Chapter Five: Beauty’s Younger Daughter

Belle knew the difference between being looked at and being seen.

Being looked at was easy.

She had discovered that at fourteen, when a visiting ambassador forgot the end of his sentence because she smiled at him. By sixteen, she understood that people forgave a pretty girl for arriving late, asking foolish questions, or taking the last sugared apricot.

Being seen was less dependable.

At breakfast, she had asked whether she might attend the welcoming ceremony beside her sister.

Lady Penrose had promised to enquire.

By supper, everyone had forgotten.

“You are pulling.”

“I am hardly touching it, Your Highness.”

“Then it is a remarkably painful absence of touch.”

Belle’s maid loosened her grip on the strand of blonde hair.

In the mirror, Cora’s expression remained professionally patient. That was worse than irritation. Irritation at least acknowledged that Belle had managed to affect someone.

“Leave it down,” Belle said.

“For supper?”

“For the journey to supper. You may pin it up in the corridor if the bishop objects.”

Cora looked towards the other maid, who suddenly became absorbed in folding a shawl.

Belle sighed.

“Not all of it. Leave something that suggests I have a neck.”

Cora resumed her work.

Beyond the open door, servants hurried past carrying linens. Somewhere downstairs, a man was issuing instructions about the placement of chairs. The entire palace had developed the anxious energy of a person awaiting an important diagnosis.

Aurora’s birthday.

Aurora’s ball.

Aurora’s princes.

Belle lifted a pearl earring from the dressing table.

“Do you suppose green would have been better?”

“Your Highness looks lovely in blue.”

“That was not the question.”

“The blue suits your eyes.”

Everyone said that.

She put down the earring.

On the bed lay the gown she had intended to wear tomorrow: pale green silk, newly altered, with tiny silver leaves stitched along the sleeves.

Lady Penrose had sent a message after luncheon.

The princess was to wear blue.

Aurora would be wearing green.

Apparently, even colours had a succession.

She found her sister sitting cross-legged on the window seat, reading papers covered in numbers.

Aurora had changed for supper, but one stockinged foot remained visible beneath her skirt. Her shoes stood abandoned on the carpet.

Belle closed the door.

“You are becoming worse.”

Aurora looked up.

“At what?”

“Everything. Your feet are out.”

“Both of them?”

“I believe so.”

“How careless.”

Belle dropped onto the opposite cushion.

“Lady Penrose has stolen my gown.”

“That sounds unlike her. Was she wearing it?”

“The green one. I am not allowed to wear it tomorrow because you are.”

Aurora glanced down at herself.

“This green?”

“No, the other green. The welcoming-foreign-men green.”

“Oh.”

“Precisely.”

Aurora set aside the papers.

“Wear it.”

“I cannot simply wear it.”

“Why not?”

“Because she will look at me.”

“Our formidable obstacle.”

Belle drew up one knee, then lowered it when she remembered the creases.

“It is easy for you.”

Aurora’s face changed.

Belle regretted the words, though not enough to take them back.

“I will wear blue,” Aurora said.

“No.”

“I have a blue gown.”

“You have seventeen blue gowns. That is not the point.”

“What is the point?”

Belle looked out at the darkening courtyard.

She disliked questions that required her to make unpleasant feelings sound reasonable.

“Nothing. I wanted to complain, not organise an exchange of wardrobes.”

Aurora was quiet for a moment.

Then she reached across the cushion and touched Belle’s wrist.

“The green is prettier.”

Belle looked back.

“I know.”

“And you chose it first.”

“Yes.”

“I will speak to Penrose.”

Something inside Belle loosened.

“Without making it sound as though I cried?”

“Did you?”

“Not yet.”

“I shall act quickly.”

Belle laughed.

There. That was her sister. Not the woman in the fitting room, already dressed as a portrait. The one who knew when to tease and when to offer help without calling it charity.

She glanced at the discarded papers.

“What are those?”

“Grain accounts.”

“How unfortunate.”

“They are interesting.”

“To whom?”

“Apparently, me.”

Belle picked up a page.

