself mentally for my impoliteness. They didn’t seem fazed.
“Why are you stopping me?” I asked. Mother and Father glanced at each other warily. Mother’s hand was to her hip, while Father’s arms were crossed as if in consternation.
“You shouldn’t run away, Beatrice,” Mother chided, and I felt myself shake.
“Run away from what?” I asked. “I just… He’s getting married, and I—”
Mother sighed. “If I remember correctly, he’s getting married because you rejected him.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?” I cried. “Tell him I want him to cancel the engagement for my fickle whims, just because even though I refuse to marry him myself, I’m not okay with him moving on?”
“I don’t know that he has moved on,” Mother said, straightening out my dress as if I were a toddler again. Father shook his head, his palm to his forehead, before walking away as if in resignation.
I couldn’t believe they were acting like this. What did it matter whether Shao returned to me or not?
I felt a pang in my heart, knowing it was for me. They hated to see me mope and worry as I had since Shao’s absence. And yet…
Sighing, I wrung my hands and elbows. What were they expecting? For me to storm into the castle and tell Shao to cancel his engagement after it had already been announced to the world?
“It’s been over a month, and he hasn’t sent me a single letter—”
“Have you sent him any?” Mother cocked her head and arched a brow. I flinched. “Typically, when someone rejects another person, they’re the one responsible for fighting to get them back.”
“But I—” I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I’d kicked Shao away of my own volition, because I hadn’t wanted him to lose his family because of me.
But…
I was a shell of myself without him. Now that I knew exactly what I could have had, I was poisoned by my memories with him—and by the what-ifs that bombarded me every night before I managed to fall asleep.
I missed Shao’s kisses. I missed his hugs.
More than anything else, I missed his company.
I missed him.
Yet I’d pushed him away, and now he had a fiancée.
It was too late for regrets.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. Pleaded. Because I knew I couldn’t decide on anything for myself. Because I wanted someone else to blame for my inaction or my action or whatever path I ended up travelling.
“I want you to look at this,” Father boomed from behind me, and I jolted in place. When had he returned? “I found it in Shao’s room while cleaning it out.”
In his hand was a large black sketchbook, and he tossed it to me. I accepted it with an awkward hop, frowning as I turned the pages.
The first couple pages were sloppy, almost childish paintings of landscapes and constellations. The garden where we’d first kissed for real, out of passion rather than fear, took up several different pages.
“I told him to paint landscapes for me,” Father explained. “Those drawings were my homework to him, although he chose the specific regions.” He gestured with his chin for me to keep flipping through the pages. I obeyed.
Soon, the greens of the leaves and the purples, pinks, and blues of the flowers were replaced by something altogether different.
Me.
Shao had painted me. Over and over again, until his hands must have cramped, and his paints must have run out. Occasionally, the paintings switched back to depicting the gardens or our parlors, and once a field of golden roses, but then he returned to painting me.
Me, asleep on a tabletop. Reading. Laughing. Holding out my hand to him. Brushing the tears from his face.
Pages after pages were centered on me—a much more beautiful, elegant version, but me, nonetheless.
“Those were for himself,” Father said. “I never saw them until he left.”
“I—”
“Do you really think he’s engaged to a princess after only a month and a half because he fell in love with her?” Father asked. “Because he’s—” for his next words, he even made little quotation marks with his fingers—“forgotten about you?”
“I-I—” I couldn’t say anything else, so instead I just looked down at my fidgeting toes.
“What do you want to do, Beatrice?” Father asked.
Silence coated us for several heartbeats before I finally decided what I should’ve predicted all along.
Shao had been mine first.
He belonged to me, and I with him.
He’d chosen me. I’d shunned his confessions.
Now, it was time for me to choose him.
“I want to chase after him,” I said because I did. “I want to do anything and everything I can to make him return to me.”
Mother practically cheered in her spot, while Father’s lips twitched into a hint of a proud smile.
Jumping forward to hug me tight, Mother said, “Oh, I knew you had it in you, you lovesick dolt. You get it from me.”
Father glared at her incredulously. “You? Lovesick? If I remember correctly, you were too focused on your books to even glance at boys; that’s what Beatrice takes after, not some imagined affectionate heart. I had to shower you with presents and confess my love hundreds of times before you showed a modicum of interest in me.”
Constance and I glanced each other from our opposite ends of the room and rolled our eyes.
