Page 4 of What Dreams May Come
Katherina grinned, suddenly cocky. “I was in your trunk looking for your practice sword—”
“For me,” PrincessIsabella said.
“—And there it was. Theboy’s outfit.”
“Wasn’t mine.” Kneejerk reaction that immediately confirmed it was mine. I should have claimed it was no more than some misplacement by Nurse.
“I recognized the slash on the thigh. At first I thought...no, no way. Rosie’s my oldest sister. She’s cool. She’s savvy. Sure I helped her with that cut on her leg, but...” Katherina grinned evilly. “Actually I wasn’t sure until you asked how I found out.”
I groaned.Amateur mistake!
“Stop being such a snotnose sister. Tell her why!” PrincessIsabella urged.
Alert at once, I asked, “Whyyou went out?”
Princess Isabella didn’t wait for Katherina to catch up. With her hands clasped before her chest, she said, “Your romance with Lysander has captured our hearts.”
Briefly I closed my eyes in anguish. “Gee, yes, terrific.” A vision of Lysander’s beloved face rose in my mind. A thought to how he would react to the news of tonight’s debacle made me cringe. How to explain? Boldly, I suppose, clearly as always, yet...nothing I could say would bring about a conclusion to mend the inevitable breach.
“All the women in Verona dream of finding their One True Love delivered by the hands of fate!” Princess Isabella spun a romantic spindle threaded with gold.
“Yeah. Fate. Which we’ve now proved conclusively is a man.” The edge of bitterness in my voice made Katherina looksharply at me.
Princess Isabella didn’t notice. “We went to Guglielmo, the poet from far Inghilterra who writes plays for the theater and commissioned him to write a sonnet in honor of you and Lysander!” Reaching into the pouch at her side, she triumphantly pulled out a wax-sealed roll of parchment and offered it to me.
I took it, broke the seal, and as I read, it became clear that...OMG, no gift in my life had ever been so sweet and loving.
“We went to Guglielmo the first night—and picked it up tonight.” Katherina beamed. “He is so proud of this sonnet, he added it to the end of his new production and tonight the players perform it for the first time!”
The sonnet sang a glorious praise for Lysander and me, to romance and first love, to poetry and laughter and...if it was performed tonight before a crowd, the disgrace already set in motion by the girls’ escapades would causemeto be the downfall of Montague honor and prosperity. I would carry the burden of shame for the rest of my days.
Yet I looked at the girls’ hopeful, happy, romantic faces and I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t slap them down. Sooner or later—tomorrow morning at the latest—they’d find out that all their expectations had been shattered by my own foolish actions and by my (as of this evening) betrothed’s deliberate actions. My eyes prickled with tears I held back from an effort of will. I opened my arms to them. “Dearsorelle,how you honor me with your love!”
Both girls came at once into my embrace.
Isabella’s eyes swam with tears. “I’m honored that you call mesister.”
Katherina, who knew me better than the princess, hugged me tightly and asked in a worried tone, “Is all well with you, dear Rosie?”
I cupped her cheek. “I’m so touched by your thoughtfulness. You lift my heart!” Which might have enlightened her—my sister is wicked smart—but I assumed a sterner demeanor. “What happened tonight to send you scuttling back to Casa Montague with your tails between your legs?”
“Ah.” Isabella hung her head. “We did somethingnot so bright.”
Not so bright? As opposed to all the other nights when they challenged fate and by the grace of God won?
...I did not explode with exasperation.I did not.But it was a close thing. “Can you clarify?” I could scarcely grind out the question.
“We went back to the square to dance.” Isabella whirled around, her arms raised. “Rosie, if only you could do that. It was delightful! Peasant dancing, kicking up our heels, leering at the women, listening to the music, drinking watered wine and eating all manner of jellied eels and fermented onions.”
Her exuberance almost made me smile, but I tempered my amusement by saying in my driest tone, “That explains your breath,” and the memories of my own stolen night at the square nudged me into a small lift of my lips.
But Isabella didn’t laugh, and that wiped my small smile away. More quietly, she said, “There’s a lofty, thin house on the corner of the square. I never noticed it in the day, but at night, it’sbrightly lit.”
“Yes?” I knew that house, andmy heart sank.
“A woman, rounded and pretty, opened the door and beckoned us in.” Isabella flushed withembarrassment.
We had reached the heart of the matter. “You went.” It wasn’t even a guess. Of course they went. They had discovered the joys of being lads, free and without constraint.
