Free Stay Forever by Eva Corona Page A

she was not adventurous enough.  That was why he adored Annabelle, for she had fighting spirit, was adventurous and terribly daring.
    The plan of action was to proceed thus.  At the Spring Pageant, which was held every year, and which all the members of the Royal Family were duly obliged to attend, Beatrice would make her entrance alone.  Annabelle would not be accompanying her, as it would arise suspicion, as Annabelle was a known courtesan.  However Annabelle had assured Marco that Beatrice was so new to the game, that the villagers would be entirely unaware of her profession.  She was to arrive, pure as the driven snow. 
    During the pageant, Marco, by pretending interest in Beatrice, would bring her to where the Royal Family were seating and there he would leave her to do her magic.  She would ignore Marco, and begin to engage Ines.  Marco liked the idea, and not only that; he actually thought it would work.  He knew he had to do something to ensure that his younger brother would not take the throne away from him.
    Once Ines was well and truly smitten by the young girl that would be when the plan would become truly devious, with Beatrice ensuring he stayed out late nights and neglected his palace duties.  Then finally, his parents would see him to be the spineless twat he really was, and Marco would be King.  Marco smiled to himself and jumped out of bed.

Chapter VIII
     
    Ines sat alone in his room at his desk, stenciling, one of his favorite past-times. He gazed out of the windows watching the birds and their delicate flight, such beauty and grace.
    He sadly thought of his elder brother Marco.  He could not understand why his brother detested him so.  It seemed that it had always been that way, ever since they were children.  They were only two years apart in age, and yet Marco had always treated Ines with such contempt.  For years Ines had tried to show Marco his adoration for him, yet lately he had stopped trying, for it hurt him to much to experience his brother’s constant rejection of him.  Ines had always admired his brother’s courageous spirit when they were children, and aspired to be like him, though when Marco had begun all his womanizing and wayward ways, Ines had seen that he no longer really wished to be like him, wasting his life away.  Especially with women.  Ines believed that women were magical, and to be respected and adored, not played with.  It is true, he had not yet found love, something that Marco constantly made fun of him for, but he saw their beauty and admired it from afar.  Ines did not want to go with a woman just for sex.  He wanted love, marriage and a family.  Marco said that that was nonsense, that that was the boring side of a woman, and that they should be enjoyed sexually as often as possible, but Ines could not see things that way.
    So he past his time reading, and stenciling, and attending to the palace affairs as best he could.  He tried to not let the way Marco treated him, hurt his feelings any longer, but sometimes he just couldn’t help it, and he would come to his room and sit sadly by himself, wondering what fuelled his brother’s hatred of him so.
    As Ines stared out of the window, he saw Marco sauntering up the palace courtyard, blowing a kiss to another of his courtesan’s.  Ines shook his head and looked back down at his stenciling.

Chapter IX
    Annabelle and Beatrice sat together upstairs in Annabelle’s large, elaborately decorated bedroom.
    “So be sure to be graceful.  You have a natural grace anyway my dear girl.” Said Annabelle, preparing Beatrice’s hair and lightly stroking her face.
    The spring pageant would begin in a number of hours, and Beatrice could feel her stomach a bag of nerves.  She had seen Prince Ines, and found him to be a remarkably handsome man.  He looked kind also, and she had heard he was a great warrior.  She felt somewhat guilty about plotting against him with Marco, and in fact she could also be done for