A Royal Rose

Chapter Seven

Easton and Rose were left alone, as the two ladies went back through the same door that Meredith had first appeared from. “We’ve got to be quick I’m afraid. I’m running behind time to meet my friends. We’ll go straight there if that’s ok?” Easton said as they walked out of the double doors, “The Holt used to be bigger than this, but the population has dwindled over the last decade.”. Rose assumed he was referring to the lack of people outside, but she was more interested in admiring his muscles in his tight long-sleeved t-shirt. Easton was the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on; she wasn’t sure if it was his face or his body that she thought was sexier. Easton interrupted her thoughts, “I won’t bother with the grand tour if that’s okay, I’ll show you around another day?”

“That’s fine by me. If not, my mother will take me around I’m sure.”

“I was giving you an excuse to spend more time with me,” he said with a wink. Rose looked down at the floor and her face went crimson.

“I’d like that,” she said with a smile.

Rose walked with Easton, admiring in the scenery on their walk.

“It is so beautiful. The city was so grey compared to the Holt. Here everything is so green.” Rose told him; she was absorbing all the things she could see around her. Snowdrop flowers which were as tall as she was, they lined their walk to the tree. It was like an avenue lined with trees in the human world. Tall blades of grass, huge insects that scurried by. Looking forward again, Easton pointed out a tree stump nearby that was their destination and they headed towards it. When the pair got closer, Rose could see a green door and a café style front with awning and picnic benches outside. The big green sign over the door said, “The Bistro”. Entering inside the eatery, in one corner of the room sat around a large table were a group of people. The other side was a counter which appeared to be a bar as it had bottles lined up on shelves on the wall behind it.

“These are my mates here,” said Easton walking towards them, he instantly reached out for Rose’s hand, she paused briefly wondering if he meant to, and seizing the opportunity she took it. He guided her to the table and pulled out a vacant chair for her to sit on. Sitting down on the empty chair next to her, he looked around the table and smiled at the people around the table. Rose looked around the table too, most of the group were smiling back. All except one of the women at the table who took one glance at Rose and scowled slightly before she got up and left the restaurant without saying anything. The crimson-haired woman with wings tipped with silver disappeared out of the door and moodily shut it behind her.

“Excuse my sister Mara - she’s a bit of a grump sometimes!” said the male in the corner with the sable hair, his skin was a rich brown with cool undertones. The table was silent, and the mood was uncomfortable.

“Okay, guys. This is Rose Winter. She’s new around here” Easton said.

The male who had made excuses for the crimson-haired woman’s quick departure, piped up “So she’s the faeman that caused all that gyp? No wonder Mara left”.

A woman dressed all in black next to him with kohled eyes quickly swatted him with her hand. “Ouch! I was just saying!” he said rubbing his arm.

“Alf, I won’t have any of that xenophobic behaviour around Rose, make sure Mara knows that too. Rose’s mother is Duchess Winter, she deserves to be spoken to with the respect that her parentage requires” Easton told Alfred sternly.

Alfred looked embarrassed and signalled the waitress for another round of drinks. “A pitcher of barley beer please!” Alfred called out before he said “Sorry Rose”

Pleased that his friend had apologised he addressed the table, “So before I forget,” he then pointed at Alfred “That’s Alf. That’s Lux, my sister, the one who hit him, she may look all doom and gloom but she’s not a cold heart – I must add”. Next, he introduced Phineas, who had a mop of black tight curls and tawny skin, he was sat in his chair lazily with his hand draped over the vacant chair next to him. Phineas gestured hello to Rose with half a salute and carried on his conversation to Lux. Were all the men in the Holt that were her own age handsome? Rose thought.

Easton was about to talk to Rose again before he heard Alf telling the waitress about the newcomer to the table, “She’s never Aine’s daughter?! The bastard child rumours were true!” the waitress gasped too loud for the hushed conversation the two of them had been having.

Easton stood up quickly in defence, the chair legs scraped along the wooden floor. “Alf, honestly, if you want to talk about Rose at least have the decency not to do it in hushed tones in the same room as her!” Easton said crossly.

“It is alright Easton, I get it, I’m news” Rose interjected, “I would love to know what people know about me? I didn’t even know my mother was a duchess up until a few seconds ago… so c’mon Alf, enlighten me!” Rose urged. Easton sniggered at Alfred’s face as he visibly squirmed in the unease at being caught out.

“Aine… Duchess Winter. It was… it was said, she got pregnant on Choosing Day and her parents didn’t want the shame, so she hid her pregnancy but then she got found out and her parents made her give up the baby. Prince Gabriel went to go get the baby back but died. After that Aine rebelled a lot and got some Fae laws revoked and she’s very controversial as a result. Mara cannot stand Aine.” Alfred said nervously.

