Je T'aime.

XXVII. Riding School

After lunch, I met Isabella in my apartments yet again, Eleanore accompanying her. This irritated me mildly but I managed to brush it off. Eleanore waddled into my apartments carrying a stack of clothes and accessories. We went into my bedchamber, and Eleanore dropped the stack with a huff onto my bed. When Isabella saw me, her face lit up. "Well, don't you look wonderful! That's such a pretty bodice. So masculine. So dashing."

I looked down at my scarlet habit. "It's the same one I wore to the court hunt."

"Well, I never saw you in it off of the horse. I love it. And with the hat? Brilliant! I have one, but it's smaller and terribly girly. Held on with pins and whatnot," Isabella began rustling through the stack as Eleanore laid out her wears. "It's part of my travelling gown," She held up a headpiece in a shade of a muted tan, decorated with black lace and small feathers. "I should have stolen one of Joseph's."

"I think I have an extra," I said as I went to my closet. I indeed did. I pulled down the hat, made of black felt with white trim, a white pom-pom hanging from one corner. On the other side there was a matching white cockade. "Here, can you catch it?"

Isabella nodded, and I sent the hat through the air. She placed it on her head, posing in the mirror. "Don't you love it, Eleanore?"

"It's cute," Eleanore replied as she unfolded another skirt.

"Here, let me show you something," I said to the princess. "The soldiers wear theirs off to the side a little," I adjusted the positioning of the hat. "Because when you bring the musket to the shoulder with a straight hat, it hits one of the tricornes," I demonstrated, whacking one of the folds of the hat, knocking it to the ground. "And it falls off."

Isabella laughed, picking up the hat and putting it back on crookedly, at my suggestion. "It's fashion, then! I'll have to show François!"

Eleanore fluffed out a skirt and laid it flat out on the bed. "Here, Isa, try this one." It was a linen skirt in a muted green color with white floral embroidery along the hem.

"Hold on, I have another habit that will match!" I rustled through my closet until I found the waistcoat and matching jacket that I was looking for. The waistcoat was a cream color with vertical green stripes and silver buttons. The jacket was white, green at the facings and the sleeve cuffs. "Here, what do you think? The skirt's a little short, but with your boots, I think you'll be alright."

Isabella held up the jacket to her shoulders, as if she was wearing it. "I love it!" she squealed, already unpinning the gown she was already wearing and throwing it to the ground. "Let me try it on!"

Eleanore and I set Isabella up in her new outfit- leather boots and gloves, too. She sat before my dressing table as Eleanore did up her boots. Twisting the front most sections in order to keep them secure, I tied her hair back with a white ribbon, a waterfall of brown curls running down between her shoulder blades. Isabella, nearly boiling over with anticipation, hurriedly said goodbye to her cousin and pulled me towards the palace's grand hall.

The solid heels of our boots clicked against the grand hall's polished marble floors, echoing against the unimaginably high ceilings. "I feel like a prince," she said with a beaming smile. "All I need is a sword. Then we could fence."

"You'd lose, Prince Isabell...o?"

Isabella raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Really, now?"

"Really. And once you can ride, then we can joust. You'd lose then, too."

Isabella grinned and shook her head. "Jousting? It's the eighteenth century, Christina, act like it."

Isabella and I quickly crossed the courtyard to the stables, briefly bracing the cold before we entered the housing of the imperial riding horses. The carriage horses were kept in another stable near the carriage house on the other side of the complex. The stable was delightfully warm, and the place smelled like hay and wet animals. Isabella's nose wrinkled, but the scent filled me with the excitement of a ride.