Page 88 of A Fragile Enchantment
GS
Either he underestimated her intelligence or overestimated her capacity for forgiveness if he expected her to walk into such an obvious trap! And yet, what could he truly do to her now? The more she read it over, the less fault she could find with it. It was surprisingly genuine, with none of his usual affectation and only the barest hint of cheekiness. And if nothing else, he was right. Anything beat tormenting herself in this stuffy room.
But what to do? There was no way she could slip out of the palace unseen. Nothing in this room could help her. Nothing but…
That’s it.
Niamh snatched the veil from where it hung and pinned it hastily into her hair. Beneath the delicate fabric, the world appearedas indistinct and gauzy as a dream. Hazy memories and feelings drifted across her mind like smoke, but the intricate black lace obscured her features entirely. Yes, this would do. Niamh was a solid head shorter than Rosa, but even if anyone noticed, they surely would not prevent a princess from going about her business. At least she hoped not. She was not confident in her ability to do a remotely convincing impression of Rosa.
Drawing in a breath, Niamh slipped into the hallway. Outside her room, it was utter chaos as the household prepared for the wedding night’s ball. Valets of visiting lords and borrowed help bustled through the halls. Footmen carted in luggage and gowns, sculptures carved in ice and sugar, crates of food deliveries—smoked meats and sardines on ice; tomatoes and cabbages and potatoes—and more flower arrangements than a botanical garden could hold. Flower petals dusted the floors like snowfall and perfumed the air. The scents of beeswax candles and silver polish made her head swim.
As Niamh wove her way through the crowds, dragging yards of fabric behind her, she couldn’t help a giddy grin from stealing across her face. No one dared glance at her for more than a moment. Sneaking around as a princess waseasy. The front door loomed just ten paces away, then five, then—
“Infanta Rosa?” Sofia called.
Niamh stiffened and slowly turned to face her. Her cold, austere beauty, as always, chilled Niamh to the bone. The princess stood perfectly still and poised amid the flurry of motion around her. Her gown, a snowy white, practically melted into the marble floor. Her delicate hands were clasped anxiously in front of her, and the purple shadows beneath her eyes were starker for how pale her skin was. It looked as though she hadn’t slept at all.
Somehow, the sight of her—as fragile and weary as ever—filled Niamh with more guilt than dread. She couldn’t believe that she had been foolish and flighty enough to leap to the worst possibleconclusion: that a young woman’s grasping attempts to escape her own loneliness were signs of some sort of villainy. A small part of her longed to fall to her knees and apologize. The more sensible part wanted to flee from those probing silver eyes. They struggled to meet hers through the veil.
“My sincerest apologies for not greeting you sooner,” Sofia continued. “No one informed me that you had arrived.”
Gods, whatnow? She searched for some idea for how to gracefully escape this conversation. Niamh cleared her throat, and in the most dispassionate voice she could summon, replied, “I did not want to disturb you, since my visit was so brief.”
An unusually quizzical look crossed Sofia’s face, but she nodded, very determined to remain polite. “Are you ill, Your Highness? You sound congested.”
Niamh feigned a delicate cough. “I must have caught a chill.”
“How terrible,” Sofia said. “Please, join me for tea before you leave.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t impose on you.” Niamh winced. That did not sound like something Rosa would say at all. “I meant to say, of course, that tea is so very dull. It does not agree with me. Ehm…” She winced again as her own stubborn accent slipped through. “I really must be going now. Good day!”
Understanding broke open Sofia’s coolly skeptical mask. She touched her fingertips to her lips, as if to hold in a gasp. “Miss O’Connor, is that you?”
“Not so loud, if you please!” Niamh hissed. “Your Highness, I—”
Sofia cast a look around the room, then took a hurried step closer. She rested a hand on Niamh’s arm. The weight of her touch was impossibly light, but the chill of it rippled over her skin. As she bent down to Niamh’s height, she dropped her already delicate voice to a bare whisper. “Go. If the prince regent asks about you, I will come up with something to tell him.”
“What?” Niamh blinked up at her, struck senseless with surprise. “Why would you…?”
“I do not think my husband has any right to keep you locked away like a prisoner. You have committed no crime, so why should you be punished as though you have?”
“But Your Highness…” Niamh wrung her hands together. “Since I arrived, I have done nothing but cause trouble for him.”
“Trouble,” Sofia mused. “I am not convinced that all trouble is bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“The prince regent does his best to keep everything under his control. It distresses him greatly when he cannot. But last night…” She hesitated, but a tentative hope buoyed her voice. “Last night, for the first time since we have been married, he confided in me. A great many things weigh on him, but he has always been determined to shoulder them alone.”
Niamh dreaded to imagine what exactly he’d told her. But Sofia, miraculously, did not seem to despise her and her supposed ambitions as much as Jack did.
“Both he and his brother are very stubborn men,” Sofia said. “Their estrangement has pained both of them, not that they would admit it. But because of you, I believe something has begun to bloom in what has lain fallow.”
When she’d first arrived, Kit had lashed out at his brother like a cornered animal. But as the weeks had worn on, he’d grown far less petty and far more cutting in the ways that mattered. Last night, they seemed to almost argue as equals. And Jack…
Enough,he’d all but begged her when she beseeched him to think of Kit’s happiness.
She did not see how any of it mattered now. “I did not know you were so poetic, Your Highness.”
