Princess without a Palace: A King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (26 page)

But Maria didn’t notice Roderick and
Adelaide watching her, because she was too occupied staring at Liesel. When
Liesel turned to look at the woman, their eyes locked, and in that instant
Liesel could see that the young woman was clearly seething to discover Liesel
had come to her ball. Liesel had to fight back a smile. She was suddenly feeling
a little less sorry that she had stayed.

When the song ended, all of the couples
politely applauded the musicians in the gallery above, and Liesel turned to
Prince Cornelius to thank him for the dance. However, instead of escorting her
away, Prince Cornelius surprised her by clasping her hand again and requesting
with a broad smile, “May I have the next dance as well?”

Liesel’s eyes swung back to her sister
to see if she was alone yet, but Roderick, in his typically stubborn way, was
still standing at her side. Liesel groaned. Couldn’t Adelaide find
anywhere
else in the large room to stand?

Since she refused to return until
Roderick left, she dragged her eyes back to Prince Cornelius and replied, “Of
course.”

Prince Cornelius settled her again in
his arms, but they had only completed two full rotations when Roderick started
striding determinedly their way. She tightened her hold on the prince’s hand,
and Prince Cornelius smiled down at her in return, oblivious of the impending
encounter.

Liesel opened her mouth to give him a
warning, but she didn’t have a chance to say anything before Roderick was
already at his side. Prince Cornelius scowled and tried to maneuver Liesel the
other way, but Roderick reached out a hand and grasped the prince’s shoulder,
bringing the dancing pair to a sudden halt.

Without lifting his eyes from Prince
Cornelius, Roderick then withdrew Liesel’s hand from the prince’s shoulder and
pulled her toward him. Wrapping his other arm possessively around her waist, he
informed the prince, “This dance is mine.”

“I beg your pardon!” Prince Cornelius
exclaimed, his face flushing with a mixture of anger and surprise at the unexpected
interruption.

Liesel looked back and forth between the
two men and wanted to protest, but she was too overwhelmed by Roderick’s close
proximity and the feeling of his arm around her to produce any coherent sounds.

Prince Roderick forced half a smile and
replied to his rival, “My apologies, Prince Cornelius, but I had to cut in.”
His eyes then burned down at Liesel and he added, “I’m here to claim my
betrothed.”

“Your … your what?” Prince Cornelius
stuttered after them, standing frozen and confused alone on the floor, as
Roderick adeptly swept Liesel back into the circle of dancing couples.

“What are you doing?” Liesel demanded,
finally finding her voice when Roderick began to lead her through the steps of
the dance. He pulled her toward him, but she leaned back to try to increase the
distance between them.

Roderick was holding her much too close.

She looked up at him with a scowl. “I am
well aware that we are not actually betrothed, Roderick. It was wrong of you to
say that to Prince Cornelius.”

“I don’t remember ever breaking it,”
Roderick argued, narrowing his eyes as he looked down at her.

Liesel clenched her teeth together and
glanced away. Her eyes happened to find Maria, and she reflexively stiffened.

Her sudden change didn’t go unnoticed by
Roderick and he glanced over to see the cause. He muttered something under his
breath, but then quickly turned back to look down at Liesel. “I don’t know what
Maria told you, but I can assure you that it is probably not true.”

Liesel looked up at him with an arched
eyebrow and questioned, “Did you not arrange the betrothal with my father to
teach me a lesson?”

Roderick cringed. “That is true …”

Liesel let out a growl of frustration,
and Roderick quickly entreated, “Please let me explain, Liesel.”

But her patience had long ago expired.
“I don’t want any more explanations, Roderick. The farce is over. The month is
complete. I am free, and I am under no obligation to discuss this any further
with you.”

“You
must
let me explain.”

Liesel looked around and saw that their
exchange was attracting the attention of more than a few people along the
perimeter of the room. She lowered her voice, and briefly looked back up at him
again and warned, “People are starting to stare, Roderick.”

“I don’t care.”

The feeling in his voice caused her to
miss a step in the dance, but she quickly recovered from her error. She then
looked again at Roderick and shook her head. “Please, Roderick. Let’s stop all
of this pretending. I’m not a peasant anymore and you are clearly not a humble
minstrel. It’s time to return to reality.”

The muscles along his jaw tightened, and
although he let go of her hand, he kept his other arm securely wrapped around
her waist and then proceeded to usher her away from the dance floor.

“What are you doing?” she hissed as he
led her around the various clusters of people to enter into the dining hall. 

But he didn’t give her an answer.

Liesel flushed under the interested
stares of the bystanders they passed. Her ears burned with embarrassment and
she wondered if her father had witnessed Roderick spiriting her away. She
glanced back over her shoulder, expecting to see him following at their heels,
but she only saw a swarm of unfamiliar faces staring after them.

Roderick pulled her past the long
banquet tables toward the doorway to the kitchen.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded
to know, but he still didn’t answer or even spare her a look.

Hilda froze when they burst into the
room, the spoon in her hand hovering stiff in the air above a cauldron of soup,
but Roderick didn’t pause to offer the startled cook any explanation.

Crossing the room, he pulled Liesel into
the small room that had been her work area for the last two weeks, and then
bolted the door shut.

When he turned around to face her,
Liesel took a step back.

She had never seen such a fire in his
eyes before.

“We might have been living without our
titles for the past month,” Roderick finally explained, shaking his head
slowly. “But beyond that, I was
never
pretending.”

Her heart began to pound, and her brows
furrowed in confusion. She shook her head. It just couldn’t be so. “There was
much more pretending than you are admitting, Roderick. What about the jar?” she
contended, remembering Maria’s haunting words. “You obviously have no need to
save to afford a wife.”