Glaring daggers at Father, Mother repl
ied, “You don’t appreciate a fraction of all the ridiculous things I did to win you over. Those books were guides on how to get a man to fall in love with you, and I doubt you would have noticed me if I hadn’t followed every single direction perfectly. Do you know how hard that was? I had to pierce together all the incredibly contradictory suggestions—”
“Maybe they were contradictory because they were crap written by lonely spinsters for other lonely spinsters—”
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a spinster,” Constance grumbled, and Father shook his head in exasperation.
“And the tips clearly worked for me,” Mother said.
“The point is, dear, I’d have been interested in you regardless,” said Father. Under his breath, he mumbled, “Thank heavens Constance didn’t inherit your gullibility, even if Bea did.”
Pure, unadulterated rage passed through Mother’s eyes, and it was a miracle she didn’t slap him.
I had a sudden understanding (that I didn’t quite want) of just how many useless, stupid, and probably humiliating things Mother had done for Father’s affections, and I laughed.
Well, I must have gotten my stubbornness and audaciousness from somewhere, and these traits definitely hadn’t been from Father.
“I’ll go figure something out,” I said, wanting to give my parents some space.
“Wait, Beatrice.” Father called out.
“What is it, Father?”
Father rummaged through his pockets and revealed two thin, metallic-silver slips of paper that seemed to glint off the nearby candle lights. He handed one to me.
It was an invitation to the masquerade ball in honor of the royal engagement.
I gaped up at him. Had he really been hiding this the whole time?
“Where did you get this?” I said, gasping.
“We received two tickets in the mail,” he said with a shrug. “The sender was anonymous, but no doubt it was from the castle.”
Shaking my head, I laughed. Whether this was from Shao or one of his siblings… I doubted I’d been invited so Shao could gloat over his engagement. He wasn’t vindictive enough; that was something I’d do. Which left only one reason for the invitations.
From the start, I’d had no alternative but to fight for him. My parents had been generous in at least allowing me the illusion of choice.
“Thank you,” I grumbled, reaching out to hug him. “I’ll fight for my happily ever after, Father. You just watch.”
Chapter 33
The castle sparkled with opulence and grandeur. As we followed the guard leading us in, Father and I couldn’t help but gape. From the subtly engraved architecture to the themed posh furniture and paintings from centuries-gone renowned artists, everything stole our breath away.
“I never thought I’d step into the palace,” Father whispered, and I beamed.
“I always knew you would—although I expected you to paint for the royal family.” I shrugged. “Maybe the next time you visit.”
“Oh, please. It’s such a privilege, Beatrice. I… I never…”
The guard glanced back, and I swallowed, wondering if he wished to shush us. I had no idea what decorum was expected of me, and Father was too captivated to be helpful.
Instead, he was looking behind us. I frowned, but before I could say a word—
“Beatrice!” A female voice chimed. When I turned around, I came face to face with Princess Isabella, who quickly rushed in and kissed me on my cheeks. Inhaling, I took a step back.
“P-princess Isabella?”
“Good morning, your highness!” The guard boomed, dipping into a bow. My father mirrored his movements, awe clear on his face, and I curtsied.
“You know her, too?” Father hissed.
“Oh, you must be Beatrice’s Father,” Princess Isabella said, curtsying back. She lifted his wrist gingerly to kiss him by the back of his hand, and Father practically jumped in shock.
“Th-there’s no need—I—”
“Delighted to finally meet you,” the princess said. “I’ve wondered about you since years ago, but since Father was adamant that painters were a waste of money if Mother wasn’t with us, I’ve never had an excuse to see you.”
Father sputtered to himself, his eyes bulging, and I couldn’t help but giggle despite my own raging confusion.
“As for you, darling, how many times have I told you to call me Isabella?” The brunette princess turned to me. My mouth slackened.
“Why…?” Why was she being so friendly with me? I wondered if she was simply being a polite host for the hired artist and his daughter, but she’d specifically called for me first, and her gaze was focused on me. “Did you invite us?”
“Of course, I did.” The princess simpered. “It was a secret from Shao; I wished to speak with you in private.”
I glanced towards Father, who was still consumed by his shock. He did retain enough wits about him to give me a quick glance as if to ask if I were okay with it. I nodded, and he returned to his bumbling self.
“D-do whatever you wish! A princess. A princess!”
With a resigned puff of laughter, I swallowed and looked back up at Isabella.