Numbers marched down it in narrow columns. Beside one estate’s name, someone had written arrears three times.

She returned it.

“You are the brains,” she said. “I am the beauty. We settled this years ago.”

Aurora smiled, but faintly.

“You could learn.”

“About grain?”

“About whatever you wished.”

Belle wished, at present, that someone would knock and announce a matter of national importance requiring her particular attention.

Instead, the supper bell sounded.

Aurora reached for her shoes.

Their father arrived late.

Belle saw their mother notice before anyone else did.

Matilda’s conversation with Lord Eastmere did not falter, but her fingers stopped moving against the stem of her glass.

Henry apologised, kissed her hand, and took his seat.

A moment later, everything continued.

Belle had watched this happen often enough to recognise the restoration without understanding the damage.

She sat beside an elderly cousin who wished to discuss a chapel roof.

Across the table, Aurora was listening to their father.

“Master Fenwick can provide the previous quarter’s figures,” Henry said. “You will need them before Monday.”

“I have already sent a note.”

“Good.”

Belle waited for a pause.

“Father?”

He turned.

“The new mare arrived this morning.”

“So I heard.”

“She is quite beautiful.”

“You must be careful until the grooms have assessed her.”

“I thought you might come and see—”

“Your Majesty,” Lord Eastmere interrupted, leaning forward, “on the subject of Monday’s committee—”

Henry looked towards him.

Belle’s sentence remained unfinished.

She took a sip of water.

Across the table, Aurora had noticed.

That made it worse.

Belle smiled at the elderly cousin and asked about the chapel roof.

He spoke for eleven minutes.

After supper, their mother requested music.

Belle was asked to sing.

That, at least, she could do without being compared unfavourably to anyone. Aurora could manage a tune but treated the higher notes as personal insults.

Belle stood beside the pianoforte while Lady Marston played.

She chose a love song.

Not the melancholy one their mother preferred. Something light, about a girl who refused three flowers before accepting a fourth.

By the second verse, conversations had quietened.

By the third, her father was looking at her.

Belle held the last note a little longer than necessary.

When it ended, Henry applauded.

“Beautifully done.”

Warmth rose beneath her ribs.

“Thank you, Father.”

“You have your mother’s voice.”

Matilda smiled from her chair.

Belle tried not to mind that even praise sent her elsewhere.

Near the door stood a man she did not recognise.

Dark hair, a green coat, a narrow face made less respectable by the suggestion that he found something privately amusing.

He applauded with the rest.

When their eyes met, he bowed.

Not low enough to be solemn.

Belle smiled before she could decide whether she ought to.

The steward said something to him, and he followed the man out.

“Who was that?” she asked when she returned to Aurora.

“The new jester, I think.”

“He does not look like a jester.”

“What should one look like?”

“Older. Less—”

“Equipped with knees?”

Belle nudged her.

Aurora laughed, but her gaze had already returned to their father and Lord Eastmere.

Belle wondered whether there was any room in her sister’s head that did not contain an account book.

Later, in her mother’s sitting room, the girls were shown miniature portraits of the princes.

They arrived in velvet cases, as though the men themselves were jewels awaiting purchase.

Matilda placed the first beneath the lamp.

Prince Philip Harlowe wore a dark coat edged with silver. One hand rested on a carved chair. His hair had been arranged so precisely that Belle wondered whether the painter had been permitted to breathe.

“He has a distinguished face,” Matilda said.

“He appears aware of it,” Aurora replied.

Belle leaned closer.

“He is handsome.”

“He is thirty,” Aurora said.

“You speak as though he has been excavated.”

Matilda opened the second case.

Alexander Ambrose looked younger than eighteen.

His pale hair fell across his forehead, and his blue eyes seemed directed somewhere just beyond the painter’s shoulder, perhaps towards an escape.

Belle softened despite herself.

“He looks frightened.”

“Portrait sittings are unpleasant,” Matilda said.

“Perhaps he has seen Philip’s portrait,” Aurora murmured.

Their mother gave her a warning look, though Belle suspected she was fighting a smile.

The final miniature was larger.

