I put my hand on my belly. “Sweet Jesus, no!”
Papà glared at my hand.
I dropped it to my side and faked a smile. “Prince Escalus, while as an apprentice apothecary, I admire your enthusiasm for your garden—you have so many gardeners!”
I’d glimpsed a dozen men and women lurking in the bushes, kneeling in the dirt holding a trowel, carrying plants in pots.
Prince Escalus flicked a glance around. “My garden is dear to me.”
“Obviously.”
“As an apprentice apothecary, would you like to tour the herb garden?” He gestured toward the walls that separated the common herbs from his more exotic plants.
“No, I thank you.” Heaven forbid! “I fear my family doesn’t share my enthusiasm for herbal preparations. While we have our whole lives to enjoy this marvelous space, I’d hoped to hear more about the palace art and culture.” A lousy excuse, and one that had my siblings rolling their eyes, but better than any suspicion that I might be with child.
Prince Escalus strode over, loomed over me (I was to discover he used looming to great effect), and looked into my eyes. “I was going to tell you about this spring-blooming plant, commonly known asrhododendron.But whatever my future bride desires is my command.”
Behind us, Imogene faked sticking her finger down her throat.
Mamma slapped her lightly on the back of the head.
I grinned.
One side of Prince Escalus’s mouth lifted. I think it was supposed to be a smile, but with this melancholy guy, who knew? Anyway, why was he smiling? He hadn’t seen the byplay.
The word “melancholy” fit Prince Escalus like a well-tailored coat. He’d never been a handsome boy, and, in fact, before the battles, I remember him comporting himself like the self-important youth he knew himself to be. Son of the podestà, heir to the rule of Verona—how learned, how glorious, and how commanding in his every word and deed! Even young as I was, I disdained him. Not that it mattered; I was a girl and unworthy of his notice.
Then, eleven years ago, his life had been split in two. The house of Acquasasso tried by stealth, violence, and deception to take the office of podestà for their own. Prince Escalus the elder put down their rebellion, for he was a warrior of renown, and in the aftermath was assassinated. To this day, the assassin remained at large and undetected.
Barely thirteen, Prince Escalus the younger survived imprisonment and torture. He rose from the dungeons to take command of the city, and now his importance was indeed as great as he’d previously imagined. Still, suffering had marked the unremarkable countenance, and not in a good way. Although he was now but twenty-four, he wore black, and black, and more black, lightened by occasional trims of midnight blue, mold green, and gloomy maroon. Streaks of white marked his shoulder-length black hair, his brown skin bore a gray tinge of dungeon, and his scarred complexion would eternally show signs of the knife and the heated rod. He limped slightly from the iron bar they had used on the bones of his right leg, and although I’d never seen him in action, he’d earned a fearsome reputation as a swordsman.
In other words, Prince Escalus was the complete opposite of my One True Love, Lysander of the house of Marcketti.
Cesario’s patience had been tested long enough, and he blurted, “Prince Escalus, where’s Princess Isabella? IlovePrincess Isabella. I want to seeher.”
Prince Escalus glanced around as if puzzled. “I don’t know. I believed she would join us for this part of the tour. She always seems so interested in my garden.”
In other words, she was staying the hell away.
“I’m sure directing a formal dinner could be a challenge for a twelve-year-old.” Mamma had already established herself as the orphaned Princess Isabella’s surrogate mother. “Perhaps I should find her and offer my assistance.”
“And me!” Katherina said.
“And me!” Imogene said.
“And me!” Emilia said.
“And me!” Cesario said.
Papà put his hand on Cesario’s shoulder. “Son, men don’t interfere in the business of women.”
“That’s not fair!” Cesario protested. “I’m the one who asked about her!”
“Princess Isabella is surprisingly accomplished at such formalities,” Prince Escalus assured us, “and needs no assistance.”
“If you have no taste,” Katherina said to me out of the corner of her mouth.
I widened my eyes to keep from cackling.