Phineas said flatly from the chair in the corner, “What Alf meant is. The duchess f****d a human. It is against the rules. She did time in jail for it, but her title has meant she’s been forgiven. If that was anyone else, they’d have been exiled.”

Easton shook his head in disbelief, his frequent attempts to curb the conversation from being about Aine and Rose had gone terribly. “I give up” Easton sighed, rising out of his chair and got up to go to the bar.

Rose watched him walk away and the way his wings twinkled in the light, his arse looked tight and peachy so she couldn’t help but stare.

Phineas leant forward and interrupted her staring at Easton. “I’m blunt, but that’s the truth. So many people in the Holt think it, Easton can protect you all he wants from the truth, but you will hear it from someone” Phineas said to Rose, he was very handsome with his chiselled features and floppy curls. Looked at him, wondering whether he looked more like James Dean or Marlon Brando. His dark brown long-sleeved top which tied up at the front showed his pec muscles underneath. Rose knew she was staring at his beauty so tried to hide it, when Phineas attempted to catch her eyes with his – Rose blushed. I’ve not blushed this much in a day in years she thought, I look so desperate!

Rose decided since Phineas was frank about things to try and see what else Phineas might know. She knew that Easton was talking to the barman and would be back soon, so she seized her opportunity, “So, other than suggesting my mother is a promiscuous woman, do you know any more about her?” she quizzed.

“Yeah, I know Aine, she’s my neighbour. She’s a nice enough lady, never wronged me but I’m not pleased she’s trying to get rid of Choosing Day. I chose to stay here because I’m an apprentice to my father and his wand business. My older brother left on his Choosing Day, I don’t miss him much and if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be the heir to my father’s business. It is worked in my favour. It cuts the deadwood.” Phineas replied.

Easton returned to the table and sat down, a bowl of chips arrived, and Lux turned around to accept them. The alcohol was stronger here than in the human world. These salty chips were going to mean she drank more and got drunker quickly, but she thought that it might encourage the table to talk more about her mother and this Gabe man they mentioned without the awkwardness of being sober. Rose spotted when Lux turned around that she had a pair of wings that were nothing but ripped off shards of wings on her back. Noticing that Rose had seen them, Easton whispered to her that “Lux had been in a bad place after she got told she couldn’t do Choosing Day”. Rose looked at Lux who was happily chatting to Alfred and wondered why she wasn’t allowed to visit the human world.

The group ate the chips, they tasted like human world chips but they different twang to them at the same time. The alcohol was in full flow and they stayed in the bistro for hours. Rose laughed awkwardly at them all singing a Fae song and after it finished Easton declared it was time to leave. Shaking hands goodbye to Alf and Phineas, Lux looked at Rose and didn’t shake her hand instead she said “I’m coming home with you and Easton. I assume your mother is there chatting to Meredith? Make sure your mother talks to you about Gabe. That’ll explain a bit about why Mara walked out when you arrived. If you’re going to hang out with us a lot in the future, I don’t want you not to know about Gabe.” The plot thickens thought Rose.

They took a long walk back to the palace through a patch of daisies, the smell of their flower was so much more intense now that Rose was this small. The sky was darkening, and lights were starting to turn on in the street lanterns. They got closer to the palace and they saw Aine outside it sat on a bench made from twigs. She and Meredith were deep in conversation, Rose could hear how animated they were from a distance. Meredith still held the paperwork that Aine had brought over earlier. “I’ll see that the king sees this proposal” Meredith concluded upon seeing the trio return, “I’ve got to go back to my office now, Easton, Lux – could you join me please?”

“Lovely to meet you both” Rose told Easton and Lux. They both smiled at her and with a wave, disappeared inside the palace with Meredith. Aine and Rose were alone, stood at the foot of the large tree.

“Did you have fun?” Aine asked.

“Yeah, I did actually. Learned a few things about you too. You’re a duchess?”

“Yes, and one day that’ll be your title too,” said Aine with a smile, “did they say anything else?”

“Nah, it was just things I already knew” Rose quickly said, regretting instantly that she didn’t mention Prince Gabriel

Rose walked back to Aine’s home, thinking about whether to broach the subject of this mysterious Prince that Lux had mentioned. She mulled over in her mind repeatedly how to bring up the conversation. She’d already chickened out the once. Was there a suitable time to bring up a dead Prince?

Aine had made them both a salad for a late supper, and when they were sat down to eat, Rose decided to ask her.

“I forgot to mention something else one of them said, they mentioned a Prince Gabriel?” Rose knew she sounded like she was fishing but she didn’t mind as she was so curious about what happened for a Fae Prince to be coming to rescue her as a baby. Aine looked at her bowl of salad and then placed down her fork. She hesitated at first, not quite knowing where to begin, she inhaled and when she started to talk about it, she told a long yarn of a story.

