Je T'aime.

X. Contemplation

I awoke in the morning even drowsier than when I first went to bed that night. Maybe it was my wandering thoughts and dreaming, maybe it was something else. But that day I had little will to get out of bed. I rolled over, and was greeted by my doll, resting on the pillow. Her arms were outstretched and her legs tossed about, as if I had pushed her away in my sleep. I overlooked the still, painted face, which hadn't moved in eighteen years, though it felt like it did. I scoffed at myself. A girl asking about her marriage still being comforted by her dolls. How pathetic. I put my doll back in the drawer where she was and finally forced myself up and out of bed. I wrapped myself in my banyan. I glanced over at the clock on my wall- Pia would be coming in just a few minutes. That was something I loved about Pia- she was always punctual. Maybe that was the farmgirl in her, though she always did it by the sun. I wasn't quite sure0 if Pia could read a clock. She couldn't read the text in a letter or a book, that was for sure.

Carefully I began to sift through the drawer of my writing desk; it had become so full that it became hard to close. At the top of the pile, carefully curated on the left side of the drawer. Were Isabella's letters, complete with their blue seals. Underneath them were notes from my mother and old half-drawn sketches that were long discarded. I gently lifted the letters out of the drawer. Somehow, I found these small notes of courtesy more special than anything else that was contained within that drawer. I gathered the letters, and, in a haste to find a good but secretive place to store them, tucked them between the headboard of my canopied bed and the wall. I knew well that the maids did not clean back there. My bed had been there so long that the feet of the bed had rubbed the varnish off of the wooden floor.

There was no reason to hide the letters- there was nothing vulgar within them. But it was as if I was hiding the letters from myself. I had to tell the truth to myself- I had read these letters over and over. I had run my fingertips over every curving inkstroke of the words that displayed such brilliance in my sister-in-law. Ever since she had stepped out of that carriage, my mind had never wandered far from that girl. Something about her had bewitched me. Like a little girl looking up to a teenaged lady, I was entranced. No matter how hard I tried to shake my thoughts of her, they never faded. And the dreams didn't help, either. My mind was flooded with thoughts of her. Every day when I woke, and every night when I laid in the cold solitude of my bed. I tried to woo myself to sleep with thoughts of Albert, but somehow I always worked Isabella inot the narrative I wove.

Certainly, no! My affections were nothing but the joy of having a new acquaintance. Nothing more, nothing less. That's what I kept telling myself, at least.

But my heart leapt when I saw her. I hoped that every day I would run into her, and I could at least exchange a few words with her. Every blank second that I had, my mind recalled every image of her that my mind had ever seen. Every little thing that she did- the way that she walked, the way her eyes lit up when she smiled, her laugh, her Spanish accent, the rose and sandalwood fragrance that gingerly blessed you when she was near. Her intelligence, accompanied by her gentle beauty. Her humbleness, her courtesy. What was about her that was not to adore? The granddaughter of two great kings- a lineage that could be envied. She was a Princess in all of her glory, unlike any that I had ever met before. I remembered his full name from the wedding, which the priest read before the crowd in an act of holy matrimony-

Isabella Maria Luisa Antoinetta Ferdinanda Giuseppina Saveria Domenica Giovanna.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and stared out of the window again over the stone courtyard where my eyes had been first blessed by her, a terrified creature in an emerald gown stepping out of the carriage. It had been such a short time since I had first met her, when I sat next to her at the marriage banquet. But I had been bewitched by her. How could a woman strike me so deeply? I was not supposed to be smitten by her. I loved Albert dearly, and I would marry him over any other man on Earth. But he trembled in comparison to Isabella. How wonderful she was. How enchanting. How delightful.

"Oh, God, what is wrong with me?" I asked to the air, collapsing back onto my bed. "Surely, I'm mad. Surely I'm losing my mind. How foolish of me to be smitten with a girl. And my sister-in-law, by that!"

There was a light, rapid knock at my door. Pia entered, her shoes clacking gently against the floorboards with every step. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she set my morning coffee down on my bedside table. "Good morning," she said cheerily. "Do enlighten me. What's on your mind?"

I glanced over to her. "Everything in the world, and yet nothing at all. Nothing philosophical, anyways."

"I see. Quarter-life crisis?"

"Maybe," I replied. "I've just been thinking about how the life of royalty is always laced with unhappiness. It is inescapable. To be the servant of the nation is always to be wrapped with misery. A broodmare, a pawn in the grand chess set of politics, the gossip of gilded palaces... why can I not be like those country women, liberated from the status of a lady?"

Pia sighed and sat down on the edge of my bed. "Trust me, the life of the rural people is no better. Some years the harvest is so bad you can't even buy enough bread to feed your children. The winter is long and cold, so you must burn furniture to stay warm and sleep on the floor. You must watch your family suffer through illness and die through torment because there either isn't a doctor for miles, or you can't afford one. If a mother dies, a nursing babe can't be fed. It isn't the same kind, but all people live with misery."

I just laid there in silence. She was right, and I knew it. But at that moment, anything sounded better than this. "Can country folks marry whoever they want?"

"If the bride's parents agree, pretty much, yes. Later, too. My mother was twenty-two."

"Mine was nineteen. God, that's less than a year away!" I grabbed a pillow off of my bed and held it over my face. I screamed into it, my voice muffled by layers of silk and down feathers. "Isabella is what, six months younger than me? And she's married and in a new country already!"

Pia sighed. "Things will come with time." She stood and brushed off her apron. But I wasn't sure of anything yet. What did she know about being the daughter of the grandest woman in the world? Maybe she was just trying to comfort me.

"What do you know?" I snapped back. "You're no Archduchess. You're just a farmer's daughter."

Pia raised her eyebrows, but seemed to brush off my harsh comment. "I'm not. But I try to give you the best advice that I can, you know. Because I'm your friend."

I continued to just lie there in frustrated silence. I had to shut up before I said anything worse. My mind was running at an exhausting pace, but there was nothing I could do to slow it. Finally, I stood up. I knew what my mother would do in my place. "Pia, set out an outfit for me. Nothing too flashy. I have a place where I need to go."