Meet Me by the Rose Bush

Chapter 2 : January 21, 1811

"So what are you doing here?" Prince Louis asked while picking thorns off a rose he just picked. Stuttering over my words a bit, I replied " um, well I live here." While pointing to my parents house.

Flustered a bit from my response, Louis handed me the rose, "Right, I apologize. Is this your rose bush?"  I smiled as I accepted the rose, he was cute. "It's my fathers actually, he spends most of his time in the garden. So, what are you doing here? If you do not mind me asking, you're quite a ways away from the castle." I asked him while examining the blush pink rose petals. 

He laughed a bit before saying "oh, sometimes I like to sneak out at night to take walks. It clears my head and organizes my thoughts. I'm Louis by the way, but I doubt you did not already know that."  Giggling at his response, I sat the rose in a pocket in my dress. "Yes I did know, but I'm Jo, well Josephine technically, but everyone mostly calls me Jo." I offered him a polite smile.

He made that ridiculous smile before speaking once more, "Well Jo, would you like to join me on the rest of my walk? It gets terribly lonely." His offer made me blush and I could not meet his eyes, "I don't see why not." Louis offered his arm to me and I locked his arm with mine. Together, we followed the stone path just behind my backyard. 

"So miss Josephine, what do you do?" Louis asked while turning his head to look at me. I gave him a puzzled look, "what do you mean?" He smiled slightly, "I mean do you have any hobbies? A job? An occupation?"

His curiosity made me laugh, "Well I work at the bakery on Chancery Lane and that's about it. I do not really do much, I mostly take care of my parents." I admired the scenery along the pathway, plenty of trees and wild flowers. Louis perked up immediately, "Oh! You mean the one next store to the cafe we were at yesterday! That's my favorite bakery in London, the muffins are my favorite!" His response made me feel fuzzy. "That's the one! The muffins are my favorite too! My absolute favorite muffin is 'blueberry'" In shock, we both looked at each other, we had said the same muffin at the same time. That was weird, I had thought to myself. Awkwardly smiling and looking away, the prince noticed something, "Look! Wild Lavender and there's lots of it too!" He took a pocket knife out from his pocket and began clipping some stems.

I crouched down next to Louis to get a better look at the plant. While he was clipping the lavender, I admired his features. He truly was handsome, but not in the way most men are. He had soft features, ones that made you want to keep him safe and protect him from all the dangers in the world.

Pulling myself out of my thoughts I asked, "How were you able to recognize it? My father has hundreds of plants in our garden and I can not recognize half of them." Louis gave me a shy smile, "i study them, it's one of the few thing I enjoy these days. It's relaxing especially with all these prince duties my mother has me doing." I could relate to Louis more than I had originally thought.

At this point, we were both sitting on the ground next to each other in front of the bunches of lavender. Turning to look at him, a few pieces of his brunette hair fell in front of his face. Carefully, i reached over and softly placed them behind his ear. "I understand what you are going through, everyone expects me to get married so my parents will not have to worry about me. But I do not want to marry just any man, I want to marry one I love." I said with a reassuring smile.

It was quiet for a few moments until Louis spoke, "so are you going to do it? Marry I mean." I sighed, not really sure how to answer his question. I thought for a few seconds before replying, "it is complicated I think. I know I should and I know it would be the right thing to do. I just refuse to let my self live a miserable life." Sitting back on my elbows, I looked up at the night sky and took in all the stars that had appeared. The prince turned to look at me, "That is one thing I have been running away from. My mother wants me to marry a duchess from Spain. But I hardly know her and it just seems terrifying."  I nodded to show I understood while picking apart a piece of lavender.

"Should we start heading back? I do not want my mother to think I ran away." I asked Louis while standing up and brushing any grass off my dress. He stood up immediately after me and took my arm back into his, "I guess we shall. I do not want my mother telling my butler I had snuck out again." He let out a laugh after I gave him an unamused look. God, I would do anything to hear him laugh all day long.

~

"So, shall we do this again tomorrow?"

He wanted to see me again? Unbelievable.

"Yeah sure! I'll be waiting!" I replied, slowly walking away from the prince and back to the garden. He laughed, "I was hoping you would say that!" Louis said before sending me a wink and walking to his horse. I watched as he mounted and waved him off.

~

"Bye mother! I'm off to work!" I did not wait for my mothers response before tightening my cloak and heading out the front door. I was in a particularly good mood today, maybe it was because for a January day it was quite warm or maybe from my late night stroll with the prince. Either way, I was feeling pretty happy.

I welcomed the warm air from the bakery as I walked in. "Good morning!" I said while taking off my heavy cloak to put an apron in it's place. "You seem to be happy this morning" I heard Ida say with sarcasm laced in her voice. Her comment made me roll my eyes at her and stifle a laugh. "I may or may not have met someone last night" I replied slyly while starting to roll out pastry dough. Ida gasped and gives me a shocked look, "who could you have possibly met?" Smirking, I said "well I can not exactly tell you. Besides I do not even know how he feels about me, we just met."