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0.61% The King's Unbreakable Wife / Chapter 2: The ball (2)

Chapitre 2: The ball (2)

"Pick a young woman from those three families to be your first dance partner of the night. I suggest the Henson girl," Tabitha said, looking down at the family who controlled most of the royal army. 

"Let the boy decide on his own," King Jeffrey said, shaking his head at his wife who was acting like their son was a young boy who needed his hand held to pick a wife.

"You should stick to preparing him to be a good king while I focus on making sure this kingdom has a great queen to match the king. There is a tradition, and you are to share a dance with a young lady tonight like you did with the other group. If you had not been hiding from us, you would already have a wife and your father would not need to worry about stepping down as king," Tabitha reminded Tobias.

His ways worried her, especially with what she had been hearing from the palace maids. There was that story of him in a library alone with a young lady. Tobias was hellbent on creating a scandal that the palace would have to clean up.

First, she had to drag him back from war to find his wife and now this.

"You should consider yourself lucky that I did not already pick out a good young woman for you to marry," Tabitha said as it had crossed her mind to do this without him.

Tobias smiled as it would have been no different if she picked out someone for him. She would have to send the palace guards all over the kingdom to find him since he would be the one to have the final say in who he would marry or he was out of here. 

Tabitha sighed, knowing her son was up to no good. "Please dance with a young lady, Tobias. It is of the utmost importance that you find a wife before you are crowned king. You need to start preparing for an heir. You know what your duty is."

"How can I forget?" Tobias muttered as it was the same story he heard from the time he was a boy. He didn't have the crown on his head yet and they were already speaking about the king after him. "The last time I danced with a young lady at a ball, I got to witness some hair pulling, so I am only doing this to see it again. Make sure you get a good look, Edgar."

"I'm looking," Edgar replied, looking around for his way out of the ball. He had stayed long enough and had to leave before the queen turned her attention to trying to get him to dance with a young woman.

He already hated his mother speaking about marriage, so he wasn't in the mood to have a second mother.

Completely unaware of his friend abandoning him, Tobias walked down from the throne to the crowd of young women and their escorts who wished to join the royal family. He wished to tell them that the inside of the palace wasn't as pretty on the inside as it was on the outside. 

None of the young women preparing themselves to capture his attention had any idea what awaited them if they were to become queen. There was more pressure than they realised, and once they sat on that throne, only death would be the easy way out of the palace. What family would allow their daughter to run away from being queen?

Tobias glanced at Linda and Hazel to pick who he would dance with, but Linda's three irritating brothers standing behind her put him off against asking her, and not being in the mood to approach that family, Hazel was out of the question. 

Tobias walked further into the crowd of people who watched his every mood to see which young lady would have the privilege of being the crown prince's first dance. Some would say that the young lady had the best chance of becoming queen while others placed her as a target to get rid of, and she would be running out of the palace before the selection ended. 

Tobias approached Helena, who smiled and straightened herself as she knew he was coming to her. He did not have many encounters with her, unlike her sister whom he had seen shadowing her father whenever he came to the palace.

"If I may," Tobias said, holding out his hand to ask her for a dance.

Helena fought hard to hold back her excitement so she would not squeal because of the crown prince standing in front of her. She was yet to enter the palace for the selection, but she already had his attention. 

Helena looked to her father for permission to leave their side to dance with the prince. They could not waste a moment like this when she had the prince's attention. If she could continue to keep his attention on her, it was likely that she would become the next queen. 

She wished for her family to be remembered in history for a queen being born from it. She would make her family proud.

Helena smiled when her father nodded his head, allowing her to accept the prince's hand for a dance.

"I would be honoured to dance with you," Helena replied, curtsying before accepting his hand. She placed her right hand in his right hand and slightly lifted her dress with her left hand as she walked to the middle of the ballroom with him.

"Looks like Helena will be the jewel of our group. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the two of them would just fall in love tonight so we wouldn't need to be in the palace tomorrow? I rather spend my time doing something else," Linda said, looking around for where Edgar disappeared to.

"Like speaking a certain Collins? I thought it would have made more sense for me to marry the king and you to be with Edgar. Then we would all be close to each other. Do not listen to our conversation, Jack. It is rude," Hazel scolded Linda's brother. "You must get used to the fact that your sister and I talk about men from time to time."

"I'd be less concerned about who you speak to if it wasn't Edgar and she wasn't entering the palace to be far away from us," Jack grumbled. The selection for queen was ridiculous and his father should have done something to get Linda out of it.

"He wishes for me to grow old so that no man would want me. I had already waited long enough to marry after my grandfather convinced my mother and father to let me wait on the prince. I would rather they help set me up to marry Edgar. Being with him is much better than competing for the prince," Linda said, tiptoeing to try to see behind the throne where Edgar was not long ago.

"You do realise that there are just as many women looking to marry Edgar, right? Everyone wants to be the young lady to make him settle down. Because I love you, I am rooting for you and I will help get rid of any young lady who gets in your way of becoming Linda Collins. It is about time you stop drooling when you see him," Hazel teased. 

"Funny, but you are not the sister I need to be friends with right now. If Helena becomes queen, I will need her to get me close to Edgar so you must find a new best friend," Linda joked.

Hazel looked out at Helena dancing with the prince. All eyes were on the two of them as everyone stopped dancing to watch. "Tonight will be painful listening to her talk endlessly about the prince," she said. 


