𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 ✔

Chapter Fifteen

By the end of the first week, and as Rheda had predicted, Diana and the blonde Isabelle had been sent home. Leaving only sixteen of us. Some of the other girls seemed to have been getting along quite well with one another, and others not so much.

It was very clear that lines had been drawn. grudges had started to have been held and prejudices formed. The more comfortable the girls felt in their positions in the courting, the more their true selves began to show and the less they feared of being reprimanded.

"How is your dear sister, Emma?" I had been reading a book, off in one of the far corners of the drawing room, when a familiar voice broke my concentration.

I looked up to find that Georgiana Fairefax had taken the seat across from me, "She is rather fine, I suppose."

I had not spoken to Georgiana the entire time we had been at the palace, nor had she spoken to me. I closed the book that I had been reading, to give her my full attention, knowing since she had started with talk of Adela, this conversation was not going to be a pleasant one.

"Oh, I figured she must have been gravely ill since you are here in her stead." She licked her bottom lip, "Or perhaps she was too afraid to compete against me, that I'd win and make her look a fool."

"She was here the other night at the congratulatory ball," I tried to ignore her insult. "I guess you must have missed her."

She watched me for a moment, as if questioning why I had glossed over her provocations. "So, Adela allowed you to come in her stead when a prince is at stake? I scantily believe it. Though I will admit, you are much fairer than your sister when you're not donning her used ill fitted rags."

I wanted to laugh at her, but in a way she was correct. I had no business being there, and the reason I was sent instead of Adela was still unknown to me. However, that didn't mean I was going to allow her to walk all over me.

"I have no quarrel with you, Georgiana." I sighed, "In truth I hate my sister, probably more than you do. So please, do not drag me into the long-lasting rivalry that is only between the two of you and our mothers."

She raised an eyebrow at my confession, trying not to let her confusion show, "Then why are you here, second born?"

"If I knew, then I would tell you. But alas I have been, once again, left out of the know."

A bored look rose upon her face, her brown, almost amber, eyes rolled as she sighed, "I never would have thought that the infamous girl in pink would have been you. It is interesting to at the very least, but I dare say I am rather disappointed." She looked me over one last time before she stood up, "At least you're as pretty as the lovely pink dress which set you apart from the rest of us. But I do hope you understand the gap which once placed you ahead of us all, has grown rather thin. And soon you will be left on the other side wondering why you lost when you had started oh so far ahead."

I couldn't decipher whether that had been a friendly warning or a thinly veiled promise. But her words had an impact on me, nevertheless. I had already known once the masks had come off, and my identity revealed, that I would have had to have worked harder than the rest. For, I had to live up to the accidental reputation of the Girl in pink, and the very high expectations of always standing out. So most of it was not new to me.

However, part of what she had said stuck in my mind as I repeated them several times trying to figure out where I had heard something similar. It took me far too long to figure it out, but when I did, I was quite surprised. The girl who had removed the button from her mask on our first day at the palace had been none other than Georgiana.

It was fitting to say the least. Though, I wondered if she had been hoping my personality had been like that of my sister's. It would have explained why she had seemed so disappointed in my lack of reaction to her carefully placed insults. And, if I had been Adela, they would have worked. Because my sister's lack of restraint was unrivaled. She was a hothead, after all, and she got that trait from our mother.