An Imperfect Princess (9 page)

“Not a very
worldly princess, are we?”  The maid’s eyes were getting more and more
skeptical.  “England is a country.  Cornwall is our
county
.”

Eneria ignored
the skepticism.  “Lathlor is a country.  Is fight. King died.”  She held back a
fresh stab of grief.  The incident had been years ago, but it still hurt to
lose so many all at once. “Many died... I did not.  I... left.” And she ran out
of words again.  She must not have been out for very long, if this was all the
syntax and vocabulary that Aijo had been able to give her.

“You escaped?”

Eneria wasn’t
sure what that word meant, but it sounded right.  “I did not die. My mother did
not die. Prince... son of my father–I do not know.  He escaped, or died.”  She
shook her head. “I cannot go to Lathlor. They will kill me.”

“Sounds like you
lived through a revolution or something, luv.”  The maid took Eneria’s empty
dishes.  Eneria stifled a yawn, suddenly exhausted.  Her head was pounding less
now, and she suspected there had been something in the soup to dull the pain a
little and put her to sleep.  She wasn’t going to argue.  She was totally at
the mercy of this handsome earl and his servants.  If they wanted her to rest,
then rest she would.  She needed to heal.

She woke up
again the morning of the next day, feeling much better in general, although
with another lingering headache that indicated Aijo had done more tinkering.

“Morning,
sunshine!” the Pharinae said smugly as Eneria struggled to get up.

She wanted to
tell the fairy to stuff it, but she was interrupted by Mitsy entering the room
with a bowl of porridge.

“That smells
heavenly,” she told the maid, surprised at the idiomatic usage.  Aijo really
was quite good with languages.

“His lordship
guessed right. He said you’d probably be up and right as rain this morning.” 
The maid fussed over the tray for a moment. “He also said you’d insist you were
ready to get up and walk around and I was to stop you no matter what.”

“Is he also
physician?” Eneria asked, wondering where that term had come from.  They must
be a talkative people, if Aijo had picked up such specific words so quickly.

“No, not really,
although he did take a few lectures at the university a few years ago before he
left.  But he had Dr. Allison pop over from St Ives and give you a once over
shortly after we pulled you out of your boat, and they agreed it was just a
knock to your head.”  The maid smiled conspiratorially at her.  “If you keep
going around claiming to be a princess, then they might think the knock was
worse than it was.”

The maid left
only when Eneria promised not to get up.  Not that she had the strength or the
will to do so.

Aijo flitted
back down from the candelabra she had taken refuge in.

“Apparently,
this world is nearing the end of the age of empires,” Aijo said, referring to a
well-known archetype in world development.  “So princesses are rather rare. 
Maybe you should have just gone with a generic nobility.”

Eneria’s lip
twitched.  “I don’t like to lie,” she said, remembering the painful rebukes of
her early life.  Little white lies had earned her hours alone in the cold
cathedral, praying for forgiveness from the Four Gods.

“Well, if they
consider you batty it’s probably for the best anyway.”  Aijo settled herself
down prettily next to the bowl of porridge.  “I went and looked at the ship. 
It’s in sorry shape, but it’s not irreparable.  If we can generate enough
electricity we can probably fix it in a few weeks.”

Eneria ate
silently, thinking about the damaged ship and all the broken dreams it
represented.  When they had landed on Montares after Seth rescued them, it had
been their only possession.  Eneria had asked to keep it.  Seth had wanted a
larger ship than what was essentially a van that a person couldn’t even really
stand up in, so the refugee Lathlians had collected their meager belongings
—
including Vaz’s jewels
—
and sold them for a down payment
on a much larger, nicer vessel.  Eneria had spent her first year in Perihelion
helping him pay it off.  

Her ship had
been the last Lathlian vessel of its kind.  All the ones in her father’s fleet
were now Konkastian vessels, bearing red and black markings instead of white
and blue.

She set aside
the dishes and dozed a bit more.  Around noon, the lord of the house came back
with Mitsy and gently shook her awake.

“Miss d’Munt,
how are you feeling?” he asked carefully.  Eneria felt her shoulder burning
where he had touched her.

“Much better, my
lord.  I seem to have remembered enough English to tell you my story now, as
well.”

Breathe, she
told herself.  And don’t babble.

“I shall be glad
to hear it, but it might be a tale better told in my study.  I believe you are
well enough to walk around now?”

Eneria couldn’t
help but smile at the prospect of getting out of bed.  She felt as if she hadn’t
bathed in a week–actually, that was not too far from the truth. 

“Thank you, but
I do not appear to be wearing my old clothes.”  She thought of her trusty
uniform with its many pockets and comfortable, broken-in folds.  “Although they
aren’t quite appropriate for here.”

