A Throne for Sisters

“It’s beautiful here,” Sophia said. “More beautiful than the rest of the river.”

“We’re fairly high upstream,” Sebastian said. “Before the city has affected it too much.”

Sophia guessed that Ashton could take anything and make it into something ugly. It certainly did it with people often enough, hardening them into shapes willing to take anything from others. Somehow, though, in the middle of it all, Sebastian wasn’t the same. He was kind, and generous, and perfect.

They rowed down through the city to another stretch of greenery, where willows arched over the water, and a small jetty led to a garden filled with colorful blooms, which in turn attracted buzzing bees and brightly colored butterflies. There was also a blanket spread out, with a picnic laid upon it.

“You planned all this for me?” Sophia asked.

“All this and more,” Sebastian assured her. He gestured to a spot where an easel was set up just beyond the picnic blanket, and a woman in an artist’s smock sat by it, already working on the background of the garden scene.

“Who is that?” Sophia asked.

“That is Laurette van Klet,” Sebastian said. “She’s going to be a major artist, bigger than Hollenbroek, once the nobles around here see her work. I couldn’t think of anyone better to paint you.”

“To paint me?” Sophia said. Even the idea of it caught her a little by surprise. The idea that someone might want to paint her seemed like something unreal, something impossible. The paintings she’d seen in the palace had been of princes and kings, queens and noblewomen. There had been allegorical figures too, mythological scenes and women of the greatest beauty. There hadn’t been any orphans that Sophia could see.

“Do not let my presence distract you,” the woman said. “I have no use for the stuffy formality of others’ portraits. Continue as you were.”

It was a strange feeling, being ordered to enjoy herself the way a general might have ordered troops into battle. Even so, Sophia tried, lying on the picnic blanket while Sebastian moved in close beside her, offering her a quail’s egg.

It was so beautiful, lying there in the sun, nibbling at sweetmeats and pastries, kissing Sebastian, just enjoying this closed off space that it seemed the rest of the world could not touch. Sophia kept close to Sebastian, and it was easy to get lost in his presence, so that despite the artist a little way away, and despite the oarsmen who had brought them there, it felt to her as if they were alone in the world.

Then the rowers brought instruments from the boat and started to play, on harp and low flute, tambour and lute. The sheer incongruity of it made Sophia laugh.

“There!” Laurette called out. “I want to capture your face like that.”

To Sophia’s surprise, she didn’t ask Sophia to hold the posture though. She just put her fingertips to her temples, as though trying to drill the moment into her brain.

“It’s her gift,” Sebastian said. “She can remember a moment and paint it perfectly.”

“Why would you paint it any other way?” the artist asked, sounding surprised by the very idea.

Sophia could see her looking Sophia over, from the way she lay on her side to the way her dress had ridden up her calves just a little. By the standards of the stuffy portraits she’d seen in the palace, this one would probably be revolutionary, or at least shocking.

Sophia stayed there, and it was a strange feeling now, knowing that someone was watching every move she made. What would Sebastian’s mother make of the portrait? Would it make the dowager think that she was an even less likely match for her son than she must have after the dinner the other night?

“All of this,” Sophia said. “I get the feeling that you’re trying hard to impress me, Sebastian.”

“Shouldn’t I?” he countered. “I would give you the world if you let me.”

It was one of those things that sounded as though it was far too romantic to be true, but Sophia could see that Sebastian meant it, exactly as he said it. He would literally give her anything; wanted to give her everything.

He seemed to have started with the finest delicacies the palace’s kitchens could produce. There were slices of roasted venison on black bread, sweet tarts that contained berries from the palace gardens, topped with saffron that must have come in on a merchant ship. There was even a pie that held goose, duck, and quail, all layered within one another.

“All of this.” Sophia shook her head. “It’s enough that you’re here with me.” She was even more surprised to see that she meant it too. She’d come to the palace with the intention of securing a better life for herself, but right then she wouldn’t have minded being in a shack, so long as Sebastian was there with her. “You don’t have to go out of your way to do anything else.”

“That’s a sweet thing to say,” Sebastian said. “But I want everything to be perfect for you.”

