The Lost Princess

Chapter 22

I had to be nice to Hans for the whole rest of the day.  I didn’t know how I was going to make it.  I knew he was dark and evil inside.  He was a liar and had kidnapped Anna and Elsa.  It didn’t help that Kyle had a spectacular idea to treat Hans out to dinner. 

I could tell that Kyle didn’t care for Hans much, but he seemed to have settled down.  I think the only reason to take Hans to dinner was so that he could be out of the castle.  Kyle was responsible for it and didn’t want the castle to explode. 

Kyle had picked the fanciest restaurant in town.  They served all of this high class expensive food that all fit on half a plate.  There was a grand piano that was played in the evenings and a dance floor for people to dance.  I hadn’t gotten any better at dancing and still had two left feet.

The hostess sat us down right in front of the piano.  Now I’d have that in my ear all dinner.  It wasn’t that I disliked piano music, but after a while, it gets boring. 

I wasn’t one for fancy cuisine, so I let Kyle choose my entree.  I looked up and saw Hans staring straight at me.

“What do you want?” I snapped.

Catching my mistake, I quickly corrected it before Hans could respond.

“Sorry, um, why are you staring at me?”

“Oh was I staring?” he faked surprise.  “It’s hard to ignore something so beautiful as you.”

I nearly gagged when he said this.  He was such a fake.  It was obvious he didn’t like me, he wanted to kill me.  I was only an obstacle, in his way to conquer Arendelle.  But I knew I needed to keep up my act.  I politely told him to stop.

The rest of the dinner continued without many interruptions.  In fact, it was strangely quiet.  Normally, with Anna and Elsa, dinners were full of happy chatter.  Kyle and Hans said a few things, but none of the conversations seemed to go anywhere. 

It turned out that Kyle had ordered me a pasta dish.  It wasn’t bad, but far from the best.  Overall, I felt miserable.  I couldn’t wait for the day to end so that I could be done with Hans. 

After he had finished, Hans excused himself and got up to dance.  This just left Kyle and me at the table. 

“Your highness,” Kyle began, “if you dislike his company, I could always send him out.”

“Oh no,” I replied, “it’s fine.  I’m fine.”

“Okay, but you do know you should join him.”  Kyle motioned towards the dance floor, where Hans was dancing with a young lady.

I gave Kyle a look of disapproval, but got up and walked to the dance floor. 

“Lisa, so glad that you could join me!” Hans cried.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

The previous song had ended and Hans’s partner had left.  The pianist started a new song right away.

“May I have this dance?” Hans asked, bowing down.

I gave in and started to dance with Hans.  It was horrible.  The only plus side to it was that Hans was taking it slow, that way I didn’t prove to the whole place how bad I was at dancing. 

The song finally ended and I let go of Hans as quickly as I could. 

“You alright?” Hans asked, noticing me pull away.

“Yes,” I replied.  “We need to go back now.”

I walked back to the table and told Kyle to get going.  Hans followed and we walked back to the castle. 

“I’ll show you to your room,” I told Hans.

All of the bedrooms were on the second floor of the castle.  I put Hans in the guest room farthest from my room, at the beginning of the hall. 

“It was nice spending time with you today Lisa,” Hans remarked.

“Thank you, I enjoyed spending time with you,” I lied.

“So we’ll do this again tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

“Will you promise me a waltz?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Good night, your highness.”  Hans took a bow as he shut his door.

“Good night, your highness.”

The door was shut and I made my way back to my room.  Thank goodness I was done with that.  I changed into my nightgown and laid down on my bed.  I looked to my nightstand and saw the buzzer that Kristoff had left me.  I crossed my fingers and hoped that the plan would work.