Chapter Sixteen
"But you didn't notice that he's avoiding all of them, the same way he's avoiding you. As far as he knows, you're just another girl fawning over a handsome, heroic prince. Just another girl, and far too young for him. He's a man of great honor and high principles, your Bayl."
"Oh, I wish he were mine ..." She sighed, blotted her eyes one more time, and tucked the handkerchief into the collar of her dress, ready for more dripping and sniffling. Belinda picked up the dress pieces she was supposed to be pinning together for basting. "What am I going to do? It isn't safe for me to drop the illusion spell. Not until we're absolutely sure those scoundrels have put ten kingdoms between them and me."
"It's the enchantress out to get you we need to worry about."
"Enchantresses."
"What's that?" Merrigan stuck a pin in her finger and bit back a curse.
"I have been able to spare a few thoughts for something besides how rough-and-tumble gorgeous Bayl has become." Belinda sighed. "My sisters created the tracing spell. I have no doubt now."
"Why? I didn't get along all that well with my own brothers and sisters, but they would never do something so despicable. It's royal blood against the world and all that claptrap."
"Hmm, you would think so." She finished her pinning and got up to take the pieces down to the end of the table to the basting team. "I think the frustration of having their lives in perpetual waiting, until Father gets the succession to the throne settled, has rather turned them sour," she said when she returned to her chair. "You would think evil enchantresses would want the throne, all the wealth and manpower at their disposal. It's much harder to dislodge evil enchanters if they have some claim to the kingdom. You'd think those two would want me out of the way, rather than get me married and settled on the throne with a dimwit."
"Maybe they want a figurehead. They might have some spell to make you as useless and easily manipulated as those idiots we chased away." For a moment, they shared a grin, still feeling that triumph. "Or maybe ..." She remembered Bryan smiling at her. Other suitors had tried to smile, but went away pale with fear or some other emotion that had always made her feel triumphant and strong, until now.
"Maybe what?" she asked, when Merrigan paused too long.
"Maybe your sisters simply want you settled because they have sweethearts of their own, and your father won't let anyone marry before you. More claptrap and tradition about not letting the oldest daughter look bad, unmarried at her sisters' weddings."
"Those two?" Belinda let out a most unladylike snort. "They had plenty of suitors, but they tended to think of marriage as a punishment, not the sweet joy I saw between our parents." She sighed, and Merrigan was disappointed to see the featherheaded, moping expression return. "The sweetness I could have with Bayl, if I had just had the wit to snatch him up when I had the chance. Had. Past tense."
"You have a chance." Merrigan glanced at the girls. All seven had made some adjustments to their dresses, adding ribbons and embroidery. "While I'm sure your Bayl is too honorable to give our girls the slightest encouragement, you might want to find a way to discourage them without breaking their hearts or hating you."
"Oh. Yes." She studied the chattering, happily busy girls. "We need to match them with boys closer to their own ages and stations. Falling in love is the only cure for a broken heart."
MERRIGAN HAD SETTLED in the sewing area to think while the children were at their lessons. Bib was busy with his usual occupation, absorbing information from a new batch of books borrowed from King Auberg. Belinda was out running errands.
"Mistress Mara? Forgive me," Bryan hurried to say, when his sudden appearance at the sewing table startled a squeak out of Merrigan. "I was hoping to catch you in a quiet moment, but I didn't think ..."
Some men could blush without looking like overly sensitive twits auditioning for the tragic hero part in an epic poem. Bryan was one of them. Then again, he had good, healthy coloring and wide cheekbones, perfectly framed by that thin, dashing line of beard on his jaw. Merrigan scolded herself to stop being a ninny. There was far more to a man than just good looks and a voice that was a mixture of velvet and waterfall. Leffisand had all those qualities and more, and look how he turned out.
"It's all right, Highness—"
"Please." He rested his hand on hers on the table. "I'm no more a prince than you are a princess."
"Nonsense. I've learned quite a bit since ... well, I've learned in my travels that there's more to being royal than a throne and a palace and a crown. Some good fortune will smile on you, as a reward for all the good you have done. I'm sure Princess Belinda is deeply grateful for the work you and your brother have done, trying to defend her, help her. What?"
The deepening frown on Bryan's face made her heart squeeze and constricted her throat.
"We never said what her name was."
"Oh. Really?" She swallowed hard. "Are you sure?"
"Dolt." A shimmering voice came from Bryan's coat. "If you had done what I told you, in the sequence I told you—"
"Yes, yes," Bryan said with a sigh and an adorably crooked grin. He opened his coat and brought out a small hand mirror, round, with a handle twice as long as the mirror itself, encased in silver and ivory. The kind of mirror a fashionable lady would take on journeys, to ensure she looked her best before descending from her carriage. Why Prince Bryan of Sylvanglade would carry such a thing, Merrigan had no idea.
Then two amethyst eyes and a pair of plump, rosy lips appeared in the mirror.
"So you're