“I’m not sure
where they would be appropriate,” the earl said, his intelligent eyes showing
his curiosity.  “But I’m sure you can tell me all about that later.  For now,
we’ll have Mitsy draw you a bath, and she has agreed to loan you one of her old
gowns. You’re about the same height and size, more or less.”

A few other
maids had brought in a large tub, and Eneria realized with horror she was
expected to bathe in the chamber.  She also realized that she must have used a
bed pan like some sort of invalid, considering she hadn’t used the rest room on
her own in days.  How embarrassing!

Now that she
thought about it, she had to go quite badly.  After a quiet inquiry with Mitsy
after the earl left, she scooted over to a garderobe and relieved herself, her
face burning with shame as she noticed her own filthiness.  She hadn’t wet the
bed since she was four.

“It’s a
primitive world, they don’t exactly know about catheters and atomizing toilets,”
Aijo reminded her.

“You’re not the
one that reeks of two day old piss,” Eneria muttered.

A little less than
an hour later, she was clean and dressed.  She hadn’t worn a gown quite like
this before.  Mitsy had fretted because Eneria was actually a good bit bustier
than she was, no matter what the earl thought, but in the end they’d let out a
few key seams and patched in a ribbon for modesty along the décolletage.  The
result was not that good, however, and Eneria fairly bulged out.  In a final
act of desperation, Mitsy had tossed a shawl over her shoulders, with a warning
that it was best not to let it fall down.  She said she’d check with the rest
of the household staff to find something more suitable.

They’d pulled
her hair up into a high sweep, a style she hadn’t worn since that ill-fated
wedding.  She had so much of it that she often simply braided it or left it
loose if it wasn’t going to get in the way. 

She was shown to
the earl’s study, where Clarissa was teaching Marilyn how to walk while
balancing a book in her head.  She absorbed the room, liking the bookshelves
and wooden paneling everywhere.  Compared with the austere white walls of the
palaces of Lathlor and the plain stone cloisters of Montares, this household
felt quite cozy.

“So, Miss d’Munt. 
You are ready to tell us your story?”

“Yes,” she said.
She settled herself carefully on the edge of a chair, spreading her skirt just
so, in the way she and Vaz had practiced for hours on end as teenagers.

She took a deep
breath.  “My name is Eneria d’Munt, Princess of the 14
^th
generation
of the House of d’Munt of Lathlor.”

James had been
about to take a sip of port when he caught himself.  Princess?

The young woman
continued, her thick accent captivating him as she recounted a terrible coup in
her home country, one that had left her mother, cousin, and a family friend all
stranded at a monastery with little more than the clothes on their backs.  For
two years, she had eluded capture by the aggressors, only to have her ship
spotted after a trade deal with a savage tribe.  She had escaped by sailing in
a different direction than planned, only to overshoot her destination when she
lost sight of the shore.

At least, that
was his understanding of her situation.  Her English was far from perfect, yet somehow
he got the vague feeling she wasn’t talking about a sailing ship after all. 
Her boat certainly didn’t look like a sailboat.

But she had
washed up on the beach, which was a sure sign of a shipwreck.  He felt a brief
stab of sadness; had his own family survived their wreck, he would have hoped
that they would have received hospitality on a distance shore.  At the very
least, he could provide this girl with that sort of protection.

“So where is
your country located?” Clarissa said, determined to make polite conversation
even in the face of a fantastical story.  “I have not heard of your Kingdom of
Lathlor before.”

“Near Greece, along
the Baltic Sea,” the young woman said promptly, although she looked uneasy as
she said it.  James got the distinct feeling she was lying, and she was poor at
it, and she knew it.  “Although our heritage comes more from Italy.”  The
answer sounded almost rehearsed, as if someone had coached her beforehand.

“I was about to
say, d’Munt sounds more Italian than Greek.”  He stood up and uncorked the
decanter of the port again.  “I was against giving you alcohol so soon, but you
seem to be doing worlds better today.  Would you care for a glass of port, Miss
d’Munt?”

“Please, call me
Enny,” she said with a dazzling smile that surprised him.  Her teeth were
perfectly straight and brilliantly white.  He nearly dropped his glass.  When
she had been unconscious, she had looked decently attractive, but he should
have realized that her appearance while under the influence of laudanum was not
her best.  Now that she was upright, he could appreciate the unusual dusky glow
of her skin and the way her entire face lit up when she smiled.  She wasn’t a
classic beauty like Clarissa, but with her quirky accent and that smile, she
was irresistibly charming.

Unfortunately,
he also believed she was completely daft.

There was no country
named “Lathlor" near the Baltic Sea, unless politics there had changed
considerably in the last week.   There certainly were no monarchies he wasn’t
aware of.  Although mathematics had always been his forte, he was no slouch at
geography, and it was important for a peer to keep up to date on the happenings
on the Continent.

