Page 2
T o me, that was logical.
Apparently, Lysander didn’t view the matter as I did. Leaping up, he said, “You kiss by the book!” and stormed away, leaving me in much the same condition as I was when he arrived, only more wretched and confused.
I put my head in my hands and moaned, then jumped when I heard a thud behind me.
My younger sister Imogene hated to stitch, speak softly, and sit with her knees together. She loved to climb trees, shout, and dig in the dirt. She had just jumped out of the tree that grew beside my alcove and stood looking at me quizzically. “Rosie, you bungled that one.”
“I know, but I don’t know why.”
She seated herself beside me. “You know how men say, ‘All cats are gray in the dark’? And they snigger?”
“Yes.” I didn’t get it.
“I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Mamma. Everyone says you’re the smart one, Rosie. Can’t you figure it out?”
I thought. “You mean Lysander thought that, despite my inexperience, I should be able to discern the difference between my One True Love and the very prince of deceit.” I thought some more. “Lysander was insulted.”
“Yeah.”
“I am fortune’s fool! I pass the crown. You’re the smart one.”
She stuck a finger through the hole in her gown. In tones of great gloom, she said, “Nurse is going to yell at me. She’ll tell me I’m twelve years old, that Mamma married Papà when she was thirteen, and I need to stop having fun.”
I’d heard that lecture myself. Had heard it for years and years. “I’ll fix it for you. I owe you for the explanation. Nurse doesn’t have to know.”
“Thank you, Rosaline.” Imogene swung her feet. “Are you still mad at everybody?”
“Honey, I’m not mad at everybody. I’m mad at me for being so careless and”—I remembered what Lysander said about the men laughing at me—“I’m . . . humiliated.”
“Why?”
“I have to marry Verona’s podestà, Prince Escalus the younger of the house of Leonardi. Because he decided he wanted a wife and I would do nicely because of my organizational abilities, my virginity, and my nice tette. ”
“He said that?” Even Imogene was horrified.
“That was the gist of it. After he . . . he . . .”
“Despoiled you?”
“No, he did not despoil me. It was merely a few kisses.”
“Oh. Because I was in the oak over by the wall and I heard Lady Luce and Lady Perdita talking on the street and they said he despoiled you.”
“They have ever been monstrous neighbors.” I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “Were they mirthful?”
“Um. Sort of. Snorting and smirking.” Imogene got a worrisome smile on her face. “You know those nasty worms that spin those webs and eat all the leaves on the trees?”
I glanced up at the white webs on the ends of the branches. “Yes. Gardener has been trying to get rid of them, but he says it’s an infestation and we’ll have to wait for winter to put an end to them.”
“I threw a branch full of worms and webs on the ladies.”
After I got done laughing, I asked, “Did they see you?”
Grinning, she shook her head. “They screamed and did the icky worm dance.”
I hugged her. “I love you—and not merely for that!”
“But you don’t love the prince?”
“No. No! Aside from the fact Lysander is my One True Love, and I’ll never love another, organizational ability, virginity, and tette ? Makes you swoon at the romance, doesn’t it?”
“No.” Imogene might be a hoyden, but she understood romance. As a daughter of Romeo and Juliet, it was required.
“Me neither.” Yet that was the essence of last night’s coup d’état speech masquerading as a proposal. Or maybe it was a proposal masquerading as a coup d’état speech. Hard to tell.
She slipped her hand into mine. “What are you going to do, Rosie?”
“I’ll marry, for this time even this unready maid must bear the yoke.”
“No!” She squeezed my fingers. “You don’t have to. You could stay here with us. We could be a family forever and ever!”
This time, I wrapped both arms around her. “Honey, we are a family forever and ever. But although I’m still a virgin”—Blessed Mary, how I’d come to hate that word!—“my virtue has been besmirched. I must either get me to a nunnery or get married to the man who did the besmirching.”
“Why?” she wailed. “Why can’t you stay here?”
“Prince Escalus is not a bad man. I don’t believe he’ll beat me or lock me up or tell me to change to be a wife more suitable for the podestà.
Indeed, he was married once before to Princess Chiarretta, and he treated her with great deference and mourned when she died in childbirth with his son.
Prince Escalus seems very aware of what I am like—”
“Nice tette, ” Imogene muttered.
“Yes. For that, and other reasons, is why he graced me . . . with the honor . . . of being his wife.” I was descending into bitterness and sarcasm, and that wasn’t the purpose of this conversation.
My duty now was to explain clearly to Imogene the results of her earnestly given suggestion, so I pulled up my big-girl camicia and said, “If I fail to marry or retire with my shame to a convent, the family will be ostracized. You’ll be ostracized.
No other family will allow their son to marry you. ”
“I don’t care.”
She meant it, I knew . . . now. “There’s more.
” I lifted one finger. “No other family will allow their sons to marry Katherina or Emilia. Cesario will never be able to find a bride to carry on the noble line of Montague. Our married sisters won’t be allowed to visit us.
We’ll wither and die in Casa Montague. Last but not least, my darling Imogene, the legend and romance that is Romeo and Juliet will be forever tarnished. ”
She swallowed and gave a curt nod of understanding. “Then it is thus. Can I help you prepare for your wedding?”
“I’ll need you to help me prepare for the wedding. We’ll make it a proper Montague celebration.”
Imogene brightened. “That would serve the ol’ prince right!”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2 (Reading here)
- Page 3
- Page 4
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