An Imperfect Princess (19 page)

Eneria stepped
carefully into the ball room to stand beside Clarissa.  “I think our entrance
was a smashing success.”

“I agree,”
Clarissa said merrily, keeping the mask of boredom on her face but letting her
eyes twinkle.

They got the
attention they wanted.  Before long, scores of eligible gentleman had pounced
upon them, asking for their respective hands in dancing that evening.  Eneria
demurred on all of them, with the explanation that she was there as Clarissa’s
chaperone and would not dream of taking dances away from her charge.  As a
result, Clarissa ended up with a full dance card before dinner even started.

Dinner was a
very formal affair, which reminded Eneria of the state dinners after all.  A
series of tables to hold at least a hundred people had been arranged in the
great room, and they had five separate courses.  She sat next to Clarissa, with
the earl on the other side of the debutante as a buffer. 

“Where is
Lestonia, exactly?” a portly man sitting across from her asked.  He had been
identified as the Duke of Edinburgh, closely tied to the queen. 

“Oh, it’s one of
those tiny Baltic countries no one can keep straight,” Clarissa chimed in. 

“It doesn’t even
really exist anymore,” Eneria admitted.  “Not since the coup two years ago. 
Now we are part of neighboring kingdom instead.”  She sat up straighter,
determined not to lower her own value.  “Nonetheless, I am still the last known
heir to the throne, until my brother is found.”

“How dreadful,”
the duke said.  “So you have sought asylum in England for now?”

“For now,” she
agreed, nodding in the direction of James.  “I never intended to land in
Cornwall, but now I am grateful, as I feel much safer here than I did on the
Continent.”  The lying was easier this time, she thought grimly.  If she used
“the Continent” as her code word for outer space, she could almost forget that
she was pretending to be something she really was not.

“Good, good,”
the man said, then switched to another topic of conversation.

After dinner,
they mingled as a group while the orchestra tuned.  Eneria and the earl found
themselves some seats along the wall, while Clarissa laughed and chattered with
other girls her age.

“I believe her
debut has gone well,” James remarked.

“Definitely,”
Eneria agreed.  “However, I do hope she puts her heart into consideration if
anyone offers for her hand.  I have already consoled one sobbing bride in my
lifetime, and that is too much.”

“Were you ever
propositioned for marriage?” he said, raising one eyebrow.

She shook her
head.  “No.  My conditions were never met.  I had to find a man smarter than I
was,” she said, dropping her ice face for a temporary salacious grin.

“And you never
did.”

“And I never
did.”  Until now, she wanted to add.  “My brother was in much the same bind. 
He asked for the most perfect woman he had ever seen.  However, his standards
were so high that he dismissed several hundred hopefuls merely by looking at
their photographs.”

“None were up to
his standards?”

“Not a one.  He
said he wanted a woman who was so beautiful, it was almost painful to look upon
her.”  Eneria pursed her lips, the grin fading.  “And one who was not only
perfect in body, but in mind and spirit.  It was less shallow than my uncle’s
desire for the most beautiful woman he had seen, but it was even more
impossible.  None of us could ever figure out what ineffable quality he wanted
so bad.  Uncle Gordani picked my Aunt Everiza on the beauty standard, and while
she was a very beautiful woman, she was still but a mortal, and was a bit
flightier than my mother in several respects.”  She tapped her fan.  “Emmett
wanted an angel, I guess.”

Under their
watchful eye, Clarissa danced every set and had a dozen men hovering around her
at any time.  Before long, however, they reached the waltz, and it was time for
Eneria and the young debutante to change places.

Clarissa
collapsed in a chair beside them, her face flush, her eyes sparkling, and in
that moment Eneria wondered if that was what her brother had been looking for. 
She was not only enchantingly beautiful, she was absolutely alive. 

“At least half a
dozen titled men have asked to visit me this week,” she said, excitement
evident in her voice.  “I shall only see the richest ones, however.”

“Don’t forget
the handsome ones!”

Clarissa waved
her hand, dismissing the thought. “I am beautiful enough to make up for a lack
of handsomeness.  Kindness and money are all I care about.”

Eneria could not
help but shake her head as the earl led her onto the dance floor. 