A more
unpleasant scenario was that she was deliberately lying, and she was a thief as
he originally suspected.

He handed her
the glass of port.  She crinkled her nose, but sniffed it respectfully and when
she took a sip, tasted it with the appropriate ceremony.  Had she been a man or
an older woman, he would have expected her to recite the name and vineyard, so
fascinated was she by the wine.

“A fine
selection,” she said ambiguously.  “The House of my cousin Vaz, the d’Tars, had
vineyards that had grown for almost a millennium.”

All right, so
she was evidently a lady in terms of culture and training.  Even Clarissa had
never tasted a wine quite so elegantly, although she did not like heavy red
wines much anyway.  He still didn’t believe she was a princess as she claimed.

“If you are from
the Continent, then perhaps you can help me out,” Clarissa interjected
suddenly, her face growing excited.  “I am to have my debut in London this season
and we are about to order my wardrobe.  The plates I have from London are from
last season, however, and if there has been a sudden shift in styles I wouldn’t
be aware of it.”

Eneria titled
her head regally.  “I would be happy to take a look, although I am not sure how
much help I can be.  I have not exactly been dressed fashionably myself these
last two years.” 

“I meant to ask,
why were you in such odd garments?”  James asked, curious.  The black trousers
and weskit she had worn had been quite unfit for even a milk maid in England,
and he still hadn’t discerned the purpose in her goggles.

“It is as I told
Mitsy earlier; when you are on a ship, especially a small one, it is far more
comfortable to be in casual clothes.  If I had been on a fancy liner or yacht,
then I would have probably worn more formal attire.  But when it’s you and the
stars, there is no point.”

That was such a
poetic way of putting the arduous task of navigation that he had to stop and
absorb the words.  She spoke so earnestly that he found it hard to believe that
she was lying to them.

So she was either
barking mad or she had hit her head harder than they realized during her
accident.

“Uncle James,
will you excuse us?  The modiste is scheduled to come tomorrow, so we need to
make our final decisions.”  Clarissa gathered Marilyn, who had behaved herself
since yesterday’s incident, and led them out of the parlor.  Obediently,
Galileo followed them; wherever Marilyn went, he was more likely to end up with
treats.

The
self-proclaimed princess looked as if she were about to object to leaving, then
she glanced at James, those bright hazel eyes blinking momentarily in
confusion.  “I will join Lady Clarissa and help how I can,” she said, and
gracefully rose from her chair.

He drained his glass. 
“And I have my accountant from London arriving as well.”  He watched her leave
to join the girls in their frippery and found himself wandering around the
study, lost in his thoughts.  He pulled the opal pendant on its heavy silver
rope from where he had tucked it in a pocket and held it in his hand.

A princess, eh? 
If she was telling the truth, then this item would make sense–a black opal with
such fire and intensity was fit for a royal family.

But there was no
way on Earth she was a
princess.

Clarissa,
Eneria, and Mitsy pored over the plates with grave seriousness.

Enny remembered
the court dresses she and her mother and Vaz had worn daily.  Although the
style here was fairly different, it seemed like every humanoid, no matter what
planet they were on, agreed that women needed to have the same rough hourglass
shape.  Once again she was grateful that convergent evolution and the tinkering
of Pharinae tended to give all intelligent species the same basic shape.  The
genetics under the hood could be radically different–the copper blooded
reptilian Konkastians gave birth after only seven months of gestation, whereas
the avian descended natives of Montares, the monastic planet, laid eggs. 
Eneria guessed that the natives of this world were mammalian like the
Lathlians, and had she been anything else she would have stood out much more. 
Her dusky skin pinned her as a non-native to this particular region, but they
seemed accepting of her as being from a neighboring, civilized country.  She
wasn’t even sure where Greece was, but she accepted the advice from Aijo that
it was as good a place as any to claim as home. 

“So you see, the
trend last year was for the waistline to drop even further from the Empire
style, almost to where it is sitting on the hips.”  Clarissa was pointing out
the differences between two paintings. “The question is whether it will drop to
directly on top of the hips, leaving the bodice to start flaring out again.”

“I do not think
so,” Enny said, her words slow in the new language.  Even with Aijo stuffing
her brain with vocabulary, she felt frustrated at the large number of gaps she
had for words that should have been familiar to her.  “This waistline, if it
drop lower
—
”

“Drops,” Mitsy
corrected with a smile.  It was rare for her to have the upper hand over
anyone, and she’d taken it upon herself to gently fix the English mistakes of
the self-proclaimed princess from the Continent.

“If it drops
lower, it will make the body look too long.”  Eneria stood and demonstrated. 
“Waist too long.”

“Long-waisted is
the term.”  Clarissa tapped her lips absently with one finger.  “I believe you
are right.  But the corresponding drop in sleeves should make up for it, no?”

