Page 6 of Thus with a Kiss I Die

“ ‘Life ain’t fair.’ ” I now believed it fervently.

She used her gaze to hold mine. “Neither by word nor deed will Rosie sabotage her betrothal to the prince. With her deliberate attempt to take destiny in her own hands, she has angered the Fates and now she must face the consequences, which most in her position would consider an honor.”

While the prince’s union with me formed a short footbridge over a small social chasm and was in itself perfectly unremarkable, nevertheless the Montagues and the Capulets, wildly successful merchants all, didn’t regularly intermarry with the dukes and princes of Verona.

“Do you understand me, Rosaline Hortensa Magdelina Eleanor?” Mamma demanded.

It was always bad news when she called me by my full name. I curtsied and said, “Yes, Madam Mother.”

“What do I mean?”

I muttered, “That I can’t secretly meet Lysander ever again and I can’t say anything to Prince Escalus that will give him a disgust of me.”

“More than that, you’ll display the sweet side of your nature, which we as your family well know, to the prince, your betrothed.”

I nodded sullenly.

“What?” she snapped.

“Yes, Madam Mother. I will do as you instruct, Madam Mother.” I dared not put the slightest hint of defiance in my tone, and my deep curtsy reflected my absolute obedience to her as my commanding officer.

If her waiting stillness was anything to go by, she still wasn’t satisfied.

As I knew I must, I added, “I do so swear.”

Mamma’s gaze swept across me and my siblings like a scythe, leaving us awed, afraid and silent. In that tone that both condemned and commanded, she said, “Love teaches even asses to dance.”

The quiet continued until she entered her bedroom and Nurse delicately shut the door behind them.

“Not sure, Rosie,” Imogene said, “but I think Mamma is irritated with you.”

Heads nodded in unison.

“At least it’s not me,” Papà said cheerfully, and strode off whistling.

I’m so glad someone had something to be happy about. Gentle reader, in case you don’t know . . . that was also sarcasm.

Please don’t tell my mother.

CHAPTER4

The Montague family was preparing to go to the palace for that intimate dinner. The image should have conjured up glamour, excitement, music, food, and wine.

Alas, it was not so.

Earlier, Nurse had helped Mamma into her voluminous gown with a high waist to accommodate the baby bump. As always, Mamma personified glamour and beauty, Verona’s ideal noblewoman ripe with child.

Now in my bedroom, she reclined on my bed with pillows behind her shoulders and supervised as Nurse and her staff helped Katherina, Imogene, Emilia, and me into our layers of chemises, stockings, underskirts, bodices, and skirts.

In the adjoining bedroom, Papà had volunteered himself and his manservant to wrestle Cesario into his formal clothing.

For my sake, my sisters attempted to maintain their good humor, joking that because of the reported dismal state of dining at the palace, I should strap on the scabbard Nurse had given me, but leave out the dagger and instead stuff it full of bread, cheese, and dates.

Yet, as Emilia said morosely, that wasn’t funny when it sounded like such a good idea.

We did, of course, each have our eating knives attached to our belts with a scabbard, but we couldn’t leave those home any more than we could walk the streets without shoes. A guest who arrived at a meal without a blade would likely go home hungry and defenseless.

I had a new silk gown—bodice and skirt, never worn—made for Mamma before she fell pregnant. The color, an intense teal, should have been too bold for an ingenue, but as Mamma said, I was too old to play that role, the prince was too sensible to expect it, and because she’d passed her dramatic coloring on to me, the color presented me like a dewy pearl in a velvet setting. Overnight, Nurse had driven our seamstresses to lengthen the hem (I was taller than Mamma), let out the bodice (my shoulders and rib cage were broader than Mamma’s), and create a matching pearled cap to cover my dark hair and matching beaded sleeves to be laced onto the bodice.