Page 7 of A Cake of Cherries and Charm

“I looked all about the cottages that were scattered across the rolling fields just outside the forest, and I found one with a mother and two lovely girls preparing their home for the storm. So I waited until the storm had just begun, and I used my paw to knock on the door.” He paused and laughed ruefully. “You have no idea how hard it is to knock with furry paws.”

His mother looked revolted, but the king bade him continue.

Frederick shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell. Magdalene here told her daughters that they couldn’t leave an intelligent creature out in the cold, so they took me in.” He stabbed a piece of meat with his fork. “Every winter for the five years after that, they took me in and sheltered me until spring came again.”

“Only in the winter?” the crown prince asked in a deep, rich voice. His tone was slightly suspicious. Did he think Rosie’s family had turned Frederick out after the ground thawed every year?

Frederick shook his head. “Well, I spent the summers searching for the troll, determined to make him reverse his spell and get Father’s gold back. But I couldn’t search in the winter. Even with a fur coat, it was far too cold.”

“How did you break the spell, Your Highness?” came a voice as high and clear as a bell. Rosie turned to look at the speaker and found herself facing the angry woman’s daughter yet again. Her blue eyes were wide and innocent as she stared at Frederick, nothing like the look they had held for Rosie.

“Well, the girls here are somewhat responsible for that too,” Frederick answered. “They were out in the forest when they discovered where the troll had hidden my treasure. He moved it often, you see, so I couldn’t find it. But when they discovered his new hiding place, he raged at them and almost did them harm as well.”

Rosie shuddered.

“Why didn’t he?” the crown prince asked.

Frederick laughed, melting some of his story’s tension. “We’re not so familiar in court with the intrepid nature of country girls, but Snow and Rosie here didn’t wait for the troll to do them harm the way I had. Rosie leaped forward and grabbed the troll’s beard and yanked him toward her, and Snow grabbed the back of his collar and pulled it back so he was stretched out between them.”

“We really weren’t so helpful,” Snow said softly as she looked shyly up at her betrothed. “He would have cursed us once he got over his surprise and found his voice.”

“What happened then?” the king asked. He was leaning toward his son, his eyes bright.

Frederick’s face hardened at this question. Or rather, Rosie decided, the memory it stirred.

“I killed him,” he said darkly. “I’d picked up his scent a few days before, and the closer it led me back to their cottage, the faster I ran to find him. If I’d arrived even two minutes later…” He shuddered, and Snow took his arm.

“But you didn’t,” Rosie said firmly, her voice sounding strange as it echoed through the large hall. “You saved us.”

“Only,” he said softly, turning to look at Snow again, “because you had already saved me.”

Yet again, Rosie’s attention was drawn to a particularly unnerving stare. But this time, it was not the angry lady’s eyes that bore down on her. Instead, it was the crown prince who was looking at her. But she couldn’t interpret his expression. It was piercing, but not in a cruel way as the lady’s had been. It was… Well, Rosie couldn’t say. His eyes were neither cruel nor kind. Was intense the right word to describe them?

Her cheeks heated, and she looked away as he continued to study her with an unabashed stare. She suddenly felt every part a country bumpkin, and the gown that had felt so fine that morning now seemed like little more than a common work dress under the prince’s scrutinizing study. If only, she thought with chagrin, Frederick had been a mere country lord, or some kind of wealthy tradesman. Then they might have blended in more easily. Why did he have to be a prince?

The king sat back. “Well,” he said, his voice booming with authority. “Such bravery and kindness shall certainly be rewarded.” He looked at Rosie’s mother. “Madame, I thank you for doing all that was proper and right for my son. Indeed, you went above and beyond.” He turned to a servant standing near the end of the table. “Tell Mistress Morgan to prepare the Pink, Blue, and Yellow suites.” Then he looked down and smiled at Snow again, his eyes crinkling kindly at the corners this time. “We shall discuss this in greater detail, but only after our brave travelers have had time to eat their fill and rest from the day’s journey.”

Though he wasn’t looking at her when he said it, Rosie let out a deep sigh of relief. She had expected to be nervous when they arrived at the court. Only a fool would walk into the king’s court without a healthy sort of fear.

What she hadn’t expected was to be so exhausted by the mere feeling of being studied from every angle. Nor had she planned to let her wretched mouth slip so soon. If only…

But no. Rosie wouldn’t wish to go home. She couldn’t. They were on an adventure, she reminded herself. An adventure that had only begun.

Chapter

Three

Rosie woke up late the next morning to the sound of a knock and was immediately overwhelmed by the grandeur of the room she’d collapsed in the night before. Despite going to bed at an early hour, she’d hardly been able to keep her eyes open once the servant had left her alone in the bedroom. As it was, she’d barely made it across the room to collapse onto the plumpest, softest bed she’d ever seen.

The knock that had awakened her sounded again. “I have your breakfast, My Lady,” a small, muffled voice called through the door. “May I bring it in?”

“Oh! Oh, um, let me dress first!” Rosie called out, doing her best not to fall out of the bed as she hurried toward the place where she’d placed her clothes the night before.

“No need, My Lady!” the girl called back. Just in time, Rosie snatched up the dressing gown at the end of the bed and threw it on as the servant girl opened the door and walked in carrying a wooden tray.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you, My Lady,” a servant girl said, dropping a curtsy. Then, as though she saw women in their nightdresses every day, she hurried to place a wide silver tray holding a massive breakfast at the distant end of the huge bed. “I didn’t wish to wake you, but the queen has requested your ladies’ attendance for tea this morning, and I thought you might like to be dressed in time.”

Rosie, who had been busy rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, stiffened. The queen had requested their presence? But then again, that only made sense, she supposed, seeing as Snow was now the queen’s youngest son’s intended. Obviously, the woman would wish to get to know her soon-to-be daughter, and to invite their mother as well made sense.