It was perfect. Since she’d arrived at the palace, it had been as though she was walking in a dream, and not one of the dreams that plagued her at night, with half-remembered images of a house in flames, running through corridors with her sister. This had been, instead, the kind of dream that had seemed impossible in its beauty, offering things that Sophia had assumed would recede come daybreak.

Yet here she was, with a prince of the realm, eating the finest food, being serenaded by skilled musicians, having her portrait taken. If someone had told her that this would happen even a few short weeks ago, Sophia would have assumed that it was a joke, and a cruel one at that. She would have assumed that it was just a way to make her indenture worse with the promise that it might not come to that.

“Is something wrong?” Sebastian said, reaching out for her.

Sophia took his hands, kissing them both. “Just memories of the past.”

“I don’t want anything to be wrong today. I want at least one perfect day, before…”

Sophia cocked her head to one side. “Before what, Sebastian?”

She saw the answer to that before he said it, and she was already paling with the words she took from his mind when he told her.

“You’ve heard that the wars are getting worse?” Sebastian said. He shook his head. “What am I saying? You’ve seen for yourself how bad things have become, with all the different sides, the petty wars.”

“But they aren’t here,” Sophia pointed out. She wished that she could do more than that. She wished that she could make all the wars, the threats, and the worries go away for Sebastian.

“Not yet,” Sebastian said, “but the wars are like small streams flowing into a river, and that river is flowing toward us. When there were a dozen sides fighting one another, it was easy to ignore, and being an island helped for a while, but now, with everything here… there are those who think that we’re weak.”

“And so you’re going to show them that you aren’t,” Sophia said. “Hoping that they won’t strike back.”

There was more bitterness in that than she intended. She’d seen what violence could do firsthand, even if she hadn’t been in the war. More than that, she found herself worrying about Sebastian. She didn’t want to risk him being hurt.

“It’s something that’s necessary,” Sebastian said. “More importantly, it isn’t something I have a lot of choice about. Mother has decided that I need to look more like a real prince.”

Sophia would have laughed at that if it hadn’t been so serious. Sebastian was going off to war, where there were no guarantees of safety. Where anything could happen.

“More like Rupert, you mean? Trust me; compared to him, compared to anyone, you are the perfect prince.”

“I wish it were just you making the decision,” Sebastian said. “Then I could stay here with you. As it is, my mother says that I have to look like a prince to the Assembly of Nobles. That’s why I’ve been given a commission. I’m to be an officer in the royal house cavalry.”

“Endeavoring to be as dashing as possible?” Sophia asked, but even as she asked it, she could feel her heart falling.

More than that, she found herself feeling a building suspicion. There had been wars on the continent for as long as Sophia could remember, but it was only now that Sebastian’s mother was sending him to take part? Was it really about some build-up in the violence, or was the dowager just looking for a way to separate her son from the girl he’d just met? Sophia knew that Sebastian’s mother didn’t trust her.

Or maybe Rupert had done it. Perhaps the elder brother had whispered the right things in his mother’s ears about making a man of Sebastian, or the need to be seen to be doing well in the wars. Sophia had seen the jealousy when the two of them had been together. She’d also seen what he wanted from her. Was this just a way to isolate her?

Sophia didn’t want to think more about what it might mean. There was the risk to Sebastian, the danger that came with a war… but also the more practical problem that he wouldn’t be there. At best, she would be left in the palace waiting for him. At worst, they might ask her to leave the moment his protection was gone. They might cast her out in a way that would be a petty insult to a real noble, but which would be devastating to her.

“Don’t be afraid, Sophia,” Sebastian said. “I’m sure I won’t be in any danger, and I won’t let anything happen to you, either. That’s part of why I did all this. I want to make certain.”

Sophia frowned slightly. “Make certain of what?”

“That you’ll say yes.”

Sophia’s heart was in her mouth as Sebastian stood, returning to the space where their boat was moored. There was something in his hand, and when Sophia saw the jewelry box there, she barely dared to breathe. She could think of at least one thing Sebastian could do that would explain a lot of what was happening today. Something that would also do a lot to explain how furious Angelica had looked back at the palace.

When Sebastian fell to one knee, Sophia stood in surprise, but that only made it easy for him to take her hand, holding it in one of his while he opened the box he held.