“What a shame,” Jaspar said. “I suppose we should quickly discuss what to do about the rumors before we’re gone too long and they get worse.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I was hoping the king would have given me something to go with to get your citizenship by the time we got to this ball.”
Maude felt her stomach fluttering. “Do you mean you would have told people we were together if we knew there was a path forward for us?” she asked.
He laughed softly. “That’s absolutely what I mean,” he replied.
Maude’s heart felt like it was soaring. “So you aren’t trying to hide me then,” she murmured.
“Of course not,” he replied, “I would love to tell the whole world that you’re mine.” She met his hungry eyes. She swallowed hard, wishing once again that they were at home. “The fact that Fronica Von Wikcten is going around claiming you seduced me,” he was gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. “The audacity of that woman astounds me.” He shook his head. “I don’t know in what universe she thinks attacking you is going to change my mind.”
Maude didn’t really know what to say, so she just patted Jaspar on the back. “I’m sorry we’re having to deal with her still,” Maude finally said.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” he replied. “It is I who need to apologize to you. I should have reined her in and not let her run so wild thinking that she was going to marry me.” He sighed heavily
Maude’s heart seemed to light up inside, as if someone had lit thousands of candles all at once. “You mean to say that you never had any intention of marrying her?” she asked.
Jaspar’s blue eyes met her own. “Never,” he confirmed. “She is too power hungry to be a duchess. If I chose her, I’d be handing my power and title to someone who is the same level as your step-mother, Duchess Zara.”
He’s got that right, Maude thought. Both of those women seem as though they are cut from the same cloth.
“So what should we say to people who ask us about the rumors?” Maude asked, changing the subject back.
“Why don’t we say…that we’re close friends because we are strategizing on the war together?” Jaspar suggested.
Maude looked at him skeptically. “Do you really think anyone is going to buy that?” she asked.
“There’s pretty much nothing else we can tell them to fully persuade them otherwise,” Jaspar replied. “Our actions will speak louder than our words which means we will need to be exceptionally careful for the time being.” He looked frustrated and exasperated. “That’s part of why I’m so angry with Lady Von Wickten. Because you and I can dance together, but we should also try to dance with other people tonight as well.”
Maude grimaced. “Whomever I end up dancing with, pray for their feet,” she recommended.
Jaspar chuckled. “They will survive. Just try not to stomp down too terribly hard.”
“I’ll do my best,” Maude replied, her heart sinking into her chest. She was hoping that her clumsy dancing would have gotten her out of dancing with other men. She didn’t really want to dance with anyone other than Jaspar.
“Otherwise, just keep messaging that we are just friends,” Jaspar insisted.
Maude sighed. “Alright,” she agreed. He reached down and gently planted a kiss on her lips.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Hopefully we can find a way for us to be together soon so that we can end this farce.”
“I hope so,” Maude said.
Jaspar offered her his arm, and she linked hers through his. “Let’s get this over with,” he said with a sigh.
Jaspar escorted Maude off the balcony, down the stairs, and through a back entrance to the ballroom. Jaspar peeked his head through the door to see if it was blocked.
“We’re safe here,” Jaspar said, gently tugging on Maude’s hand to pull her through the door after him. They were in a corner of the ballroom, where there was a crowd of people chatting in small groups. The doors had blocked out most of the sound, so Maude was a little shocked at how much louder it was in the ballroom.
“Look around,” Jaspar whisper commanded her. “Is there anyone who noticed us?”
Maude swiveled her head around, looking out into the crowd of people. She didn’t see anyone’s eyes looking at them. “No…” she said before meeting a pair of sharp, angry blue eyes. Fronica Von Wickten appeared to be seething. “Lady Von Wickten did,” Maude replied.
“Son of a…!” Jaspar softly exclaimed.
“Or she just noticed us here in this corner,” Maude corrected. “I didn’t see her eyes in my initial scan.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaspar nod. “So we wait until she makes her move then.”
“Okay,” Maude agreed. She had felt as though they had dawdled on the balcony, but it seemed as though the music had yet to start. It must be because greeting the prince takes so much more time than a typical ball, she thought.
“Shall we dance the first dance together?” Jaspar asked her.
“That would be lovely, Duke Rosenberg,” she murmured softly.
“After that, just dance with anyone who asks. I’m sure you have the skills now to do it,” Jaspar said with a small smile, looking at her.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Is he genuinely trying to comfort me, or is he acting? Maude wondered, while smiling back at him. Is it both maybe?
Maude looked around the crowd of people again, looking for Fronica. She was nowhere to be found.
“Are balls of this nature typically longer than the non-royal type?” Maude asked Jaspar.
He nodded. “Imperial balls have a tendency to take longer to get started, and as a result they last longer into the night as well,” Jaspar answered.
“I see,” Maude replied. She thought again of Prince Erich, having to greet every single noble before he, himself, could come into the ball to enjoy his own birthday party. How tedious, she thought. I’m grateful that I was not born a royal.
“Now announcing, his royal highness, Prince Erich!” The announcer called out from the top of the ballroom stairs.
So we got here just in time, then, Maude thought. How lucky that we got back in time.
All of the people in the ballroom turned their attention to the stairs. Prince Erich stood at the top with a wide grin on his face. Everyone in the ballroom bowed and curtsied, and Maude followed suit.
“Thank you all for coming,” Prince Erich said from the top of the stairs, his voice echoing in the now quiet hall. “Please rise.”
