Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

you know that your eyes shine like the stars?”
    Where the star analogy might have come from so early in the morning, Una couldn’t guess, but that hardly mattered at such a moment. She bit her lip and forced a nervous smile. “Oh?”
    “Could I lie to one such as you?” He chuckled softly at the thought. “The first moment I gazed into the limpid blue depths of your eyes,” he said, “I knew I might drown there and die a happy man.”
    Some small part of her deep inside winced that he’d gotten her eye color wrong. But Una silenced that thought and glanced up into the not-very-handsome but so-very-fascinating face of Beauclair’s prince. “I think I . . . I think I’d rather you didn’t die,” she admitted bravely.
    “Truly, Princess Una?” Gervais lifted a hand and reached out as though he might touch her cheek, but restrained himself at the last moment.
    “I think so,” she said. Why must she suddenly wish so badly that the gardeners would turn around?
    “Princess,” Gervais murmured. “Una, I was wondering if I might . . . speak with your father?”
    Una blinked. “My father?”
    “Yes.”
    She frowned. “I suppose so. I mean, I see no reason why you might not. You’re his guest after all. . . . ”
    Gervais cleared his throat and moved a fraction of an inch closer. “I meant about a delicate subject.”
    “Delicate?”
    “Yes.” He reached out and took her hand. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Do you understand me, Una?”
    “Oh!” she gasped, then inwardly kicked herself when the next word from her mouth was a resounding, “Uh!”
    Crunching footsteps on the gravel path shot through her ears like cannon fire. Una pulled her hand from Gervais’s and spun about to see Prince Aethelbald striding up the garden path. He saw them at the same moment and paused. A sharp expression flashed across his face, then vanished the next moment behind a complete mask. He bowed and went on his way without a word, disappearing around a bend in the path.
    Una backed away from Gervais and curtsied. “Thank you, prince, for . . . the lovely song,” she said, then turned and all but ran from the garden, clutching her skirts in both hands.
    “Oh dear,” she whispered as she retreated, wishing her thudding heart would ease. She glanced back and saw Gervais shoulder his lute and walk from the clematis arbor. “I think I’m in love – Oh, dragon’s teeth !”
    With that unladylike phrase she landed in a heap on the garden path. In her flight she had not watched where she went and failed to see Aethelbald when he stepped out in front of her.
    “Princess Una,” he said, offering her a hand, “are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    Really, the blotches had earned a holiday for all the extra time they’d been putting in these days! She refused Aethelbald’s proffered hand and scrambled to her feet on her own, brushing gravel from the back of her skirts. “Sneaking up on people,” she snapped. “Really, sir, there are proprieties to maintain!”
    “I was standing in plain sight.”
    “It couldn’t have been that plain since I didn’t see you!”
    “You might have seen me had you been looking where you went.”
    “I was looking where I went right up until I stopped . . . looking. . . .” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them because Nurse said that princesses should never cross their arms. But then she didn’t know what to do with them, so she crossed them again. “What do you want?”
    Was he smiling at her? Did his rudeness know no bounds?
    “Princess Una,” he said, “I merely wish to inquire after your hands.”
    She glared at him. “My what?”
    “Your hands.”
    He reached out and, much to her surprise, took one of her hands. Too taken aback to know how to react, she watched as he turned it palm up and drew it closer to his face for inspection. His smile was gone now, replaced by a solemn expression. She stood, mouth agape, watching him