Fairy Tale Treasure (Book Two: The Road to Ever After)

Chapter Six

Prince Robert waited, pretty much impatiently, at the bottom of the white stairs leading up to Princess Bridgette's bedroom in the castle of Rainbow's End. Bridgette was packing a few necessities before they rode forward to Delight. However, this pit stop was becoming a lot longer than Robert expected; a man's patience can only bear so much when a lady and clothes are involved. Robert tried not to tap his boot toes on the black and white tiles glistening in the summer light, flashing cascades of rainbow spectrums across the hall. Instead, the prince played with his riding gloves, sometimes slapping his elbow, sometimes wringing them in endless spirals.

"Bridgette," he yelled up to her tower, "Sarah isn't getting any less kidnapped. Come on!"

The young lady's songbird voice trickled down, "Just a tick-tock more."

Robert groaned, his eyes bulging. It was his sister's freedom at stake here, after all. Why couldn't Bridgette understand that and set a fire under her bottom?

"They say, Robbie," a motherly voice purred from behind him, "that only those you really love can get under your skin."

The prince turned to look upon the fluffy, grey cat resting majestically in a doorway. A sweet robin egg's blue bow was wrapped around her neck, carrying a sapphire's weight that matched her oracular orbs. She smiled quietly at the lad, a fond series of memories reflected in her blue eyes. The regal cat possessed that style of feline affection that mostly remained at a distance, yet sent waves of love and protection to embrace those she lived to serve.

"I suppose that's true, Cassandra," Robert said to the royal family's longtime guardian and housekeeper, "Ever since we were children, huh? It was always Bridgette who could confuse me into frustration. I mean really Cassandra, what in Fairy Tale's name could she be doing up there?"

The cat smiled, eyes downturned. Human children were so amusing, especially to Cassandra's nine lives of experience. She saw everything in this castle where others were blind. The cat watched Daniel and Bridgette grow during their frequent visits in the months both families were neighbors in Delight and Rainbow's End. Every year she glimpsed the signs of blossoming seeds of something more than mere friendship. While others pinned their hopes to distant possibilities of the firstborns finally falling for one another, Cassandra saw a sure thing already alive between Robert and Bridgette.

"I know, Robert, you think Bridgette need not care how she is attired in Delight, since it will only be you and her, but dear," Cassandra rotated her head at his ignorance, "That is exactly why she cares."

A lop-sided grin curled into existence on the corner of Prince Robert's mouth. He was proud in a romantic glow. Love could move mountains; it could change attitudes in a blink too.

"Why are you the only one, Cass, that has always known," Robert asked, regarding his heart's secret, "It should be right there in front of so many faces – so why can't they see it? I know my skills of deception aren't that good."

The cat gracefully lifted a paw and licked it. She even made personal hygiene look like an art. "They do it with mirrors, Robbie."

"Huh?"

"A sleight of hand, a trick of the eye. You fooled them. While they were looking intently at your siblings, well...we know what happened."

Robert nodded, a whirl of recollections spinning out of his control. A perfect Fairy Tale love story – play fellows always happy together, until one, magical day a brief touch meant so much and the two, royal tweens knew they were meant to be. Their love was a fact...now, if only it could be a future.