by K. M. Shea
“Bernadine is a saint. She is a treasure that deserves to be admired and jealously guarded, isn’t that right, Jock?” Elle said. Since the servants couldn’t reply and Prince Severin never bothered to acknowledge her, Elle had taken to addressing all her inquiries to the fat dog—whom she had taken the liberty of naming.
Elle continued, “Her hash is heavenly and her cherry jelly is peerless! It is no wonder you weigh twice as much as you ought to, Jock.”
Jock breathed loudly, watching the piece of buttered bread Elle held.
“And the pastries, don’t let me forget the pastries, Jock.”
At the other end of the table Prince Severin sipped his wine.
“It is beyond me how she manages to secure fresh fruits for every meal,” Elle said before popping a strawberry in her mouth. It was juicy and sweet from the sun of the day. “She even manages to present fruits that are out of season! Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. The chateau is magical, you know.”
Severin made a noise that sounded like “chuff,” his cat whiskers jutting forward with the sound.
Elle froze, her bread halfway to her mouth. Did the cursed prince just emit the cat equivalent of a snort?
Prince Severin nibbled on a grape, ignoring or not noticing Elle’s awe.
Elle looked down at Jock. The dog’s eyes were still glued to her bread. “Did I imagine that?” Elle asked. The dog scooted closer on his well padded butt. Elle shook her head before she spoke at a loud volume again. “You can tell Bernadine cooks only with cow milk. It is superior to goat milk—I have been told so by those with taste.”
Elle paused to sip her tea. “Good food must always been enjoyed to the highest degree,” she said before lunging out of her chair. She almost fell over, but she managed to snatch up her crutches before the manservant who usually kidnapped her crutches could touch them.
Elle rocked back in her chair, holding her crutches with a smile that was considered too big to be pretty. “If we don’t enjoy it, we don’t give proper recognition to all of Bernadine’s work,” she continued, as if she had not just held a wordless scuffle with a servant.
When she looked up Severin was staring at her as he chewed his food. His expressions were difficult to decipher on his feline face, but judging by the quirked right ear and the flat look in his eyes, Elle suspected Severin was measuring her intelligence level and finding it wanting.
“Correct?” she beamed, holding fast to her crutches as a maid tried tugging on them.
Severin furrowed his forehead and returned his attention to his food.
One of the footmen who usually carried Elle stood behind Severin. When he knew Elle was looking at him he clasped his hands together and lifted them shoulder height before shaking them in a gesture of victory.
Elle returned her attention to her meal with a slight grin.
No matter how low Prince Severin held her in esteem, Elle seemed to be gaining popularity in his household.
After experiencing nothing but troubles with her dresses and crutches, Elle knew something had to change.
“Emele I have a confession to make, the clothes you dress me in—while beautiful—are making it impossibly difficult to walk,” Elle said over afternoon tea. She twirled a parasol Emele had lent to her above her head, even though they were indoors.
Emele looked at Elle and shook her head before topping off her cup of tea.
“No, I am not being silly. I cannot fit my torso through the space between my crutches because the skirts are so large. I also live in fear that the already low cut neckline with fall further if a sleeve happens to slide off my shoulder.”
You dress in the height of fashion.
“Perhaps, but I have no desire to shackle myself because the aristocrats think women who resemble cakes are attractive,” Elle said.
Emele ate a cookie and ignored Elle’s plea.
Elle flattened her lips as she thought. If Emele would not change her wardrobe, who could she petition for help?
“Emele,” Elle cautiously started. “I need to speak to His Highness Prince Severin. How would I—,” Elle cut herself off when Emele excitedly clapped her hands.
The ladies maid curtseyed elegantly before sweeping out of the room, a bounce in her step and a smile on her lips.
Elle twirled her parasol as she watched Emele go with growing curiosity. She shrugged at Jock, who was seizing the opportunity to try to crawl his way onto Emele’s abandoned chair, aiming for her forgotten pastry.
