I Love Him, I Love Him Not - 17

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Second chapter - one day!

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"Incredible." I nodded, biting my bottom lip briefly. Then I looked up at Cole and grinned. "So are we getting these horses or what? And when do I get to meet Gwen? I can call her Gwen, right? She won’t mind?"

"No, she won’t mind." Cole smiled in that gentle, adoring way he reserved for when he was thinking of the blonde beauty. "In fact, I bet she’ll love that, the great Princess already having a pet name for her. And the horses are just around the bend. You can ride a horse, right?"

"Just barely." I groaned, and then followed him into the trees where he had walked. Sure enough, five minute later, we came out of the other side and into another everlasting field. There was a ramshackle barn straight ahead, an inn not far from that, and then a long, hoof beaten pathway that disappeared alongside the long stretch of forest.

Joshua, the horse keeper or whoever he was, had been able to get us the horses there in time, and we stepped into the barn to find two beautiful, large beasts waiting for us. One was brushed to a russet shine, the other was pure black, and both pair of eyes were large, liquid chocolate drops. Tawny, the horse that Cole assured me was mine, had a white spot on her nose.

I went over to her immediately and offered her the carrot Cole had slipped me. She was a calm beast, who snuffled out the food with velvet lips before crunching in between surprisingly white teeth. I smiled and combed my fingers through her dark mane. Lightening, I presumed, was Cole’s horse. It was like him - dark and tall, with a sense of power around him.

"They’re beautiful." I said, running my hands down Tawny’s flanks. The creature flicked me a look of mild interest before going back to devouring the carrot at hand. She was already all saddled up as I hooked my foot up and swung my leg around onto her. I felt like a natural on her - she skittered the tiniest bit, but relaxed quickly.

I twisted my fingers into her silky mane and braided it briefly before untangling it and smoothing it out. I rubbed the side of her neck, and she leaned encouragingly into my hand. I smiled.

When I finally looked away from Tawny, I saw that Cole was staring up at me. He had a small smile on his face. I reached up to smooth my hair down self consciously.

"What?" I asked, leaning forward to push myself off the horse.

"You just looked so beautiful up there," Cole said quietly, "like a true princess."

There was that telltale electricity again, those sparks between us that made me feel compelled to hold my gaze to his until I felt I couldn’t go on another minute without feeling those full, soft lips on mine once again. My heart skipped several beats when he said this, anticipating another kiss, but it was quickly dispelled by the tinkling voice that floated through the door and cut through the moment.

"Joshua? Josh, Auntie said to come right in now, and get those rags off of you so she can get you in the old basin for a wash!" The tinkling voice was saying, addressing, I supposed, the absent stable boy. And then, through the doors, came the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

With her long, lustrous blonde hair and small, perfect form, she could only be one person. The infamous Gwendolyn O’Conner. The girl that had Cole’s heart. I could see why, as well. She may be a very nice person inside and all, but outside, whoa. She was like a double for Irena, but prettier. With elegant, birdlike bones, a very pink mouth, big, bluish gray eyes and dark lashes, she was gorgeous. And precisely everything that I’m not.

A wave of self consciousness hit me as she looked up through her lashes and sighted Cole. I felt awkward as their eyes locked.

"Oh, Cole, my darling!" She cried, half running towards him. "You’re back! I did miss you so." And she melted into the arms that Cole had thrown open in wait for her. I felt tears prick at my eyes as he folded the girl he loved in his strong, tanned arms and held her close to him, in the completely natural, completely right way that he had never held me in.

"Gwendolyn, sweetheart." He sighed, and then peeled her away from him to turn her in my direction. "Meet a very good friend of mine: Princess Summer Romano." He announced, and then watched amusedly as I blushed a deep red.

"Um, just call me Summer, plea - " I began, but Gwen, whose face had turned an interesting shade of pink itself, cut me off.

"Your highness!" She cried, and dropped into a curtsey that was even lower than Cole’s original bow. All the long blonde hair, which was tied into a loosely threaded braid, brushed the floor of the stable as she did so.

"Um, hi." I said awkwardly as she stood up again. She looked at me with eyes as wide as saucers.

"...Hello?" She tried, and I smiled at her obvious tendency to please.

"Hello." I said firmly, and in that moment, I realized that I could not even dislike this girl, with her big eyes and cute smile. I could understand why Cole wanted her over someone like me. It was quite simple, really. She was girlfriend material and I, evidently, was not.

Then there was this awkward silence, in which Cole raised his eyebrows at me over his girlfriend’s head and I smiled back. He was asking my approval, sort of. And I already knew that I would give it.

"So... where are we staying?" I asked after a minute, and both people of either side of me seemed to sigh with relief.

