Page 13 of Charmless
“Certainly, I remember you, Your Highness,” I said. “You favored me with a dance last night. I am only astonished you remember me.”
“Oh, I could never forgetyou, Miss Upton. You are so beautiful.”
I shook my head, demurring. “I am sure you must have danced with many lovely ladies at the ball.”
“I suppose I did, and they were all lovely and polite and flattering. But I could tell that they would have much preferred to be dancing with Florian. Most of them kept sneaking glances, looking to see where he was. But you were different. You gave meyour complete attention. I was enjoying our dance until I ruined everything by speaking of my brother Ryland and how he could no longer play his lute and lost his joy in music. Then I started crying.”
Kendrick blinked hard and I tensed, fearing he was about to repeat his disconcerting performance at the ball when he had wept uncontrollably in the middle of our promenade. But the prince swallowed and managed to contain himself this time.
“You were so wonderful, Miss Upton.” He smiled mistily at me. “So kind and sympathetic.”
The prince was giving me far too much credit. I had been utterly mortified when Kendrick burst into tears in the middle of our dance. But I had tried to soothe him so everyone would stop staring at us.
But the prince seemed excessively grateful for the smallest scrap of sympathy or kindness. It spoke volumes about how bleak his life must be beyond those palace walls.
“You must have thought me a perfect fool.” He sighed.
“No, you just seemed very tender- hearted.”
“That is what Ryland tells me. He says I feel things too deeply.”
“What is wrong with that?” It was certainly not a quality any of his brothers appeared to possess.
Kendrick smiled ruefully. “It is wrong because I don’t feel the things that a prince should. Confidence, boldness, bravery. This is the first time I have ever dared to venture into Midtown although I am not quite sure how I got here. Probably another prank by my two youngest brothers. Dahl and Dashiel are quite mischievous.”
The prince’s cheeks reddened as he said, “I am ashamed to confess that sometimes I have sampled pixie dust. I know I shouldn’t because it leaves me in such a befuddled state I don’t know where I am. The twins find it amusing to lead me far awayfrom the palace and leave me. One time they abandoned me at a poultry farm. I woke up very surprised to find myself sleeping in a chicken coop. Although not as surprised as those chickens.”
The prince gave a light chuckle, but I was appalled.
“That’s horrible.”
“No, no, it just the twins’ idea of a harmless jest. Someone at the palace eventually notices I am missing, and the guards are dispatched to find me. Look, here they are now.”
Kendrick gestured toward the bakery’s bow-front window. In the street beyond, I could see two mounted palace guards leading a riderless horse. They were moving at a slow pace, the better to scan the area for any sign of their missing prince.
“I had best be on my way, Miss Upton, but it was delightful seeing you again.” He bowed and smiled, then darted out of the shop, waving his arms, and hallooing to attract the guards’ attention.
Prince Kendrick was certainly none of my responsibility, but the man possessed an almost boyish innocence. I found myself watching until I saw him safely claimed just as I would have done any lost child.
At that moment, Mrs. Crumpet returned, straining under the weight of basket she had heaped with baked goods. Peering at me over the top of large crusty loaf of bread, she demanded, “Where is the prince?”
“He has left, returned to the palace.”
“Oh! Thank the fairies.” She blew out a deep breath and plunked the basket on top of the counter. The poor woman was so grateful to me for preventing her from attacking a prince, she wanted to give me all the pastries she had gathered to appease Kendrick.
I politely refused and insisted upon paying for my one honey roll.
“After all, you have your nine children to think of.”
Mrs. Crumpet smiled sheepishly. “I only have six, but my youngest, Jacko is such a little demon, I tend to count him thrice.”
Munching the roll and savoring its sweetness, I continued toward the Midtown garrison. My encounter with Prince Kendrick had not been as unsettling as the one with Florian. But I longed for my world to return to some semblance of normalcy. Alas, that was not to be. As soon as I set foot in the town square, I knew that something was terribly wrong.
Three
The Towers Quadrant for The Administration of Midtown Order and Justice was intended to be an imposing structure with solid gray stone walls and four conical towers. Instead, it looked as though some mischievous fairy had decided to drop a small castle in the middle of our town square near our work-a-day world of shops, markets, and modest homes. If one were going to have a castle, it would seem appropriate to also have a moat. But some whimsical (or perhaps drunken) architect had decided it would be nicer to have a fountain in front of the castle instead. This fountain with its burbling waters might still have managed to appear charming if it had not been dwarfed by an enormous statue of Prince Florian, depicting his muscular frame and flowing locks as he held aloft a sword.
Most Midtown folk simply referred to this absurd building as Quad Hall. Besides the Midtown garrison, the structure also housed the magistrate’s court, the offices of the Exchequer, Registry and Licensing, and the tower containing the mysterious Aura Chamber. Unless it was tax gathering time or some unfortunate prisoner was being paraded out for punishment inthe Yoke of Shame, Quad Hall was a quiet place with citizens coming and going to conduct their business in orderly fashion.