“Before you were born, my parents and the King and queen had a pact. Their eldest daughter would marry their eldest son Gabriel. At first, because we were told about this arranged marriage, we didn’t get on but as we got older, we genuinely fancied each other. He was my best friend and my boyfriend, but our views differed majorly at times which caused fights between us… we broke up many times as a result. We were always up to things... oh the adventures we went on! The rebellious things we did! We adored each other” Aine’s eyes filled with tears and she wiped away a tear that rolled down her cheek. “There’s more, there’s more. Just give me a minute, I’ve not cried about him in so long, it is just pouring out today sorry!” Aine said through the sniffles, before placing her head in her hands and having a cry.

“Sorry, I upset you. What went wrong?” Rose said as she consoled her mother by rubbing her back and then she hugged her from the side.

Aine sat up straight again and flapped her hands in front of her face trying to dry her eyes so she could continue her story, “ok… ok. I’m ready. We had a massive fight on my Choosing Day, our biggest one. He told me not to go to the human world and got very insistent about it. Why would I need to go into the human world if I was to become Queen of the Holt? I can’t stand being told what to do. So, I told him it was over, this time for good and he wasn’t to tell me what I could and couldn’t do. He used his title, telling me he was the Crown Prince and I should listen to him. That was the last straw – I saw red and ran all the way to the veil and out without saying goodbye to him and he didn’t try to stop me. I was so angry and because of our fight - I went out and partied, hard… I got very drunk, had a one-night stand with your father and I got back to the Holt before my twenty-four hours lapsed. Time moves differently here you see and when I came back Gabriel was wooing some princess from another kingdom. He ignored all my attempts to reconcile and after a few months, I stopped trying because I knew I was pregnant with you. My stomach was getting bigger every week, I tried to hide it the best I could. My parents were furious that Gabe and I weren’t together anymore, my mother suggested it was because I’d got fat. When my mother noticed that it wasn’t fat, and I was pregnant, so I was sent away to have you. I was told to give you up to your father, so you were taken in the dead of night to the house I went back to on my Choosing Day.” Aine paused, “I hope I’m not boring you darling, if so please say. Where was I? Ahh yes, on the day before Gabriel’s wedding day to the princess from the Toft which was a few days after I had you. I went to the palace to wish him congratulations and tell him that I wouldn’t be attending the wedding. I went to tell him that I was sorry and that I had always loved him. I hoped that his new love loved him as much as I did. I told him that it broke my heart to see him happy with someone else, but I wished them all the best this world could give. I then told him about you after when he had asked where I had been for the last few months. He was so upset, and he vowed to find you and bring you back to me. Gabe told me he’d leave Princess Leah if that’s what I truly wanted, and we would be together. He would raise you as his own and we’d have a family of our own. I was so full of hope; I’d get to be with the man I loved and have the daughter I’d been ripped away from brought home. I wasn’t sure what he would do if he did find you, how he would bring you home, but he was determined to do so. Gabriel went through the veil and broke every Fae law in his attempt at trying to get you back. They told me he got hit by a car at some point on his journey. It took a month or more trying to find his body, it was eventually found in a dyke on the outer skirts of the city. He’d not got that far from the Holt, I felt awful”. Aine stood up and put the empty dishes on the kitchen countertop, leaning on the kitchen unit, she exhaled deeply.

Rose looked at her with her blotchy face, “oh that’s truly tragic. What happened next?” she asked her mother.

Aine moved from the kitchen and came back to the table, “After he died, there was a huge funeral – the Holt was in mourning, he was such a lovely man. His wife, Princess Leah announced her pregnancy with Mara. A member of staff must have heard our conversation about Gabriel going to rescue you and told the newspapers, the backlash that came from the princess’ kingdom was horrific. Blaming me for robbing the princess of the man that would have been her husband. Mara was now a bastard child with no right to the throne and it drove Princess Leah to madness. Rules are rules. There was a short war between the Holt and the Toft – the princess’s kingdom. In the end, the Holt won, and our King holds Mara and her mother here so that the Toft don’t attack the Holt, they aren’t prisoners, but they are not allowed to return to the Toft for the fear of a war starting again.”

Rose thought about her mother’s story and wondered if she could forge a friendship with Mara. Maybe their parent’s history could be put to rest if she reached out and showed her that she was a nice person. Aine held her daughter’s hand, “I’m sorry if all that has made others be rude to you Rose, it is my fault.” Aine said glumly, “I’ve got to go out and do some errands tomorrow, so I won’t see you until about dinner time. Night Night, darling”. Her mother said and retired to her bedroom to sleep.

Rose curled up on the couch to read some of the book titles on the bookshelf next to it. An hour later and it was early morning. Rose had read most of a book about magical basics and how best to hold your position for the best results. The diagrams on the pages moved and the tutorials were read aloud if you pressed a certain part of the book. Watching one of the moving diagrams… her eyes closed.