I looked down at the hem of the skirt but couldn’t seem to work the needle in my shaking hands. I wondered if she would take back the part about calling me her sister and found it strange that I worried she would.
“Ida, let’s not talk of such things, please? Alexandra has had enough excitement for one day.”
“Yes, Mother.” Ida gathered her skirts up again and sat on the floor near my feet. I tensed, not sure what I should do when a noblewoman, and in this case, a princess, dropped herself down lower than me. Should I get on the floor as well? Offer her my seat?
“If you wish to sit here…” I said as I started to stand, but she dismissed my offer with a wave of her hand and told me to sit back down. She leaned toward me and peered up into my eyes.
“How did he get out of it?”
“Out of what?”
“Marrying that awful girl?”
“He said...” I paused, not really sure if I should repeat the reason Branford gave to King Edgar. However, Ida was staring at me intently, and she had asked her question so directly, I wasn’t sure I could refuse to answer. “He said she wasn't a...um...he said she wasn’t pure.”
Ida began to laugh.
“Well, he certainly knew that!”
“Ida!” Sunniva chided.
“She practically begged him, Sunniva!”
“That doesn’t mean you need to speak of it.” Sunniva scolded her adopted daughter.
“It’s her own fault for not protecting what should have been reserved for her wedding night,” Ida huffed. “That’s why I only let Parnell use his—”
“Enough!” Queen Sunniva’s voice was nothing short of a command. Her gaze went dark and effectively silenced her daughter. “Ida, go. Tell Camden and Branford that Alexandra and I will be taking dinner here.”
“Fine,” Ida mumbled, standing again. She looked back at me and smiled. “Don’t worry, Alexandra. Everything will work out.”
She traipsed out the door, closing it swiftly behind her.
“Ida can be a little energetic,” Sunniva said with a tilt of her head back toward the door, “especially when Branford’s done something to get her riled up. She really has been planning his wedding for years. I wish he would have brought you back here for the ceremony. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see it.”
“Branford was concerned,” I said, then stopped. I didn’t know if Branford would want me to speak of anything he has said, even to his adoptive mother.
“I have the feeling he wanted to make sure everything was done before Edgar could come up with a legitimate reason to disallow it,” Sunniva said. I breathed a sigh of relief. If she guessed the reason, it wasn’t the same as me divulging information.
For a while, we sewed in silence. When the first layer was done, we flipped over the fabric and began the next layer. When we were nearly done, several servants entered the room, bringing dinner, complete with red wine, which I tried to sip, but found the taste strange and not to my liking.
“Thank you,” I finally said.
“For what, dear?”
“Um…the meal, the dress…everything.”
“You are very welcome.” Sunniva looked at me for a long moment and then took a deep breath. “I didn’t think you needed to be presented to the entire court just yet. Tomorrow will do, when we’ll have had plenty of time to prepare you. Branford really should have thought through all this, and I shall have to speak with him about it.”
“No, please.” I looked into her eyes and hoped she would hear me. “I don’t want him to think me any trouble. If I hadn’t fallen, everything would have been fine, I’m sure. I embarrassed him in front of the court in more ways than one today. I wouldn’t want to anger him about it further.”
“Alexandra,” Sunniva said as she placed her glass of wine to the side and picked up the final layer of the skirts. “I know everything has been so quick for you. To go from being a handmaid to finding yourself suddenly married to an unknown man from another kingdom…well, I can’t even imagine how you must be feeling now. Even when I was wed to Camden, I at least had an understanding of my social position.”
She completed a row of stitching and paused, looking at me.
“You’re frightened, and that’s understandable,” Sunniva told me. I nodded a little, not sure if I should answer her or not. “But you are going to have to understand you are no longer a servant and start acting as the wife of a future king. The longer you consider yourself beneath those in the court, the longer it will take them to accept you.”
I looked up into her eyes, trying to determine if she truly meant what she said. Her eyes were serious and somber, and I tried to reflect on her words. I was the wife of a future king. I hadn’t allowed myself to even think quite so far into the future, and even taking the notion into consideration was far more foreign than the idea of marriage itself. I had no idea where to even begin.