“Yes.” I didn’t get it.
“I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Mamma. Everyone says you’re the smart one, Rosie. Can’t you figure it out?”
I thought. “You mean Lysander thought that, despite my inexperience, I should be able to discern the difference between my One True Love and the very prince of deceit.” I thought some more. “Lysander was insulted.”
“Yeah.”
“I am fortune’s fool! I pass the crown. You’re the smart one.”
She stuck a finger through the hole in her gown. In tones of great gloom, she said, “Nurse is going to yell at me. She’ll tell me I’m twelve years old, that Mamma married Papà when she was thirteen, and I need to stop having fun.”
I’d heard that lecture myself. Had heard it for years and years. “I’ll fix it for you. I owe you for the explanation. Nurse doesn’t have to know.”
“Thank you, Rosaline.” Imogene swung her feet. “Are you still mad at everybody?”
“Honey, I’m not mad ateverybody.I’m mad at me for being so careless and”—I remembered what Lysander said about the men laughing at me—“I’m . . . humiliated.”
“Why?”
“I have to marry Verona’s podestà, Prince Escalus the younger of the house of Leonardi. Because he decided he wanted a wife and I would do nicely because of my organizational abilities, my virginity, and my nicetette.”
“He said that?” Even Imogene was horrified.
“That was the gist of it. After he . . . he . . .”
“Despoiled you?”
“No, he didnotdespoil me. It was merely a few kisses.”
“Oh. Because I was in the oak over by the wall and I heard Lady Luce and Lady Perdita talking on the street and they said he despoiled you.”
“They have ever been monstrous neighbors.” I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “Were they mirthful?”
“Um. Sort of. Snorting and smirking.” Imogene got a worrisome smile on her face. “You know those nasty worms that spin those webs and eat all the leaves on the trees?”
I glanced up at the white webs on the ends of the branches. “Yes. Gardener has been trying to get rid of them, but he says it’s an infestation and we’ll have to wait for winter to put an end to them.”
“I threw a branch full of worms and webs on the ladies.”
After I got done laughing, I asked, “Did they see you?”
Grinning, she shook her head. “They screamed and did the icky worm dance.”
I hugged her. “I love you—and not merely for that!”
“But you don’t love the prince?”
“No. No! Aside from the fact Lysander is my One True Love, and I’ll never love another, organizational ability, virginity, andtette? Makes you swoon at the romance, doesn’t it?”
“No.” Imogene might be a hoyden, but she understood romance. As a daughter of Romeo and Juliet, it was required.
“Me neither.” Yet that was the essence of last night’s coup d’état speech masquerading as a proposal. Or maybe it was a proposal masquerading as a coup d’état speech. Hard to tell.
She slipped her hand into mine. “What are you going to do, Rosie?”
“I’ll marry, for this time even this unready maid must bear the yoke.”
“No!” She squeezed my fingers. “You don’t have to. You could stay here with us. We could be a family forever and ever!”
