A Peasant and A Princess

Chapter Eighteen: Appearence

The garden was cold and damp and I had no idea why I was there. The bench that I sat on was still wet from the melted snow, and it was soaking through my dress. I could see a couple gardeners on the other side of the garden, burning fires to warm up the soil, and generally getting everything ready for the spring.

A statue of a woman in an old fashioned dress seemed to be crying from all the streaks of water running down her face. The garden was dreary and wet and cold, but I was sitting there nonetheless.

I walked through the garden, my feet starting to freeze from my soaked through shoes. I got to the east corner and sat down again by the fence. It was made up of tall black bars with pointed tips dotted with snow.

I closed my eyes. I could feel the breeze in my hair, my toes pruning up, and goosebumps on my arms.

Mallory. She had seen me. God knows what she thought of me now.

"Isla,"

I was hearing her voice. For I all I knew I was just crazy. It had been over a year. I hated that I wasn't over her already.

I thought that maybe I should just marry The Crown Prince of Hehron. I could maybe grow to love a man and forget that Mallory had ever existed.

"Isla,"

Mallory's voice again. I wished it would stop. If I married Prince Josef, even if I wasn't fixed or get over Mallory, I would eventually be a queen. That'd be nice. Better than whatever future I could have with Mallory anyways.

"Isla, are you okay?" Her voice asked.

I finally opened my eyes and stood up. Maybe I just needed to see that she wasn't there, that she was really gone.

But she wasn't. Either I was full on hallucinating, or Mallory was on the other side of the gate. Without a word, I reached through the bars to touch her face. She was there.

"You're here," I breathed.

She smiled at me.

I shoved my face up against the bars to kiss her. The cold metal bars pressing into my cheekbones, I pressed my mouth against hers.

"You not mad at me?" She whispered.

I pulled my face from the bars.

"What?"

"I thought you were mad, you just left, and I-"

"I wasn't mad at you, I got put under house arrest."

Now it was Mallory's turn to be confused.

"What?"

"I left too late that day, and I haven't been allowed to leave the castle since. This is actually my first time in the garden without guards watching me. Why are you here? They're going to kill you if anyone sees you here."

"We've got to make a plan." She said.

"What do you mean?"

"We've got to figure out a better way to see each other than you sneaking out of a highly protected castle at night. Like me getting a job at the castle or something."

"No, that wouldn't work. The only person on the staff I really get to interact with is Jane and Miss Edith, but I don't really have the power to get rid of them without ruining their lives. And you don't know any other languages, so being a language tutor won't work."

"Just a couple words of Terian." Mallory laughed.

I sat back down on the bench and tried to make a list of people who I could interact with. Servants, tutors, other royalty. My mother said she had gotten her first ladies in waiting when she was around my age, and when I tried to think of it, I was pretty sure Louisa had too. The only problem was that ladies in waiting were daughters of dukes and earls, and occasionally some new money girl.

"Can you think of any way you could pretend to be a noble?"

"You're the one who knows the system."

"You could be some new money guy's daughter. That would explain why my parents don't know of you. You wouldn't be totally rich, so that'd be a little questionable, but I think it could work. We'd need to get you some dresses, and I'll have to teach you some stuff, but I think it could work for a bit."

"You think that I could pull off being a rich girl?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Sure you can. Can you come here again tomorrow?"

She nodded.

"I'll write something up on what you'll need to know and bring over a couple dresses I don't think anyone will remember me wearing. The hardest part will be the accent, but most new money girls only have a partial accent anyways. Plus, we should probably say you're from Arazen, since they've got the most entrepreneurs." I paused to take a breath.

"You lost me at accent,"

"What?"

I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You've got a lower class Asmorian accent. Nobody's going to believe you as a girl from Arazen if you're talking like that. So you should either work on an upper-class accent, or a Zenian one. Preferably a mixture of both."

"I can handle that. So I guess I should read up on Arazen then."

"Yeah. Just meet me here tomorrow, okay? I'm probably going to be late for dressing."

Mallory gave me a confused expression.

"I have to get dressed for dinner. I guess you have a lot to learn."