Page 44 of Ruling the Green

“Yeah, we’re going to need to remedy that. Immediately.”

“You seem serious.”

Jet sighed hard. “I had a meeting with my father this morning. He is insisting you join the royal feast. Which is in three days. You need a gown appropriate for a princess. And knowing him, he’s also going to demand you be a part of the tournament and the ball. He’s big on the whole ‘united front’ thing right now.”

Some part of me swelled in excitement while the other part deflated in anxiety.

“I wouldn’t even know what to do at those events.”

“That’s why you’ll have me. If I need to step away, you will have Vishen and Nira close by if you need to ask questions. The feast just involves eating. The tournament involves watching. The ball is the only one where you might need to speak to others or dance.”

“Dance. I don’t… I’ve never…”

“Well, you never did all this before, and you learned. You can learn to dance.”

“Will you teach me?”

Jet swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ll teach you.”

“At this feast…”

“Yeah?”

“Will Grimwood be there?”

Jet’s chest expanded, and I knew I had my answer. “Most likely, yes.”

“Will I need to interact with him?”

“I don’t know. He’s supposed to be your father. It makes this… complicated.”

“And he is thinking I am still drugged.”

“Precisely. And if he found out you aren’t still drugged, he might react. Quickly. Before I get a chance to shore things up for me. For us.”

“So it would be best if he assumed I’m still mute.”

“Yeah.”

“But how would that work? Wouldn’t a prince have questions about his wife and her inability to speak?”

“I think perhaps you’re giving the bastards in the Dark realm a bit too much credit. None of these powerful men give the women in their lives much thought at all. He would assume that so long as you were pretty and fulfilling your wifely duties, I would have nothing to complain about.”

“But what about everyone else? All the other guests?”

“That is where being a princess comes into play. You can be as unusual or eccentric as you wish. If you don’t speak, people would brush that off and assume you think you are too important to speak to them.”

“I hate that.”

“But you’re not you,” he reminded me. “You are Gemma Grimwood—a selfish, entitled, conceited bitch. Only the four of us will know any different.”

That was fair.

It wasn’t me.

It was a part I was playing.

And I’d met the real Gemma Grimwood. She was someone who would think everyone else was beneath her if she had the title of princess.