“No,” Eneria
said firmly.  “Leg and waist, two different thing.”

“Things.”  Mitsy
stared at the plates and at the taller stranger who had turned their lives
upside down in a few short days.  “She’s right, milady.  If the waistline goes
onto the hips, you look like you have short legs instead.  I think it’s best to
stick with last year’s waistline.”

“I guess you’re
right.”  Clarissa pulled forward another plate, this time of a much more
elaborate hooped dress.  “At least the court dresses don’t change much.” 

Eneria grinned. 
That dress looked a lot more familiar.  “No, they do not.  My mother wore one
like this every day.”

“Why were you
wearing such strange attire when we found you then?” Clarissa asked, this time
enunciating the query with a piercing sharpness.  Eneria blinked.  She had
thought the girl to be shallow and vain, but there was a sudden intelligence
from behind those pale gray eyes.  Eneria almost floundered.

“As I have said,
I could not run a ship in a dress.”

“Most women
couldn’t run a ship at all.  I’d assume a princess would want everyone to know
her status?”

“I am a princess
no longer,” Eneria said dryly, and swallowed.  “My own world wants me dead.”

“Because of the
coup,” Clarissa clucked, suddenly understanding.  “Of
course
, hiding out
as a boy is the most logical choice under those circumstances. I see, that
makes quite a lot of sense.”

That wasn’t
exactly the reason she had worn her uniform.  It was comfortable, it was cheap,
and it marked her immediately as a trusted courier to her clients.  She was
actually a bit relieved to once again be clad like a lady, but going with the
idea that she had been wearing the utility suit as a form of cross-dressing to
hide her identity would do.

“Speaking of
that, what have you done with my clothes?  The outfit itself I care nothing
for, but there were very important items I had with me in the pouches - I mean,
pockets.”

“I believe James
has them.  You can probably ask him for them back.”  Clarissa eyed Eneria
critically again.  “He has said you are welcome to stay in this house as long
as you need, but perhaps you should consider making arrangements to leave.  He
is an unmarried bachelor, after all, and it would not be becoming for you to
stay under his roof for long.”

“Oh? What of you
then?”

Clarissa grinned
haughtily.  “He is my guardian, and my brother-in-law, at that.  Even if we are
not related by blood, we are related by marriage and that is safe enough for
the society gossips.”  The grin faded.  “He sees me as a little sister anyway.
My debut is coming this Season, in London.  I am determined to be the best
among the marriage market and catch myself a duke.  Or maybe even a prince from
the Continent.”  She winked prettily at Eneria.

She just might
do it, Enny thought.  She’s bright and probably the most beautiful primitive I’ve
ever seen.

“You will have
no choice in your husband?”

“Oh, I shall be
the one to make the final decision.”  She drummed her fingers on the table and
then stuck her nose imperiously in the air, affecting an arrogant pride that
would have made Emerita applaud.  “But he must possess enough wealth and a
title to make him worth my time.  I am, after all, beautiful and talented and
bright and accomplished in all things domestic.”  She dropped her hauteur with
a faint sigh.  “But I am also poor as a church mouse and determined to make the
best of a bad situation.”

Eneria sensed
the same fatalism in the slender woman that she’d felt in the petite Vaz.  She
took Clarissa’s hand.

“Lady Clarissa,
whomever you choose, ensure that you do not find yourself crying at the altar. 
It is painful for your friends and family to watch.”  With that, Eneria stood
up.  “If you will excuse me, I am going to retrieve my things from your
uncle.”  She paused.  “I also have the last court dress I wore, my bridesmaid
dress, in the ship.  I’d like to go get that as well as some other things from
there that probably shouldn’t be exposed to the open air.  Would you like to
take a look at it?”

“Oh yes!”
Clarissa clapped her hands in delight.  “I would love to take a look at it.”

“I will bring it
then, as soon as I am able.”  She slipped out of the room, feeling a happiness
she hadn’t felt in years.  Her relationship with Vaz had been strained first by
the marriage, then by the coup, then by the constant pressure from her mother
to move to Montares.   Seth was friendly to her as a work colleague, but he
always kept a guarded distance from her for reasons she never quite understood.
It felt good to have a friend around her age again.

Outside Clarissa’s
door, she encountered Marilyn, who was in the hallway unsupervised, sulking. 
She was sitting on the floor, her cat curled up on her lap, kneading her leg
and making a friendly rumbling sound.

“Clarissa doesn’t
have time to play with me anymore,” Marilyn said.  “Whenever I ask her to play,
she keeps saying she has grown up stuff to do.”  She scratched the cat on top
of his head, causing him to lift his chin in pleasure.

“Well, she does,”
Eneria said, looking at the creature in fascination.  “She is preparing for her
debut.  It seems to be a very busy time in a young woman’s life here... someday
soon, you too shall have one.”