Free Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George Page A

and Petunia shared a sofa to Rose’s right; Daisy was on the sofa to her left, with her twin, Poppy, curled up at her feet. None of them were at their best: red noses and watery eyes still abounded. Half of them were racked with lingering coughs, and Rose was too weak to stand for long. But her fever had cooled, so she had agreed to greet the Belgique prince formally.
    “It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince Bastien,” Rose said, very softly. If she talked any louder, she would cough.
    Jonquil, who had recovered almost as fast as Poppy had, came to the rescue and introduced her sisters. Rose could see the prince’s eyes glaze over as Jonquil rattled off the twelve flower names to him, and suppressed a sigh. From experience she knew that he would remember her name, since she was the oldest, but she steeled herself for Poppy’s complaints about being called Daisy, or worse: Pansy. Few visitors could tell the twins apart, and fewer still bothered to sort out the names of anyone younger than fifteen-year-old Hyacinth.
    True to form, Prince Bastien barely spared a moment on the younger girls after the introductions were made. He pulled a chair up to Rose’s sofa and proceeded to regale her with the story of his journey from La Belge to Bruch. He was quite comical in his descriptions of his riverboat’s captain, who spit after every sentence. Rose noticed that he didn’t focus entirely on her, though, also including Jonquil and Lily in his conversation.
    Later, as they dressed for dinner, Lily wryly agreed. “Oh, yes, he has his heart set on Father’s throne all right. He’s flirting with all three of us equally.”
    “Why is that?” Jonquil fussed with her hair, trying the effect of a scarlet ribbon threaded through her brunette curls. “In case one of us proves to be stupider than the others?”
    “In case one of us forms a
tendre
for him and tells him the secret, is my guess,” Rose said. She blew her nose into ahandkerchief, relieved to be alone among her sisters where she could do so without looking unladylike. “Why did I get out of bed?”
    Rose’s head had been spinning by the time Prince Bastien had finished his narrative, and the effort of holding in a fit of coughing was making her breath come in gasps. One of their maids, seeing the eldest princess’s distress, showed Bastien out and then hastened to get Rose out of her tea gown and into bed.
    She had hoped to be able to attend the state dinner that night but sent a maid to inform her father that Lily would once more be playing hostess. She decided that Petunia, Pansy, and Daisy should stay in bed as well.
    “The bow looks better at the back,” she told Jonquil. “Now stop primping.”
    “Going to lecture me on vanity, like Hya?” Jonquil arched an eyebrow at Rose in the mirror.
    “I don’t care if you’re vain, but you’re bothering me with your rustling and humming.”
    “I’m not humming!”
    “You are, too. You always hum when you do your hair. It’s annoying.”
    “She’s right, you know,” Lily said as she put on a pair of amethyst earrings. “You hum when you do your hair, and just before you fall asleep.”
    Stunned by the knowledge that she had a bad habit, Jonquil finished her hair in silence and went out of the room. Rose had just closed her eyes and was starting to drift offwhen she heard her younger sisters squealing and chattering in the sitting room.
    Iris burst in, a huge bouquet in her hands. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
    She spread out the flowers, and Rose realized that there was not one large bouquet, but three small ones. One was all lilies, another all miniature irises, and the third was a cluster of deep scarlet roses.
    Oddly enough, each bundle was tied with a knitted cord of black wool, but Rose thought it was quite a pretty effect as Iris handed her the scarlet roses. She held the flowers to her stuffy nose and tried to breathe in some of the scent. Only the faintest trickle of the flowers’ perfume came