There was a crash in the hallway.
Elle twisted to look over her shoulder, but no one entered her room. She was almost finished with her tea when Emele returned, flanked by four footmen with Elle’s usual chair.
The footmen bowed and waited by the chair.
Elle blinked. “What, now? He will see me now?”
Emele nodded eagerly as she plucked the parasol from Elle’s grasp.
“It wasn’t too short of notice?”
Emele shook her head, her smile still wide.
Elle frowned. “Are you certain?”
Emele sighed and glided to Elle’s chair. She took her hand and tugged on it.
“Alright. I’m coming,” Elle said, positioning her crutches beneath her before she hobbled to her chair. She barely had time to arrange her skirts before the footmen hefted her up into the air, making her yelp at their sudden movement.
They trooped out of Elle’s room and down the hallway at a hasty pace. Elle clutched the arms of her chair as the footmen carried her. Her heart stopped when one of them tripped, but the other footmen corrected him, and in a much shorter span of time than Elle would have liked the footmen set her down in front of an immense door.
Emele helped Elle stand, hovering at her right elbow as Elle shifted her weight on her crutches. Elle set her shoulders and inspected her skirts, settling them into place.
She was shocked when Emele knocked on the door before Elle was ready. The ladies maid jumped backwards, cutely tipping her head and tucking her clasped hands beneath her chin.
Elle frowned at her friend, but returned her attention to the task before her when she heard a commanding, “Enter,” through the door.
Elle swallowed as Emele eagerly opened the door for Elle, stepping aside so she could hobble through.
Elle cautiously entered, her eyes taking in the small, cozily lit study. There was a large, full length mirror on one side of the study, which was flanked by a wall covered in maps. The other lengthy wall was covered with bookshelves—which housed an inch of dust and enough paper to run a printing press for a year.
Prince Severin was seated behind a massive desk that was piled high with papers, writing utensils, a compass, rulers, scales, and, oddly enough, a vase of roses.
Prince Severin looked up for a moment when Elle paused in front of his desk. He returned his gaze to his work as Emele closed the study door.
“I was told you wished to speak to me,” Prince Severin said, making a notation on a map.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Elle said.
“State your business, Intruder,” the prince said.
Elle eyed the prince for a moment over the nickname before she looked at the ceiling as she considered the problem. Perhaps she should have thought this through before asking for an audience with Severin, because really there was no elegant way to tell the prince that her petticoats made it impossible to walk.
“Well?”
“I am having trouble using my crutches,” Elle started.
“Tell Duval and he will have a new pair made,” Prince Severin said, pushing himself away from his desk.
“No, the crutches aren’t the problem,” Elle said.
Prince Severin stood and stalked to the map covered wall. He studied it for a moment before selecting a map and tearing it off the wall. “You just said you were having trouble using them.”
“Yes, but the problem does not lie in the crutches,” Elle said.
Severin’s ears briefly flattened. “Please stop speaking in circles
and tell me what you need,” he said before he sat down again.
Elle shrugged. “Very well. My skirts are too wide.”
Prince Severin looked up and stared at her with his oddly pupiled eyes.
Encouraged that he hadn’t covered his ears, Elle plunged on. “The way everyone explains it I’m supposed to swing myself between the crutches and set my foot down, but my skirts are too wide and thick. I can’t seem to land between my crutches and sort of bounce off them instead. I have to lean forward on the tips of my foot—which is quite awkward and rather painful. I keep stumbling like a fool, but Emele refuses to give me a less elaborate dress. Can you tell her to give me something less…,” Elle held her hand out, grasping for the right word as she passionately looked to the ceiling again.
“I see,” Prince Severin said.
Elle lowered her gaze and tried to gauge the prince’s reaction. He seemed understanding? His ears were upright and still, and his feline forehead was free of wrinkles. “Do you?” Elle asked, thoroughly intrigued.
“You find it difficult to move and recuperate in this year’s fashions. I will inform Heloise of the required change to your wardrobe.”