She gave me her hand, and she led me through the maze-like palace, her smile turning proud when she saw how intently I admired every part of it.
I’d thought the mansion was impossibly huge, but that had been nothing compared to this.
She finally stopped at a pair of towering metal doors decorated by an engraving of kings, queens, and angels. She grabbed a pair of keys from inside her shoe, turned it in the lock, and pushed open the doors.
Bright sunlight caused my eyes to squint, but I sniffed whiffs of peonies, pansies, and—the most familiar, intoxicating, and sorely missed scent of all—roses.
Before me was an exquisitely tended garden that rivaled the mansion in size and scale. It felt more like a forest; my vision was blocked in every direction by countless trees, which were coiled by vines and speckled by moss.
“I-I didn’t know you had a garden like this,” I breathed.
“Of course not,” Princess Isabella replied with a twinkling laugh. “You can’t see it because of all the trees and plants, but this place is surrounded by walls. It’s an internal part of the palace.”
I shook my head. “Why did we come here?” Surely, she hadn’t dragged me for twenty minutes just to brag about how extravagant her home was. Princesses didn’t need to boast to commoners; they were superior by definition.
“It’s one of the few places we can get some privacy,” she replied. “Tons of nobles and foreign diplomats and royals are here for the engagement, and many of them will make a scandal out of someone drinking tea the wrong way.”
I gulped, the reality of the situation finally settling in. Could I really do anything to stop Shao’s engagement? Could I shatter the remains of his reputation for my own selfish whims?
She inspected me, her eyes suddenly serious. Fearing her chastisement, I gripped my elbows.
“I thought you loved him,” she said.
“I do.”
“Then why didn’t you give him a chance?”
I bit my lip, my eyes downcast. “I’m sorry. I just… He wanted to be king, and I—”
“He wanted you, Beatrice,” Isabella said sharply, and I cowered. “What happened to the girl who yelled at me about protecting and treasuring him? He’s getting engaged to a stranger because you rejected him. Several times.”
“I—” I grabbed myself tighter, feeling nauseous. In the off chance I magically convinced Shao to choose me after all, breaking off his engagement and humiliating his family, how would they feel? “I know.”
“Why did you agree to come here?”
“I…” My words froze in my throat. Was I supposed to tell her the truth, allowing her to mock and stop me? Or must I lie to her?
Princess Isabella stood taller, leveling her eyes with mine.
“Was it to cry over my stupid brother?” She asked. “Or
was it to stop him?”
I blinked. “I’m sorry?”
She crossed her arms and shuffled her balance to her left leg. “Gretel is a wonderful girl, and I love her with all my heart, but she’s not you. She won’t make Shao happy.”
“And… you think I will?” I asked, hesitant. “You… want him to return to me, even though I rejected him?” I shook my head, unable to comprehend this. It was one thing to plan to whisk Shao away as if this were some fantasy fairy tale, and another to do so… under the approval of his sister.
“I want what’s best for him, which is you… and I know you love him,” she said frankly, arching a carefully drawn brow. “It’s been obvious since we first met. The way you look at him, the way you talk about him. The way you brighten up just a little whenever you hear his name. Heavens, Beatrice. If you aren’t going to steal him back, why did you even accept my invitation?”
At her frustrated, snappish tone and scowl, I gulped hard.
Then, I lifted my dress up to my knee, revealing the ornate white mask that was tied to my calf.
Her eyes widened. She beamed, understanding the intent behind the mask, even if she didn’t know my exact plan.
“I’m waiting for the ball,” I said hopelessly as I shrugged with my hands. “I figure I need to create a scandal if I want a chance of his parents accepting me, however grudgingly.”
Either that, or I’d end up being princess carried all the way to prison, where I’d rot until I died.
I shoved away that thought.
“I suppose I didn’t need to bother lecturing you, my darling future sister,” the princess said, giving me a reassuring grin. “But I’m glad I did.”
I took a deep breath, then smiled at her reassurance.
“I’m glad you did, too, Isabella,” I replied, then leaned in to kiss her on her cheeks before she could kiss mine.
She gasped, then giggled with me.
“Let me take you back to your Father. Could I give you a tour after?”
I snorted. “Do you even have to ask? I’d be grateful, and my Father may die on the spot when you tell him.”
A Kiss like Roses: Fairy Tale Synergy Book 1 Page 26