“Clarissa is a
very practical young lady,” he said, a bit sadly.

“I like to
believe that I am as well,” Eneria said.  “But even I know that marrying a man
for money and title alone will lead to unhappiness.”
“You’re a princess.  You can’t possibly expect to have married for love.”

“Before, I had
little choice.  I would have picked someone that made me happy, if my father
approved.”    The music started then, and there was no time for talking as he
whirled them around the room, his arm at her waist and hers on his chest.  They
were closer, more intimate than they had ever been before, and this time it was
completely in public, and acceptable. 

She could see
now why this dance was forbidden to the youngest debutantes.  It was almost
erotic, whirling around the room with only a few thin layers of clothing
separating each couple.  The music sped faster and faster, until it finally reached
a crescendo and the waltz ended.

She was quite
dizzy as he led them back to where Clarissa was dutifully waiting, a wallflower
for the only time that night. 

“I relinquish
him for the next dance,” Eneria said with a laugh, and curtsied politely to
James.

“Eneria!” a tiny
golden voice said from behind them, jolting her back into reality.  “I have
some very bad news.”

“Did you hear
something?” Clarissa said, looking around in confusion.

“Not now, Aijo!”
Eneria hissed in Lathlian.  “We’re in public!”

“Well, you don’t
want to go in private, because there are Konkastians here!”  Aijo continued in
English.

Eneria’s knees
buckled.  “No,” she whispered. She tried to find a chair.  James, sensing
something was amiss, helped her to the one next to Clarissa before she
collapsed.

“Who is
talking?” Clarissa said, confused and a little frightened.  “Why are you
talking to the air?”

“She’s talking
to a fairy,” James said gently to his young ward, pointing toward the sconce
where Aijo was hovering.

“A fairy,”
Clarissa repeated, and joined Eneria in nearly swooning.

Eneria was
trying not to panic.  Moments ago the world had been perfect, and now it was
once again how she remembered it–a hunt, with her as the quarry. “How in heaven’s
name did they find me?”

“Don’t ask me!”
Aijo’s wings fluttered rapidly, her voice squeaking even more than usual.  She
switched to English for the benefit of the others.  “Konkastians are here. They
blend in a lot better than you do Enny, I have to say.  I didn’t even realize
they weren’t native guards until I heard them speaking Konkastian.”

“I wonder who
they are passing themselves off as,” James mused, looking around the room.  He
was being remarkably calm, considering the circumstances. 

“They probably
told the truth and said they were from Konkast,” Eneria said, knowing that her
thinking was irrational but unable to process her thoughts in a completely
logical manner just then.  “Which means someone here could easily tell the
truth about me being a princess and then I’m doomed.”

Clarissa had
recovered from her near swoon and looked around the room with her uncle.  They
saw nothing untoward.  The party went on, the guests mingling around the
dancers, who were now moving to the music of a minuet.

“Are you
absolutely sure, Aijo?” Eneria said, gripping her fan tightly.  “Here, get back
in my purse.  We can’t let them see you.”  She opened her clutch, and Clarissa
watched with wide eyes as a pinky sized streak of light flew down from the wall
sconce, her tinny voice as supernatural as her appearance.

“Biology can’t
lie.  They don’t even have double helix genes like you and humans do.”   Aijo
nodded to Clarissa.  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Eneria’s guardian.”

“She’s my pet
fairy,” Eneria amended, her mouth twitching.  Their situation was dire; it was
no time to smile.

“I’m not a pet!”

“Um, how do you
do, Miss Fairy,” Clarissa said thinly.  The vitality had been sapped from her
all at once.

“We’ll explain
everything on the morrow,” James said firmly.  “But if Eneria’s enemies are
here, then we will have to go.”

“No!” both young
women said at the same time.

“Yes,” Aijo
argued.  “They will think nothing of murdering Eneria in plain sight.  Your
primitive guards here can do nothing to stop them.  If they have Pharinae with
them, they may have already detected her bio-signature.  Enny, you are
very
lucky that your DNA is double helix like theirs; it makes it a lot more
difficult to pick you out than I first believed.”

