“Are you agreeable, Alexandra?” he repeated, and then clarified. “Will you agree to marry me?”
My jumbled thoughts began to leap about in my head. I did not know what I should say. A nobleman was standing before me, proposing marriage. Not just any nobleman, but heir to the throne in another kingdom. I had never even laid eyes on King Camden's nephew before this day, and I certainly did not wake up this morning with thoughts of marrying him.
The man before me was a future king, and I was only marginally of higher class than a serf. To refuse him would likely be considered the gravest of insults, both to his king and mine. It could even mean my death. But what would marriage to this man mean to me? Would I still be no more than a handmaid to him? I was not of noble blood and would not know how to act with such people. Princess Whitney could be harsh, but I knew her ways, and I knew my position with her. She was also known to
be jealous and vindictive. How would she react if I turned down the man she obviously wanted? I shuddered at the thought.
I did not know this man. I didn't know his likes or temperament. Would he be kind and generous? Aloof and absent? He was a knight and used to violence. Would he be cruel? Would he take pleasure in harming me?
“Alexandra?” Sir Branford said. He touched me gently under my chin, tilting my face toward his. “I would prefer to hear your answer without an audience, and we will have one soon. If your answer is no, so be it. I will not be unduly affronted. I will make another choice, but you must answer now.”
Thoughts of a proposal with a ring and the love of my life down on one knee in the gardens fluttered through my head for a moment. I had never even had a suitor before, let alone been in love. It was more likely that I would either be promised to some older man as a second wife or remain a maid forever than it would be for me to actually find a marriage of love. The possibilities of being wed to a noble were unheard of by those such as me.
In all honesty, I feared the reaction of Princess Whitney and her father irrespective of my answer. Saying no meant the certainty of their tempers being directed at me. Saying yes meant the potential to be removed from this place altogether.
“Yes, my lord,” I heard myself say.
“Yes, Alexandra?”
“I will marry you, my lord,” I said a little louder.
“Will you give your unwavering loyalty to me, my kingdom, and my God?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I'm pleased to hear you say yes, Alexandra,” Sir Branford said. The left side of his mouth curled up in a half smile, and his already handsome face was transformed into something truly stunning. The sound of booted footsteps approached. “Now be silent for a few moments. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Are you insane?” A knight in armor, decorated with the head of a red dragon on the breastplate, walked straight up to Sir Branford, his blond hair flowing out behind him. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“Of course not. Why would you say that?”
“Are you trying to start a war, then?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. King Edgar has neither the army nor the balls to declare war.”
“Then what is this?” The blond knight motioned to me. “Your idea of a joke? You’re no jester, Branford.”
“And this is no jest,” Sir Branford replied. “I’m going to marry her tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
“You have lost your mind.”
“That imbecile thought he would trap me into marrying Whitney, and he was wrong. Even if he had offered me the hand of his daughter, I would have chosen her sister.”
“Hedda is a child.”
“I’d still marry her first,” Sir Branford said emphatically. “Offering me any available maid just made the selection more interesting. Now King Edgar will understand our alliance cannot be bought by offering that bitch of a princess in exchange for arms.”
I gasped, for I had never heard anyone speak such words and certainly not directed toward royalty. Sir Branford turned toward me and took my hand in his, raised it to his lips, and placed a slight kiss on my knuckles. My skin tingled where his lips touched it.
“Forgive me,” he said softly, then turned back to the other knight.
Before the words completely left his mouth, shouting could be heard at the stable doors. Sir Branford looped the reins of his horse around the handle of a stall door before turning back to me and offering his arm. I wrapped my fingers just below his elbow, and he led me toward the ruckus, the blond knight standing to his right side and me on his left.
“How dare you?” King Edgar was the first through the doors. He was followed quickly by Queen Margaret, Princess Whitney, the other three handmaids, and two of the king’s knights. “With my own daughter right in front of you, and you select some...some...servant wench!”