[🌹] Hand rising quickly to her nose, Rose’s mask shatters as quickly as it had been made. Surprised smile tugging her lips up, mirth shining in her eyes. She can’t say that she dislikes Emma’s personality, bug fears and all.
“Emma -” Rose starts before stopping because she can now add the blonde to the handful of names that truly believed she could be a good and powerful lead. “-Thank-you for that advice, truly. That’s - It has been noted.”
Her gaze goes down to her skirt and Rose instantly sympathizes with her lady’s reaction. She’s not a little girl anymore and dirtied skirts have become harder to wash out with all the small stitching and details. “Oh, I didn’t even think.”
Startled out of her apology, Rose looks up at the familiar face, hands trying to evenly pull her gown off the ground to diffuse anymore mess.
Oh, Alexander, erm - Hello. A ride? Well,” She stumbles, looking at Emma from the corner of her eyes before shaking her head. “I’m afraid, I’ve forgotten an urgent discussion I needed to have with the cobbler but I promise after the festivities, yes? That way Mother will be happy I didn’t go through any broken bones before the other nobles came.”
Emma dropped her hand and her fierce look in favor of a returning smile, fleeting moment of shared amusement warming her chest.
She does feel a little guilty about preaching, though. After all, who is she to talk? She ran away before she managed to get anyone’s respect. Her smile droops.
Rose is a much better heir anyway, Emma soothes herself. She actually had something resembling patience. Emma would have dismissed a servant in her current position for lighter sins than the ones she’d committed today. She brings to mind the all the times a fellow lowlife had sat straighter in her presence after finding out who she was and what she could do, and feels somewhat comforted, though the ache under her breastbone remains.
“Of course, milady,” she demurs, and wonders if it actually has been noted. Advice is a much wilier thing to take than it is to give.
“No, no, it’s alright milady,” Emma says, crouching next to the princess’s lower half to inspect the damage and completely ignoring the mud her own hem is dragging through. “I didn’t think either. I should’ve thought to warn you.”
They had about two and a half hours before they’d be called to the dining hall. If they left the stables immediately, Emma could put together a suitable outfit and fix the princess back up just in time for the feast. If they stay much longer, they risk not only the dress, but the princess’s person getting dirty as well, which would require some sort of clean-up, which would make them both unfashionably late and get them in a lot of trouble. If the terrible happens, and the princess gets so filthy she required a bath-
Then she’d be taken out of the banquet altogether, Emma realizes with a flash of inspiration.
Her original plan hinged on LeBeouf following his own patterns, making an ass of himself asking for the princess’s hand and getting bullish when the Queen inevitably denied him. It was a drama that would detain all the important parties in an enclosed space for long enough for her to easily slip out and slip back in again without being noticed and risking getting caught red-handed by one of the most powerful magic-users of their time.
On the other hand, if Rose were to need a bath, then Emma would already be flitting in and out of the room to fetch things, and therefore have an even better alibi than if she went missing for several minutes during a big feast. The baths and the royal quarters were closer to where she needed to be anyway.
(And this way, Rose wouldn’t be subjected to that bastard’s presence. A win-win situation--assuming she could pull it off.)
Emma listens to Rose wave the eager boy off with faint amusement, before tipping her head up and interjecting, “But we did want to see the horses, milady. Please forgive your handmaiden her worries; your dress is a work of art. Don’t pay it heed. It will wash.”
The stablehand looks as though she’s just made his week.
