The Mad Princess and the Dying Prince novel Chapter 13

Matron Cecily was utterly stunned.

"Azure, have someone escort them over. Tell the Beaumonts it is my direct command."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Celeste and Celia were equally bewildered. They had been rigorously trained for a decade to be fiercely loyal to Prince Jareth and to obey his every command without question. Masking their deep confusion, they bowed and retreated to prepare for Beaumont Manor.

Jareth stepped down from his carriage, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. He stared up at the heavy stone crest bearing the name of his estate, his gaze entirely unreadable.

The Steward and Matron Cecily watched his legs with bated breath.

"Your Highness, how are your legs?"

"The same. A few slow steps are fine." Jareth walked through the grand gates.

So there was no improvement?

The Steward and Matron Cecily exchanged a heavy look, sighed in unison, and hurried after him.

Matron Cecily fought the urge to reach out and support him, watching him with an aching heart. She had raised Jareth; no one loved him more fiercely than she did.

"Your Highness, Celeste and Celia are obedient, diligent, and know their place. I thought since your chambers are empty, you needed proper attendants. Why send them away? Is there something wrong with the second Beaumont daughter?"

Matron Cecily assumed Lady Lucia was suspicious in some way, and that Jareth was sending the girls to spy on her. She dared not imagine any other possibility.

But if it were a mere spying mission, anyone could have gone! She had groomed Celeste and Celia specifically to one day warm his bed.

Lucia's face flashed in Jareth's mind.

Was there something wrong with her? Absolutely everything about that girl was entirely abnormal.

"Lady Lucia... is my betrothed," he said.

"What did Your Highness say?" Matron Cecily gasped, breaking into a shocked fit of coughing.

"Betrothed?!" The Steward squawked, sounding exactly like a strangled duck.

"She fancied me. She practically begged for the marriage," he said.

Even her fainting spell had conveniently landed her right into his arms.

Matron Cecily held her racing heart. "From Lord Alistair Beaumont's estate? I have seen his three daughters before. They left a very... plain impression."

Did His Highness have a morbid lack of taste?

Furthermore, aside from the eldest, the other two were a second daughter and a bastard. A lesser daughter of Lord Beaumont attempting to become the prince's bride? The gap in their social standing was immense!

"She is the second daughter, I am told."

"That girl? She was raised with the manners of a peasant. She is incredibly unrefined and narrow-minded, Your Highness—" Matron Cecily looked ready to weep. "Perhaps you should reconsider?"

Jareth chuckled lightly.

"Matron, she is the second daughter who only just returned from the remote countryside. You haven't met her."