“I admit that I arranged the betrothal
with your father. And there were some things I had to do to make it believable.
But I didn’t do it to punish or trick you. I wanted to help you, Liesel. I saw
the way you behaved at the banquet, and then I overheard your father when he
told you that you would have to marry the next man who asked. But when I later
walked through the halls of your castle and happened to see you tenderly caring
for your young brother, I knew that you had a good heart. And I didn’t want you
to be forced to marry just any person who happened to ask you next. So I
devised the plan with your father to pose as the minstrel so I could take you
away for a month instead.”

He paused to let her process his words.
She was so surprised by it all. He had seen her with little Frederick? He had
planned the betrothal to save her from her father’s decree? Was he speaking the
truth? She desperately wanted to believe him, but her heart’s wounds were still
too tender, and she was not ready to expose her fragile heart again until she
was sure it was safe.

Stepping forward, Roderick continued, “I
was relieved when your father agreed to my plan and after I managed to arrange
all of my affairs here, I returned to put the plan into action. That was the
day I arrived as the minstrel.”

“But the betrothal was fake, Roderick,”
Liesel argued. “You have admitted that you only planned for it to last a month.
How can you ask me to believe that everything that happened during that time was
not just part of the deception?”

He reached down to take her hands in
his, and he looked earnestly into her eyes as he replied, “I came up with that
ridiculous plan to help soften your heart, Liesel. But after only a few days with
you, I started to lose mine, and everything I’ve ever done to win your heart
I’ve done because I love you, Liesel. I’ve loved you for weeks now,” he
declared, sending flutters through her core. He then cupped her cheek in his
hand and whispered, “Please don’t let my heart be lost forever.”

Liesel gulped and then searched his
eyes, hoping with her whole soul that he was speaking the truth. After a tense
moment of silence, she hesitantly questioned, “You love me?”

Roderick released the breath he had been
holding and smiled. Pulling her closer, he answered, “Why do you think I
conspired with my old friend Albert to find a way to keep you here so you
couldn’t run off with that blasted Prince Cornelius?”

She laughed. There was no reason for
Roderick to
ever
be jealous of Cornelius.

But her laugh tapered into silence as
Roderick’s gaze fell to her lips. Finally, daring to trust him once more, she
melted into his arms and allowed him to lean down and kiss her.

When he eventually pulled away, her eyes
fluttered open, and she summoned the rest of her courage to whisper, “I love
you too, Roderick.”

“I know,” he answered with a grin,
caressing her cheek. “Albert told me you sold the buckles from your shoes.”

Liesel’s eyes grew wide. “He told me he
would keep my secret!” she protested.

“No more secrets,” Roderick whispered,
bending down to kiss her again.

They were soon interrupted by a knock on
the door, and Liesel jumped back.

“Prince Roderick?” Hilda’s voice called
out.

Roderick smiled at Liesel and took her
hand, entwining her fingers through his and opened the door.

“Yes, Hilda?”

“Your father has soldiers searching for
you. I think it probably has something to do with your announcement.”

“Announcement?” Liesel repeated, looking
up at Roderick with a question in her eyes.

He looked down at her, his mouth forming
half a smile, and he explained, “In exchange for letting me help you, I
promised my father I would select one of the princesses here to be my wife.”
His smile spread and he asked, “Will you marry me, Liesel?”

The sudden question almost made her lose
her balance, and she looked back and forth between Hilda and Roderick for any
signs that this was a joke. She had no desire to answer until she was sure that
he was in earnest. She was done looking like a gullible fool.

Avoiding a direct answer, she reminded
him, “Your family doesn’t like me at all, Roderick.”

He squeezed her hand. “That’s not
exactly
true. My father may need some persuading, but my mother and brothers aren’t
completely decided against you. And as for Maria?” he asked, staring pointedly
into her eyes. “What she thinks doesn’t matter to me at all. Especially after
the way she has treated you.”

“Will your father even let you choose
me?” Liesel asked quietly, suddenly very afraid of the answer.

“He never reserved the right to approve
my choice, but I’m confident you’ll win him over anyway,” Roderick assured,
renewing her hope. “He just needs a little time to see your good heart like I
did. Will you please say you’ll marry me, Liesel?” 

He then took both her hands in his and
reminded, “I warned you before that I would ask you to marry me today. And I
pray you’ll say yes since I have no desire to walk back into that ballroom and
announce anyone but you as my future bride.”

Liesel bit her lip and considered the
irony of her current situation. She couldn’t count the number of times she had
vowed before to never marry a prince, but now, here she was, and the commoner
she had fallen in love with had turned out to be just such a man. But she knew
that Prince Roderick wasn’t just
any
prince. He was the man who had
saved her, and the man who had won her heart.  She would be a fool not to make
an exception now.

“Yes,” she finally declared, leaning
into Roderick’s side and looking up into his face with a bright smile. “I would
love to marry you and be your wife.”

Roderick smiled in relief and bent down
to kiss her one more time, but Hilda tugged on his arm and pulled the pair
after her, cutting the kiss short.

“There’s time for that later,” the old
woman ordered, marching them out of the kitchen. “But your parents are waiting
for you, and I don’t want any more soldiers barging into my kitchen. There’s
enough to do tonight without having to work around them too. Off with you now.”

“Thank you, Hilda,” Roderick said,
pulling Liesel by the hand behind him. As soon as they entered the dining hall,
they were confronted by two soldiers.

“The king wishes to have a word with you
both,” one of the soldiers decreed.