Flynn Sinclair had dark auburn hair, a well-shaped mouth, and the composed expression of a man who expected the room to welcome him.

Unlike Philip, he did not appear to have arranged himself for admiration.

That made him more interesting.

“He has kind eyes,” Belle said.

“A painter can supply those,” Matilda replied.

Belle looked up.

Her mother closed the empty case.

“You must not decide what a man is from how pleasantly he is presented.”

Aurora studied Flynn’s face.

“Then the portraits seem an expensive precaution.”

“They are introductions, not evidence.”

Belle continued looking.

There was something in his expression she could imagine changing into amusement.

She wondered what he looked like when he laughed.

When Aurora was dismissed, Matilda asked Belle to stay.

The familiar little disappointment returned.

Aurora was summoned for decisions.

Belle was kept for corrections.

Her mother waited until the door closed.

“Tomorrow, you will be gracious.”

“I generally am.”

“You will not interrupt formal introductions.”

“I know.”

“And you will remember that the princes are here to become acquainted with your sister.”

Belle’s face warmed.

“I have not suggested otherwise.”

“No.”

The single word was gentle.

Somehow, that made it impossible to argue.

Matilda drew the portrait cases together.

“You enjoy admiration, Belle.”

“Is that forbidden now?”

“Not forbidden. Occasionally unwise.”

“I am capable of speaking to a man without expecting him to propose.”

“I should hope so.”

Belle looked away.

Her mother’s voice softened.

“A visiting prince may compliment you. He may dance with you. Neither means that he has made you a promise.”

“I know what dancing means.”

“Do you?”

The question stung because Belle could not answer without sounding like a child.

Matilda reached for her hand.

Belle allowed it, reluctantly.

“You need never compete with your sister.”

“I am not competing.”

“Then do not let anyone persuade you to begin.”

For one moment, Belle wanted to ask why everyone behaved as though she already had.

Instead, she bent and kissed her mother’s cheek.

“Goodnight.”

Matilda held her fingers a little longer.

“Wear the green tomorrow,” she said.

Belle looked at her.

“Aurora has spoken to Lady Penrose.”

She should have been pleased.

She was pleased.

That did not prevent her from lying awake, staring at the pale square of her window.

Her sister had fixed it.

Again.

Belle turned onto her side.

She loved Aurora. It was possible to love someone and resent the ease with which the world arranged itself around her.

Not that Aurora found it easy.

Belle knew that, too.

There would be councils, petitions, laws. A lifetime of sitting upright while old men explained why her decisions required their approval.

Belle did not want that.

She wanted the arrival.

The room falling quiet.

The sense that someone had crossed a sea or a continent because she was worth reaching.

She shut her eyes.

In the morning, she would be charming.

That, at least, belonged to her.

By eleven, the palace smelled of beeswax and crushed flowers.

Belle stood beside Aurora at an upstairs window overlooking the main courtyard.

Her green gown fitted perfectly.

Aurora wore blue.

Neither mentioned it.

Below, grooms waited beside the mounting block. The steward inspected the line of footmen for the third time. Their father stood beneath the entrance arch with a small gathering of courtiers.

A horn sounded beyond the gates.

Belle moved closer to the glass.

The first riders entered beneath the portcullis, their cloaks marked with the Sinclair crest. Behind them came a carriage, then a man on a dark horse.

Even from above, he looked comfortable being watched.

“Flynn,” Belle said.

“So we are informed.”

The prince dismounted before a groom could reach him.

He handed over the reins, removed his gloves, and bowed to the king.

Henry greeted him warmly.

Belle watched his mouth move.

There was laughter below.

“He seems pleasant.”

“Most people do from this distance,” Aurora said.

Then Flynn looked up.

It was only a brief glance towards the windows.

He could not possibly distinguish them properly.

Still, Belle found herself straightening.

Beside her, Aurora stepped back to collect the gloves she had left on a chair.

For half a second, Belle remained alone in the window.

The prince smiled.

Perhaps he was smiling at the building.

Perhaps someone below had made a joke.

Belle knew all the sensible explanations.

She smiled back anyway.