It was only after she had left the barn that Johanna remembered that she had to go to that dratted ball tonight—how could she ever have forgotten that? Maybe she could have some time before leaving?
This stupid ball would be so embarrassing, with her as a dressed-up sugar cake a thousand times less elegant than the girls to whom nobility came as second nature.
She could already hear the scorn as soon as she walked up those palace steps.
She should have stayed with the sea cows.
That dress would have looked nicer on a b***h in heat.
That would be unbearable. She wished the whole thing was already over. Of course the royal family would have no real interest in her. What was Father thinking?
She could, of course, refuse to go, or refuse the dance her father had brokered with the prince,