The room was filled with shuffling as everyone stood up to face the prince. “I hope you all enjoy the celebration this evening,” Prince Erich continued. “I love this country more than my own life. While not everyone is able to be here tonight due to ongoing aggressions from the empire, please know that we are doing what we can to wrap this conflict up with as few casualties as possible.” His body language suggested that he was sighing and disappointed. “I would have loved our friends at the front line to have been able to join us tonight to celebrate with us. For their sake, please enjoy tonight for them.” Prince Erich raised a glass. “To Aulbert!” He exclaimed.
“To Aulbert!” many of the nobles in the crowd shouted back. Maude felt herself getting some goosebumps from all of the energy in the room.
Prince Erich took a swig out of his glass, and the crowd clapped and cheered. Even Maude, herself, found herself feeling some pride towards Aulbert, while clapping her hands together.
As the crowd’s enthusiasm ebbed, the music began to play, and Prince Erich made his way down the stairs. Maude noticed that nobles were beginning to pair off, so she looked at Jaspar next to her.
He was looking at her, smiling. “Would you care to share the first dance with me, Lady Maude?” he asked, offering her his hand.
“With pleasure, your grace,” she replied, gently placing her hand in his palm.
He held her hand loosely as they made their way to the ballroom floor. She wondered if he was not holding her hand tightly to put on their show for the other nobles.
Will they even notice if he were to hold my hand tight? She wondered. She felt like she had swallowed something sour.
Upon arriving at the dancefloor, Jaspar took her up in his arms, and she noticed him focusing intently on keeping them at a maximum distance apart.
Aren’t we being obvious in the opposite way? Maude thought. We were always so calm and natural with one another before…wouldn’t it be too obvious if he’s suddenly dancing with me at an arm’s length?
The music started, and Jaspar smiled softly at Maude. “Have confidence,” he told her. “I know you’ve been practicing.”
She smiled a little bit back, doing her best not to have an all-out grin plastered on her face. He wasn’t wrong. She had been going and practicing on her own. I hope my improvements show, she thought.
Jaspar began to spin her around, keeping their movements in time with the tempo, something Maude had realized she was absolutely terrible at. Helena had suggested she’d probably get better with more practice, but it still frustrated Maude that she was able to keep the rhythm in a sword fight, but was completely terrible at staying in time with the music.
“I’m glad my first dance is with you, your grace,” she said as they hurtled across the floor with all of the other couples who were dancing.
“Why is that, Lady Maude?” Jaspar asked, eyeballing her closely. He clearly had a subtle flash of warning in his eye, and seemed to be doing his best to only communicate the caution with her.
“Don’t worry,” she tried to convey with her face and eyebrows. It didn’t seem to be working, as Jaspar flashed her an even more skeptical face. “I’m just glad that I will get to warm up on my first dance with such an excellent lead dancer,” she replied. She noticed that a look of relief flashed across Jaspar’s face.
Why doesn’t he trust me? She couldn’t help but wonder.
He smiled back at her, flashing his teeth. “Thank you for the compliment, Lady Maude,” he said. He caught her eye and raised his head slightly “Who’s Lady Von Wickten’s partner?” he mouthed at her. He was lucky that she’d been able to understand. She hadn’t had a lot of reasons to try to lipread people before.
She nodded at him, as if to suggest that she would look. She tried to be as casual as possible in her scanning of the ball floor, looking for Fronica’s snotty face.
“There’s so many people here tonight,” Maude commented, to suggest to any possible eavesdroppers that this was the reason she was looking around.
“This is actually fairly small for an imperial ball in Aulbert,” Jaspar informed her. “Normally there are many more people…but because of the war, this one is fairly slimmed down.”
Maude nodded, still searching for Fronica’s face.
There, she thought, noticing a blond girl with a frilly, ostentatious gown. Maude squirted, trying to make out the face of the man Fronica was with.
They span a couple more times, and Maude gently nudged Jaspar to get them closer. He’d merely blinked at her a couple of times in understanding, and they slowly made their way into closer range of the pair.
As they got close, Maude was able to make out the man’s features. Her jaw dropped momentarily, but she quickly recovered and composed herself.
Jaspar raised one of his eyebrows at her reaction. It looked as though he was trying to ask her if she recognized him.
She nodded. “It’s Silas,” Maude mouthed at him. He gestured towards her, and she nodded.
“She’s most certainly the source of the rumors then,” Jaspar murmured under his breath, barely even moving his lips. “Both of them are.”
Maude grimaced, feeling a little guilty. If only I hadn’t insisted on going and seeing Silas, she thought. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation if I hadn’t.
Jaspar shook his head a couple of times at her, as if he was asking her to not apologize.
I was foolish, she thought. I honestly believed that Silas and I were only friends. I should have known better, but I ignored his feelings for my own selfish reasons.
She sighed out loud. The last thing Silas had done was try to suggest Jaspar was dangerous, using her, and didn’t truly care about her. Yet here Silas was, ignoring everything she’d told him, and everything she felt, as though he might be any kind of superior man as a result.
Maude gritted her teeth, as heat flashed through her. She could now relate to Jaspar’s earlier frustrations with Fronica.
“If he thinks that this bullshit is going to change my mind, he’s got another think coming,” she said. She felt her face turning red, and displaying her emotions for the world to see.
“Stay calm,” Jaspar told her, catching her eye. His blue eyes warmed her heart, easing the anger back a bit. “We have to deal with them in a level headed manner, or we are going to look like the ones who are being inappropriate,” he reminded her.
Maude gritted her teeth, trying to reel back her rage. “How dare he?” she asked. “He claims to have feelings for me and then goes and does this?”
“Calm down,” Jaspar said, gently patting her a bit with one of the hands he was using to guide her in their dance. “We don’t know how he got here, or if he’s trying to become a citizen, or even how he and Lady Von Wickten met.”
“Still,” Maude replied.