Lily had been with me longer than my brother, but she was still so mean!
Maybe she was loyal to the head of the family. Still, I thought it would’ve been okay for her to like me after spending so much time with me. Also, my father was still the head of the family!
My brother wasn’t affectionate enough with me, and Lily wasn’t either! It wasn’t like I wanted them to dote on me as much as my father did, but they could’ve at least been a little nicer.
They could even have been nice enough to let me break off my engagement! Then I’d have been happy as a clam.
But that wasn’t going to happen. There was no way my brother would do that for me. No way at all. Unless he died in some kind of unexpected accident.
Which meant I had to do something myself!
I let out a deep, sad sigh.
“Leticia?”
Oh, heck! That’s right! I was in the middle of a tea party with the prince!
“It would seem I became distracted due to fatigue,” I said. “My apologies, Your Highness.”
While I did apologize for being lost in thought in the middle of our tea party, I also implied that it was because of the tutor they’d given me. As a freebie, I threw in one of those polite, ladylike smiles my tutor had drilled into me...but the expression on Lord Clarke’s pretty face hardened.
Huh. Had I really been that disrespectful?
All I did was zone out for a bit! I didn’t think I’d earned such a strong reaction...
But if I’d made him uncomfortable, I had to apologize. This person was going to be the number one authority in this country someday, after all. If I’d upset him too much, who knew what my brother would do to me? Nadir was scary.
“I apologize for causing you discomfort on such a special occasion,” I said. “My deepest apologies, Your Highness.”
To make sure it came across as a proper apology, I bowed my head, without smiling this time.
I’d thought this would be enough for sure, but when I lifted my head, his expression was still stiff. Not just his face, actually—his whole posture hadn’t changed at all. Wow. Wasn’t it hard to stay still like that while holding a teacup?
Maybe I needed to apologize again, but, like, in a desperate manner? With tears?
As I fretted over what to do, His Highness Prince Clarke finally moved. He set down his teacup, his movements awkward as though he was wearing a rusty suit of armor.
“L-Leticia?”
“Yes?”
“What did you just call me?”
Ohh. That was what he was upset about.
“I apologize for my lack of awareness previously,” I said. “I’ve been calling you ‘Lord Clarke,’ in an overly familiar fashion, for which I am ashamed. From now on, I will be certain to call you ‘Your Highness Prince Clarke.’”
Okay! Now all I had to do was flash a ladylike smile!
I repeated the same smile that hadn’t impressed him before. See, the key was to make sure your mouth was closed, so it looked refined.
But the prince grabbed my shoulder, so stiffly I almost thought I could hear him creaking. I wondered whether he’d have gotten mad at me if I’d said I didn’t want him to touch me much because I wasn’t his wife yet. He probably would’ve. It was best not to add fuel to the fire.
“L-Leticia...”
“Yes?”
“Who told you that?”
Why was he asking that? Oh! Did he think someone was bullying me? No, no. I’d just have bullied them back twice as hard, so no worries, no worries.
“My tutor at the palace,” I said.
I was trying to reassure him, but he furrowed his brow and got upset instead. I wished his pretty face would stop looking so scary and grim. Or at least I wished he’d keep a little distance!
His Highness Prince Clarke cleared his throat, then gave me a small smile. What a sudden change of attitude. That, in itself, was scary.
“Leticia.”
I didn’t mind, not really, but why did he always start conversations by saying my name?
With this completely unimportant thought in mind, I answered, “Yes?”
His hand grabbed my shoulder a little tighter. It didn’t hurt, but it was even scarier.
“Listen to me,” the prince said. “We’re equals, you and I.”
“Huh? I don’t think we are—”
“We are,” he cut in before I could finish.
That wasn’t right, though. He was a prince, and the future ruler of this country. I was the daughter of a duke. Which, I mean, was pretty high class, but not on the same level as him.
“Leticia, you’re going to marry me,” he said.
“Right...” I nodded along. I wanted to refute it, though, because I didn’t want to marry him. But I couldn’t really say that now.
His Highness Prince Clarke seemed displeased with my half-hearted answer, but he kept talking. “And after that happens, you’ll soon be queen. Do you understand that? The king and queen are a married couple.”
Well, yeah. Everyone knew that. He didn’t have to explain that part! I wanted to ask if he was making fun of me, but instead I held back and gave him another half-hearted “Right...” in response.
“And married couples are equal,” he continued.
“Right...”
“So you and I are equals, Leticia.”
I felt like he was splitting hairs.
“I think that would be a valid point when talking about common households,” I said, reluctantly giving him more than another nonanswer, “but the king and queen have different positions, I think.”
“The king and queen are equals,” he insisted.
“No, I don’t think so...”
Yes, the king and queen were a married couple, but the king naturally had more authority. The queen came after him, and while she did have the second most authority, it didn’t match his. Their duties were different too.
“They’re equals. In fact, my father and mother call each other by their first names.”
They do?
I’d met the royal couple a few times, so I tried to remember how they interacted, but I drew a blank. The only thing that came to mind was the queen’s beauty.
“Still,” I protested, “we’re only engaged, so I should say ‘Your Highness’...”
“You’re going to marry me someday, so you can call me by name.”
“No, I think it’s better to take it seriously and set an example for the other nobles and for the people.”
“I said it’s fine, which means it’s fine.”
Now he was starting to sound like a tyrant! He was being really stubborn about it, for some reason... Well, to be fair, if he said it was okay, then most people would agree that it was.
“Not necessarily,” I countered. “My tutor and brother have said—”
“I. Said. It’s. Fine,” he stressed, pausing after each word for emphasis.
“But...” I trailed off, trying to hide my desire to not be so casual with him and think of a way to keep calling him “Your Highness.”
“I. Said. It’s. Fine,” he repeated with a dazzling smile that did absolutely nothing to mask how pushy he sounded.
All this back-and-forth over how to address him was getting old, though.
“In that case, I’ll continue to call you Lord Clarke as I have been,” I said, finally relenting.
“Okay. Remember, we are equals.”
I wondered why he was so insistent on being equals.
My mind was filled with doubts, but now that his mood had improved, I couldn’t risk asking him the wrong thing. I just sipped my tea instead.