“Heloise?” Elle blinked.
“Is that all?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Elle said. She hesitated, wondering if she should attempt a curtsey. As much as she disliked his ethics he was a prince, and he was letting her stay at his chateau.
Prince Severin correctly interpreted her silence. “It’s fine. Good evening, Intruder,” he said waving a clawed paw at her.
“Good evening, Your Highness,” Elle said before she swiveled on her good foot and thumped her way across Severin’s study. She stopped to tussle with the door and glanced over her shoulder.
The cursed prince was looking down at his paperwork, but he was opening and closing his right hand, rubbing his thick fingers together as if feeling something. He flicked his eyes up and stared at Elle, who unabashedly smiled at him before she pulled the door open and slipped into the hallway.
Elle waited hopefully all night, but Emele did not mention her wardrobe, and the following morning she stuffed Elle into a mushroom skirted dress as was custom.
Elle ate her breakfast in her room and sorrowfully stared through the ceiling to floor windows of her room to watch it rain on the gardens.
“No going outside today, I suppose?” Elle asked Emele.
Emele shook her head. It is just as well, she wrote.
“Why?” Elle asked.
Before the ladies maid could write out a reply someone rapped on the door.
“Come in,” Elle said.
In walked the tall, storkish woman who had visited Elle once before. “Heloise,” Elle said, recalling her name.
Heloise snapped her head in a stiff nod. She tucked her arms beneath her chest and narrowed her eyes at Elle from across the room.
The door would have hit her when it swung open if the fast thinking woman hadn’t put a foot out, stopping it cold.
Bernadine bustled in, plump, round, and smiling as usual. She nearly knocked Heloise over with her round backside when she turned to close the door.
Heloise’s lips creased in a frown before she smoothed the bun her hair was pulled back into. The tall woman stalked across the room and stopped at the immense wardrobe that held Elle’s borrowed clothes. She flung the doors open and glared at the dresses with the same scrutiny she had given Elle.
Bernadine waddled over to Elle and Emele, affectionately patting both of them on the hand.
Emele looked off to the window before snapping a lace fan open and fanning herself. Her lips were pursed in a pout, and Bernadine shook her head at her.
Heloise stalked back across the room and opened the bedroom door before clapping. A gaggle of women stepped in, loaded down with bolts of silks, satin, velvet, and other costly fabrics.
Elle stood when one of the women beckoned at her before she started measuring her with a knotted rope.
“Prince Severin told you I require less elaborate dresses, yes?” Elle ventured.
She was completely ignored.
Heloise clapped again, and a buxom woman with stark red lips appeared with startling agility for one her size.
The buxom woman smoothed the edges of her mask as she trod a circle around Elle, plucking Elle’s crutches from her grasp. She grabbed Elle’s arm and pushed up the sleeve, inspecting Elle’s bare skin with pursed lips. The pushy woman then looked to the closest maid and pointed an accusing finger at Elle.
The maid descended on Elle, undoing the buttons and ribbons on the back of Elle’s dress.
Across the room Emele fanned herself with snappish gestures, frowning as she watched the maid strip Elle down until she was standing in nothing but her linen underclothes.
Elle shivered in the cool air. “Is this truly necessary?”
The buxom woman did not acknowledge Elle’s question, and snapped her fingers before again pointing at Elle.
A maid dashed forward, holding a bolt of bright blue silk up to Elle’s cheek.
Heloise frowned, and the pushy woman planted a hand on her ample bosom and recoiled in horror.
The next maid darted forward, replacing the soft colored silk with a tomato red colored velvet.
Heloise waved the maid on and the buxom lady cast a free hand over the eye holes of her mask.
Heloise and the dramatic woman—the chateau seamstress probably—reacted similarly to a shade of soft pink, egg yolk yellow, and a bolt of sunset orange cloth. (The seamstress almost stormed out of the room when the women tried an unflattering shade of smog black.)