"Oh, I have a bed prepared for you, your highness. With a hot stone and new fire, and Cole warned me that you might be New England-ish, and that I must be patient with you, and teach you the ways of Constantia. Which I am more than happy to do, your highness." Gwendolyn burst out at once, and then blushed and covered her mouth up with her hand as if she was embarrassed.

Cole patted her head and she smiled up at him before turning back to me.

"You’ll be staying in the room next to ours, of course." He said with a little smile on his face. Ugh. They had a room that they shared. Did they share a bed too? Was I going to hear all their little secret whispered murmurings tonight and not be able to get to sleep for fear that they might be doing a little more than murmuring?

"Cool." I shrugged, reaching up to twist my fingers into Tawny’s silky mane again. I had a feeling that I would be spending a lot of time with the horses from now on.

"Cool? You’re cold, your highness? I could get you a blanket, or better yet, we can reside inside, so that you may sit by the fire Aunt Meade has prepared for you." Gwendolyn offered, smiling a beatific smile at me. I grinned back.

"I’m fine. But I would like to go to bed, please. I’ve had a long day, and I just want to sleep."

"Certainly." She did a little curtsey before taking Cole by one arm and me by the other. Skipping happily between us, she led the way to the old, cosy looking inn I had spotted before. A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth. That’s where she would always be now.
Between us.

Not that there was all that much of an us, anyway. But, you know. It kind of broke my heart to see her on Cole’s arm like that.

The inn was nice. Meade was a very large, very sweet woman wearing an alarmingly floral dress. She had a bonnet in her hair. A bonnet, for monkey’s sake. But that wasn’t as bad as what Gwendolyn was wearing, which looked like a pale blue medieval dress. Okay, not medieval. But something very old, with a low neck and puffy sleeves and a brooch at the chest.

The thing was, though, she sort of pulled it off. Really pulled it off. She looked exactly like one of those old princesses, in her flowing, floor length dress with her big, matching eyes. Cole was playing absentmindedly with her hair - unraveling it from her plait and letting it fall loose all around her, while she looked up at him with that same adoring look I had seen in the mirror every time he was around.

Meade took me into the kitchen and insisted that I get something hot down me. She pushed some cinnamon tea into my hands which I took very gingerly.

"’ere, your majesty. Get some of that down you. Then I’ll show you to your old room and we can all retire." She said, scooping some sugar into my cup with surprisingly nimble fingers, considering they were the size of sausages. I sat back in my wooden chair, with my hands wrapped around the little, steaming cup, listening to whatever it was happening in the hallway, where Gwendolyn and Cole had chosen to stay. I was pretty sure there was some smooching going on.

Smooching. Smoochy smooch. Smoochy, smoochy.

"’ere, you’re right pretty, aren’t you?" Meade suddenly said, breaking me out of my depressing thoughts. "Cole said you were, but I didn’t believe him. But you are. The picture of your father."

I blinked hard at the mention of dad, but quickly recovered.

"Thank you." I smiled weakly, taking a sip of the tea. It was surprisingly good.

"Ah, why the frown? Is it because of the boy?" Meade asked, settling her heavy frame in the chair opposite. "I told him it wasn’t fair, taking advantage like that. I said no girl likes being lied to, but he, never being the gentleman his nanny ordered him to be, insisted that this was the only way. Oh, you’ll get over it. A pretty girl like you, there’ll be princes bringing the palace doors down to get at you."

"Princes?" I asked in a dazed voice. "What princes?"

"Well, there are other countries outside of Old Rhodes, your majesty. Other royalty. Although nobody quite as powerful as you."

"Oh." Why did this not come as a surprise? That fact that Cole had hidden more stuff from me, I mean?

"Right, if you don’t mind me saying, princess, you look well spent. If you’ll come, I’ll get you ready for bed." Meade said in a gentle voice. I blinked up at her, dazed.

"Okay." I shrugged, downing the rest of what was in my cup - I didn’t taste it at all.

Meade took my arm and led me upstairs - we passed the couple, who both smiled. I didn’t smile back. Neither did Meade, for that matter.
She showed me the bathroom adjoining my room, and where all my new, temporary things were, and then left with a small smile.

I walked over and sat on the fancy four poster bed with all of it’s gauzy curtains. My hands immediately found a pillow which crushed my chest, I was hugging it that hard. I had left my mother, and Maxi, my best friends and the only home I had ever known - why did none of this hurt me as much as the sight of Cole’s arm wound around Gwendolyn’s neck did? Why did that fact that I was basically imprisoned in Constantia for the rest of my foreseeable future not scare me the way Cole’s eyes went all soft and sparkly when he looked at the blonde haired beauty?

Oh god.

I was way under.