For all that Ratafia was beautiful and polished, her public manners impeccable, still Melissande could hear a note of loneliness in her well-schooled voice. Her inner self rejoiced.
Excellent. She’s vulnerable. Twist her arm hard enough and you might get some useful answers.
It was a shameful thing to think, but she couldn’t afford to be squeamish. If she didn’t do her best to help Gerald get to the truth, lives might well… would probably… be lost. What price scruples then?
“Impose, Ratafia?” She gave her sister-princess a bracing smile. “Not at all. After that enormous breakfast, I think strolling is a must.”
And so, side by side, they strolled and watched Splotze’s verdant countryside glide by. The lackeys and their breakfast remains were already cleared away, so they had the spacious promenade deck to themselves.
Tipping her head back a little, Melissande smiled to feel the gentle sunshine on her face. Freckles, shmeckles. How long had it been since she’d strolled beneath a blue sky, with a green-scented breeze caressing her skin? Or listened to the lowing of distant cows, the skirling cries of river gulls, a murmur of voices not tight with tension or grief or impending danger? Too long. She had to do this more often.
“I expect you’re wondering,” Ratafia said eventually, “why my mother is so quick to raise the dust with Crown Princess Brunelda.”
So much for relaxation.
“Actually, no,” Melissande replied, “Tell me if I have it aright. Your mother and Prince Ludwig’s mother have known each other nearly all their lives, having bumped shoulders at practically every important social occasion since they were let out of the nursery. And thanks to the stupid politics between Borovnik and Splotze, they were never encouraged to be friends, which means they’ve spent the last fifty-odd years in a vain attempt to lord it over each other every chance they get. And even though your two families are about to be joined in historic matrimony, after so long they can’t imagine doing anything but squabble.”
“Gosh,” said Ratafia, awestruck. “However did you know?”
She shrugged. “Because Lional and Sultan Zazoor of Kallarap were in a similar boat. It was all terribly tedious. Lional-”
“I’m sorry,” Ratafia said quickly. “Please, don’t talk about him if it’s painful. If you’d rather, we needn’t talk at all.”
But she wasn’t really listening to Ratafia. Oh, lord. Lional. Slowing, she touched her fingertips to Ratafia’s rose-pink sleeve. “Ratafia-you do want to marry Ludwig, don’t you? I mean, I hope nobody’s forcing your hand.”
“Forcing my hand?” Ratafia stopped, astonished. “Melissande, are you afraid I’m being bullied into this wedding?”
For all the eggshell-walking that diplomacy required as a matter of course, sometimes it was just as important to forge ahead and bugger the mess. She might be in Splotze more-or-less on behalf of the Ottosland government, but if tricky Sir Alec thought she’d stand quietly by while a sweet young girl was sold into wedlock for a bloody canal then he wasn’t half as clever as he liked to think.
“To be honest, Ratafia, I am,” she replied. “Is that what’s happening?”
Ratafia laughed, surprised. “Of course not. I told you, I’m terribly fond of Luddie.”
Well, that seemed genuine enough… but marriage was a two-way street. Struck by yet another horrible thought, Melissande bit her lip.
I wonder if Luddie is terribly fond of her?
It was a ghastly notion, but every possibility had to be considered. What if Hartwig’s brother didn’t want to marry Ratafia? What if he was the one being pressured into the wedding?
What if he’s the one behind Abel Bestwick, and the fireworks, and whatever goes wrong next?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Alarmed, Ratafia stretched out her hand. “Are you all right, Melissande? You’ve gone awfully pale.”
“What? Oh. Yes. I’m fine.” With her knees suddenly wobbly, she clutched at the promenade deck’s polished hand rail. And that’s a lie, it’s a great big fib. Staring over the barge’s side, all the way down to the greenish-grey water and the piebald ducks with their yellow beaks and curly tails, industriously paddling, Melissande breathed hard and waited for the horror to subside. “Though I think your mother might be right,” she added, over her shoulder. “That peppercorn sauce. Especially on top of everything else!”
“Hartwig does love his food,” Ratafia said, with a smothered giggle. “And he loves to share. I shall have to be careful or I’ll not fit into my wedding dress.”
Ratafia’s wedding dress. Her wedding. Scant days away now, and no hope of changing her mind. The scandal would be lethal. Frozen, Melissande stared at the ducks. So many of them. This stretch of the Canal was like a little duck city.
How can I ask her if Ludwig’s love is real? I can’t. She’ll pitch me over the side. I’ll create an international incident and Sir Alec will go spare.
She uncramped her fingers from the hand rail and made herself turn round. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Ratafia. I’m sure you’ll look beautiful.”
“Well, I hope so,” Ratafia sighed. “Because I do want to make Luddie proud. And I want to make Borovnik proud, too. This marriage is so important. It’s our chance, perhaps our only chance, for lasting peace.”
She really was a sweet girl. Too sweet, perhaps, to survive the shark-infested waters into which she was about to plunge.
Unless of course she’s lying. Maybe I’m wrong about Ludwig. Maybe Ratafia is being pressured to marry and the only way out is to sabotage her own wedding.
It wasn’t a completely far-fetched notion. Hadn’t she done her own feeble best to scupper Lional’s mad plan to marry her off? And so what if Ratafia was sweet? That could be an act. Beneath the sweetness, the girl might well be a seething morass of bitter scheming. Look at Permelia Wycliffe, that so-called bastion of Ottish Pastry Guild respectability. As it turned out, the woman had been a bogtrotting nutter.
“Melissande?” said Ratafia, anxious. “Are you sure you’re all right? You do look rather odd.”
Ignoring the churning nerves, she made herself smile at Borovnik’s princess. “Well, to be honest, Ratafia, I am a trifle worried. About you. Because I think I know a little bit of what you’re going through just now. Feeling like a leaf swept up in a windstorm, tossed hither and yon, at the mercy of so many powerful forces. It makes you wonder if anyone’s stopped to think about you, and what you want.”
“Oh.” Gaze faltering, Ratafia blushed. “Yes. It is a little- only, not really. I wouldn’t like you to think me ungrateful, or unmindful of-”
“It’s not about gratitude,” Melissande said quickly. “Or owing something to others. Ratafia, your first obligation is to yourself. It must be. How can you make someone else happy if you’re miserable?”
Another blush. “Mother says a woman’s true happiness is found in the happiness of others,” Ratafia said softly. “Especially a husband.”
“Oh, really?” Melissande retorted. “Well, your mother might be a dab hand when it comes to peppercorn sauce, but that doesn’t make her an expert on everything!”
Ratafia stepped back. “Melissande!”
Bugger, bugger, bugger. “I’m sorry, Ratafia,” she said, grimacing. “It’s just-well, the thing is, you remind me of me, from not so long ago. When Lional was determined I should marry Sultan Zazoor. I didn’t want to, and he didn’t care, and I felt so alone, so helpless, that I got drunk and climbed into a fountain full of goldfish. And there might’ve been singing, but it’s all a bit of a blur.”
Ratafia’s rosebud mouth opened into a perfect little O. “How awful for you!” she whispered. “But you’re wrong, Melissande. I don’t the least bit want to get drunk and serenade goldfish. I want to marry Luddie.”
“Because you honestly love him? Not because it’s the only way to seal a lasting peace over the Canal?”
Ratafia stared across the water at the moist brown clods of earth in the ploughed field beyond the Canal’s far bank. Creeping into her lovely eyes, a mingling of iron and acceptance.
“Of course there’s the politics. For people like us there’s always politics, Melissande. But it isn’t just politics. I won’t let it be just politics. And neither will Luddie.”
