Issy looked at Livia, her mind a blank, and her sister’s expression told her she was similarly bewildered.
Lady Fiona’s carefully curated smile faltered momentarily. “Do you have pastimes? Hobbies or interests?”
Livia chewed her lip. “I like gardening.”
Lady Fiona’s brows shot up almost to her hairline, which was quite a feat as her hair had been backcombed into a vertiginous bouffant today, decorated with chartreuse feathers—the same colour as her flouncy, ribbon-bedecked gown.
“Gardening? Well, I suppose tending to rosebushes is a very ladylike and rewarding pastime. Do you, perhaps, play an instrument?”
Livia shook her head.
“We dance.” Issy watched as Lady Fiona’s face fell.
“Of course. Yes. Indeed.” She cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the direction their conversation had taken.
They were seated around a small round table in the orangery, overlooking the gardens where trees were laden with fruits. The wall to ceiling glass let the sun in, filling the room with a warmth that made Issy think of summers spent lying in the grass looking up at the sky and making shapes out of the clouds. It reminded her of her mother’s embrace. It made her feel safe and loved. A feeling that fizzled out as she endured Lady Fiona’s questions.
The heat appeared to have the opposite effect on Lady Fiona, who repeatedly dabbed her glistening upper lip with her lace-edged napkin, looking more and more flustered.
“Now, ladies. Your father has invited me here to help you prepare to meet your suitors and find an appropriate match so that you may marry and fulfil your duties to the Crown.”
Issy had a horrible feeling she knew exactly what Lady Fiona was angling at. Their duty, as princesses, was to bear children and produce an heir to the throne. The idea terrified Issy, and Livia looked thoroughly confused.
Issy did hope to one day have children of her own, but that day was a long way off in the distance. Once she’d found a man who loved her as fiercely as her father had loved her mother. As selflessly as Cethin had loved Asterina.
Lady Fiona sighed. “What about reading? I hear you are both well read and highly educated. What are your favourite books?”
Livia’s face broke into a wide grin. “I love fairy stories, and folktales. And anything about plants or dancing.”
“I’ve mostly been reading books about magic, lately,” Issy said, reaching for a tiny triangular sandwich filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese. She took a bite and savoured the taste as she watched Lady Fiona’s chin quiver. She’d made the widow uncomfortable. Good.
“Magic? Like in Livia’s fairy tales?”
Issy could see the hope flickering in Lady Fiona’s eyes, and she relished the opportunity to extinguish it.
“No, real magic,” she replied, nonchalant. “Enchantments, spells. Curses. The old ways.”
Perhaps the exhaustion and worry had finally gotten to her, but Issy wanted to frighten the over-frilled and flounced woman in front of them. She hadn’t wanted to attend tea, or chat with Lady Fiona about her personal interests. It was a waste of her precious time; time she could have spent investigating and trying to put an end to the curse before it was too late. Frustration made her irritable and belligerent. Not her finest features, she knew.
But she had no desire to find a good suitor or marry well. She wanted to marry for love, and nothing less. And if that wasn’t to be possible, then she would rather rule the Golden Isle alone.
She was the Crown Princess. She was a jewel, and any prince would be lucky to marry her. But if she married well enough, she may be forced to leave the Golden Isle and move across the continent to rule beside her new husband in his own nation. And if Livia did the same, there would be some difficult decisions to make if they were to avoid civil unrest. A lot of political manoeuvring would be required, a regent would need to be chosen.
Unless—was that why Lady Fiona was here, encouraging them to behave like ladies and find suitable matches? Was she hoping to marry them off abroad and fill the empty space with an heir of her own? She had another think coming if that was her plan.
She was sort of beautiful, Issy supposed, although she would look better with slightly less effort. If she washed off her cosmetics, undid her hair and swapped her elaborate chartreuse gown for a simple one, perhaps in periwinkle blue to match her eyes, Issy could imagine she would be a real beauty. Not quite a rival for her mother’s good looks, but attractive, nonetheless.
Issy knew her father had been lonely these past six years, but she’d hoped she and Livia would be enough for him. At least, until they were grown up and married. Then he could find someone to spend his later years with. She certainly didn’t want him to spend the rest of his life alone. He deserved happiness.
But perhaps that day had come sooner than Issy had anticipated. If the conversation she’d overheard between her father and uncle had been anything to go on, there were larger issues at play and her father may need the support of a loving wife to get him through. It was clear he was struggling with the stress of ruling alone, grieving his late wife, while his daughters suffered under a terrible curse and his people starved or succumbed to the infected grain.
Maybe the time had come for Issy to step up and take more of an active role in ruling the country, allowing her father to take a step back and regain some perspective.
Lady Fiona cleared her throat and dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “I hear it will be your eighteenth birthday, Princess Isadora. How do you feel about finally becoming a woman?”
Issy suppressed an eye roll. She knew Lady Fiona was only trying to make polite conversation, but she was growing increasingly bored of this charade. She needed to spend every spare moment trying to figure out the curse and break it, or she’d never be free.
“I have to say, I am not thrilled by the prospect. Being paraded in front of a never-ending line of arrogant, pompous princes so that they may properly consider me and decide whether I am of marriage potential is not my idea of a good time.” Her voice rose as the strain of the past few weeks built up inside her and was finally released. “If I’m really lucky, father will hand me off to some brutish Silver prince in exchange for allthe salt in the Northern Sea and I’ll be forced to bear his savage children and live in perpetual night.”