Chapitre 3: The ball (3)

Hazel could not take her eyes off of her sister dancing with the prince. Helena looked happy and Hazel loved that for her sister, but there was a sadness she could not get rid of. 

She was held back two years to wait on the prince instead of getting married like many of her peers the year she turned sixteen. Being closer in age to the prince than Helena, her family believed she might be a good pick for Tobias, but the decision seemed to be halfway made.

Hazel knew that only one person could be picked to be queen and competing against her sister, one of them had to lose, but she didn't expect to get this feeling that she had wasted two years so soon.

"Helena would make an excellent queen. She has always told us she would be one in the future and she is quite close to it now. I suppose I should be like you and look elsewhere for my future husband while I am in the palace. There are a few eligible men who are yet to be married. I will turn my attention to them," Hazel decided.

"One dance with your sister doesn't mean the crown prince has fallen in love with her. He did this with the other ladies and I heard he ended up liking someone he did not dance with. You still have a chance," Linda encouraged Hazel. "We have to spend a week letting the prince get to know us better. A quick dance won't tell him all he needs to know about your sister."

"Thank you for cheering me up, but it is not only that on my mind. Helena is more excited about this than me. I do fear what will happen if I am not picked by the prince or any other man because they are so focused on the other ladies not participating in the selection. There are many girls far younger than me," Hazel said, knowing her age might be an issue like Helena said.

Linda hooked her arm with Hazel's to start walking around the ballroom to get away from the sight of Helena and Tobias dancing. She didn't share the same concerns as Hazel with her age because she knew chasing after Edgar would have her waiting a few years to get married.

"You are acting like you are old. You are eighteen and still quite young. Your family's name and ties to the palace will have men flocking to your doors if you are not chosen to be queen. If the decision of who would be made queen was easily made with one dance, we wouldn't need to pack our bags and come to the palace. Anyone could be queen," said Linda.

She crossed her fingers and hoped that person would not be her. All she wanted to do was get Edgar's attention and marry him. Linda knew she had to be the only young lady hoping this week would go by quickly. For her name not to be called as one of the young women the prince liked. 

"Truthfully, I do not care about being picked to be queen. The experience is quite exciting, but having to compete against my sister is not. We'll have to deal with some of the sly tricks the other ladies will pull to try to make us lose the prince's favour."

"We'll be pretending to be friends while looking for every opportunity to stab each other in the back," Hazel said, looking around the ballroom at the other women eyeing her sister with envy. She'd pull on each one of their heads to get rid of their hair if they tried something on her sister. 

"Hey," Linda nudged Hazel's arm. "It will be me, you, and Helena. As long as we stick together and don't get lost in trying to become queen to turn on each other, we'll be fine. I am your best friend and Helena is your sister so there is no chance for this group to fall apart."

Hearing Linda say that gave Hazel a bad feeling. This was something she would have liked to keep in her thoughts. Hearing it out loud made her skin tingle. 

"It looks like Edgar is gone so now the ball has become a bore. My brothers are also secretly stalking us to make sure I am not approached for a dance. I honestly love them dearly, but if they had it their way, I would never get married. They say it is because they know what the men in town are like behind closed doors, but I wish they would give me some room to breathe. I will take Helena over them any day," Linda said, wishing she had a sister to understand her.

Hazel pitied Linda because of her overprotective father and brothers. Her mother was probably the only one who let Linda go out without needing many guards and sometimes her grandfather Grant. It didn't help that with the overprotectiveness her family had an army at their hands to help guard Linda with. 

If Linda was not where her father expected her to be, he would flip the kingdom upside down to find her. It scared Hazel when she was young to be met by an army of men at her doors looking for Linda when Linda's carriage had broken down so returning home was delayed. It wasn't the last time an army showed up at Hazel's doors.

"I do not see where Edgar has run off to. I only took my eyes off him for a second and he was gone. Do you see him?" Linda asked, looking left and right for the man of the hour.

Hazel smiled, amused by how captivated Linda was when it came to Edgar. Her father and Edgar could be standing side by side and Linda would run to Edgar first. 

Like everyone else, Linda had fallen for his good looks, but Hazel had enough run-ins with him to know that once he opened his mouth, he might make anyone cry. The prince included. She saw it happen a few times when she visited the palace as a child and witnessed the two of them playing. 

Hazel looked at the open doors leading out to the large garden. With Helena dancing with the prince and them being forbidden to show interest in anyone other than the prince so it wouldn't be assumed they had a lover, she had nothing to do at the ball aside from looking and talking about random things. 

Her shoes were already starting to ache though she had not long arrived and had not danced. Hazel disagreed with the shoemaker about beauty being worth the pain. Her toes would be red or need to be removed by the time morning came. 

"Do you want to go out to the garden, Linda? Perhaps Edgar has run off there," Hazel said to convince Linda to come with her. Her mother would scold her for days if she were to go outside alone without someone.

The palace was still quite dangerous even with the king and queen present.

"It is better than staying in here and having to watch everyone else dance. It sounds like your sister's dance with the prince is over. Let us move quickly before he comes to us," Linda said, dragging Hazel by her arm toward the doors. 

"I would rather be picked next to dance with him than fall in front of everyone. Please slow down. The prince has already disappeared," Hazel said after looking back to the middle of the ballroom where her sister stood surrounded by young women and there was no prince in sight. 


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