“But my dances!”
Clarissa wailed, drawing some attention from the people around them for the
first time.  Eneria shushed her softly, holding her in her arms as she
sniffled.  She patted her on the back and looked at James, whose face was engraved
with concern.

She took a deep
breath.

“I’ll go to the
townhouse alone.” She held up one hand to ward off any objections. “They have
no means of telling you have any association with me.  If they knew I was here,
they would have killed me already.  They must be scouts.  Prince Xyling is a
very careful, very thorough military planner.  He probably sent some scouts
after me the second I warped.”  She hit her fist against the wall, almost
denting the papered plaster wainscoting.  “I should not have been so careless. 
I should never have sent that message to Vaz.”

James paused for
a moment, and then nodded, his gaze never leaving hers. “All right.  I will
have the carriage take you back.  We’ll say you have a headache.”

He then left
them, and Eneria said there miserably for a few moments, before Clarissa
finally asked what was going on.

“You mention all
these words I do not understand, and worlds, and you have a... a pet fairy.” 
She was obviously trying to cope with the sudden influx of information.  “Who
are
you?”

“I am Princess Eneria
of Lathlor,” Eneria reassured her.  “It’s just a bit further away than the
Baltic Sea than I let on before.”  She patted the distraught young woman’s
hand.  “I will leave now, and you will be in no danger.  Enjoy yourself for the
rest of the evening, and I’ll explain everything on the morrow.”

The next day,
the earl summoned both of them to the library, along with Marilyn, who was
feeling a bit vindicated now that Clarissa had been let in on the secret of the
fairy.

“We believe they
found not me, but Aijo,” Eneria said with a resigned sigh.  “Your world has no
native Pharinae on it, at least not in this land, anymore.”

“They
were
here, a long time ago,” Aijo mumbled.  She had been stuck inside a crystal vase
again, this time with the concession of her tiny infrared lamp so she would not
starve, and a straw through the lid so she could breathe.  The entire vase
vibrated ever so slightly in Marilyn’s arms as she spoke.  “But they left.  Or
died off, although I have no idea how Pharinae can die in mass.” 

“So Aijo’s
presence broadcasted clear to outer space that we were here.  All this time, we
were concerned about them finding me, when it was Aijo who was the real danger
to us.”

James touched
the glass vase his niece held possessively.  “And she is invisible to them in
there?”

“It’s the lead
crystal,” Eneria explained.  “It blocks radiation.”

Clarissa’s eyes
were bloodshot from her evening before.  She and the earl had returned home at
almost three in the morning.  She had danced every set she had promised with a
hearty determination, and no one suspected that she had had the second biggest
shock of her life shortly after dinner.  Since Eneria had disappeared with her
“headache”, Clarissa was unofficially declared the true talk of the evening.

“So the enemies
of your country were at the ball last night,” the teenager began, trying to
sort through the bizarre events of the last day.

“Yes,” Eneria
said. “They are looking for me.  But they can’t find me so easily.  I blend in
too well with you Earthlings.”

“What do you
mean, ‘you Earthlings?’” Clarissa clutched her head.  She had her first
hangover as well, from far too much punch.  “What are you talking about?”

“I’m from
another world,” Eneria said gently.  “Not from the Continent, but from another
world, like Earth, only around another sun, far, far away.”  She pointed to the
ceiling.  “I didn’t crash on the rocks of Cornwall.  I fell from the sky.”

“You really are
mad,” Clarissa said, laughing nervously.  “James, you can’t possibly believe
this fairy tale...”

At the mention
of the word fairy, she glanced at the tiny golden being in the crystal jar.

“It is a bit
far-fetched,” he agreed.  “But it was either that or magic, and I do
not
believe in magic”

“I would say
having a fairy in a jar is evidence of some sort of magic.”

“Oh no,” Marilyn
said, and sat up proudly.  She recited, “Aijo is an electromagnetic sentient
being made of non-atomic matter.” 

“Very good!”
Eneria said, smiling at the girl.  “Aijo’s been teaching you a lot, I see.”

“Sounds like
magic to me,” Clarissa muttered, and rubbed her head.  “So they found your...
fairy.  These Konkastians, are they from your... world?”