It wasn’t until a maid held up a sample of mint green silk that Heloise and the head seamstress paused.
Heloise pressed her lips together as she considered the color combination. The seamstress darted forward to pull a lock of Elle’s black hair over her shoulder and on top of the cloth sample. The seamstress smiled and nodded once, and the maid scurried aside, clutching the bolt of mint green fabric like it was a priceless treasure.
Heloise and the seamstress also accepted a shade of lavender satin, a forest green velvet, and a swatch of blue-gray silk.
There were a number of samples left when a maid darted forward, holding a bolt of dark, rose red brocade.
The room—previously filled with noise of bustling skirts—hushed into the silence of stillness.
Bernadine—who was consoling Emele by the windows—waddled across the room to stand with Heloise.
The tall, angular woman threaded her arm through Bernadine’s. The pair looked like old friends, silently encouraging and supporting each other as they stared at Elle and the seamstress.
The seamstress arranged Elle’s hair on one side and carefully held the rose red fabric up to her hair, face, and finally her eyes.
After pausing for a few moments, the seamstress stepped back and took an unused slate. She wrote in dramatic, curling letters and presented her message to the room. He will love it.
Elle looked around, confusion wrinkling her forehead as she watched the maids hug each other and beam. They clapped their hands and soundlessly giggled. The maid holding the rose red cloth sample preened as she joined the other maids holding the previously selected shades.
Heloise drew everyone back into order by clapping three times.
The maid with the knotted rope came back and measured Elle again as the seamstress swept out of the room, the maids holding the selected colors trailing behind her like ducklings.
By the time the maid measured every inch of Elle and recorded the measurements on a slate the other women had finished packing up the cloth samples. They left in a gaggle, leaving Elle—shivering—with Bernadine, Heloise, and Emele.
Emele flung her fan aside and helped Elle redress as Bernadine and Heloise held a conversation through slate exchanges.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to make new dresses for me,” Elle gratefully taking her crutches when Emele handed them to her after twitching the
hemline of her gown into place.
It is, Bernadine wrote.
Heloise added, The payoff will be ample.
Elle was unconvinced. She didn’t think the prince would stomach spending money on a wardrobe for a trespasser, but he was the one she sought out for help. He must have known what his servants were planning, right?
Elle sighed and carefully seated herself on a couch. “I find that I do not care for being ignorant and ill informed.”
Chapter 5
Prince Severin the Gardener
A few days later, Elle could not keep a smile off her lips. She was in the gardens with Emele—the inner gardens, the ladies maid refused to go anywhere near the hedge lined walkway where she and Elle had met the bratty village boy—walking with ease and wearing the first of her new dresses.
The design and mint green color immensely pleased Elle. Gone were the loose, puffy sleeves and the embarrassingly low neckline, which now cut off right below Elle’s collar bone instead of swooping further down her chest. The sleeves still ended at the elbow, but they were fitted and tight. The skirt was not puffed and required no underskirt unlike the previous dresses.
The dress allowed Elle to swing forward and walk confidently and with much more grace and quickness.
Emele was still off put that her choice of gowns had been removed from Elle’s wardrobe. However, even Emele could not deny that Elle no longer tripped, and her crutches did not slide out underneath her anymore.
“Today is a perfect day,” Elle pronounced, closing her eyes and briefly sunning herself. “The air is perfect, neither too hot nor too cold. My dress is fabulous, and Jock is getting exercise. Come, Jock!” Elle called, choosing a new pathway to explore.
Jock panted as he hurried after Elle and Emele. The girls wove their way through the gardens, stopping occasionally to admire a fountain or a pond.
“Look at that little pavilion on the other side of the pond, Emele. Do you know which path to take to get to it?” Elle asked, gesturing at a stone structure that was nestled into an inlet of the lily pad covered pond.
Emele didn’t seem to hear Elle. She was staring down one of the garden paths, rubbing the rounded corners of her slate.
