One for Cards

Chapter Twelve

23/05/2020: For your reading pleasure as the weekend draws to a close. Leave a vote and a comment – it really makes my day :) Happy Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim friends!

"YOUR HIGHNESS, THIS SILK SHAWL YOU BOUGHT YESTERDAY WOULD GO VERY nicely with this dress," one of her chambermaids offered by way of suggestion, holding up the soft pink shawl beside a stiff royal purple dress Adelaide had been adamant she'd wear. She'd been taught once in finishing school that the colours one chose to wear conveyed certain things about power, and purple was the most regal colour there was.

"No," Addie said firmly. "I won't wear anything Ottoman to this meeting."

Besides, the shawl was far too effeminate. She'd chosen her most high-collared, long-sleeved dress for the meeting.

"Oh! Of course. A thousand apologies, Your Highness, I hadn't thought of it that way."

She mustered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "It does sound like a lovely combination. Remind me about it when we get home."

The girl nodded eagerly. "I will, Your Highness."

She helped Addie dress in her corset – not laced too tightly – and her dress, a conservative number more intimidating than alluring, and did her hair in a stately braided bun. The princess had said again and again that she had to look far older than twenty, and none of her usual styles would suffice.

Addie met Mr Williams in the hallway outside her room.

His eyebrows lifted and he shot her a wry smile. "Why, Miss Smith, I hardly recognised you."

"Do I look like a royal yet?" she asked. "My chambermaid tried her hardest."

"You always look like a royal," he told her, offering his arm. "Come now. Don't worry yourself. I'll be there with you the whole time."

"At least I know that much to be true." She sighed as they begin their walk to the throne room. "I don't know what he's going to say. The Sultan."

He shrugged. "Neither do I. It doesn't bother me, and it shouldn't bother you."

"How can you be so calm?"

He was not. But it would not serve her to know it, and so he simply shrugged again. "We control what we can, and everything else we leave to providence. Worrying will not improve anything."

"No." She swallowed. "And yet."

He placed a steadying hand over hers. "You trust me?"

She hardly flinched. "With my life."

"Then believe me when I say that I will let no harm come to you."

She looked into his eyes, as alive as they always were but firmer than she had ever seen them, and the words that followed left her lips of their own accord.

"I believe you."

The rest of the journey they took together in silence. When they finally got to the grand drawing room where Prince Hasan was waiting with the Sultan, Addie withdrew her hand, Mr Williams took a step behind her, and they entered.

"Princess Adelaide! Lord Arbough. Welcome." Hasan was as disorientingly warm as ever and he beamed at them both. He gestured toward an older man dressed in clothes Addie had never seen before, but admittedly found very regal anyway. "My father. The Sultan."

She curtsied. "Your Majesty."

"Princess." He nodded stiffly in return. "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you. And you?"