Read Online Dragonskin Slippers by Jessica Day George - Free Book Online Page B

reveal each successive garment. Her bodice had the look of a tightly fitted jacket over a foamy white shift.
    There was embroidery along the neckline and in long panels down her skirts, though. I gave it a quick scan and saw that it was nothing I couldn’t do.
    “How dare you stare at me in that way!” The rich girl stomped one pink-slippered foot. “Who is your mistress? I will have you fired at once! First you try to kill my precious Pippin, then you ogle me with your horrible country eyes!”
    “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, looking down at my dragging country skirts. What more did she want from me?
    “Do you know who I am?” she demanded.
    “No,” I muttered.
    “No? No what?”
    “What?” I looked up at her and blinked again. Did she want me to call her “mistress”? We were the same age, as near as I could guess.
    She looked over one shoulder and screeched something in a strange tongue. Four hulking brutes in scarlet tunics with heavy swords belted at their hips stepped forward. I hadn’t even noticed them before, since all my attention had been focused on the dog and its excitable mistress.
    She pointed her finger at me and babbled some more in that foreign language, and one of the brutes pulled a length of cord from a large belt pouch while the other made as if to grab my arm. I dodged out of his reach and for a wild moment I considered knocking over a cage of monkeys to create a diversion.
    “Hey!” I yelled. “What’s going on?”
    “You need to be taught a lesson,” the girl said.
    “I say, what’s all this?”
    A tall and fairly good-looking young man in a rich green velvet doublet and leather riding breeches stepped forward. He frowned at me and then at the girl. “What’s the to-do, Amalia?”
    “This great peasant tried to kill my poor Pippin,” the girl said in a voice that suddenly sounded on the verge of tears. She pulled out a dainty handkerchief and sniffed into it. As it wafted past the dog’s face, “poor Pippin” tried to bite it. “I thought she had crushed my sweet doggie! And then she said rude things to me!”
    “I did not!” I was astonished at this turn of events. She had gone from being shrill and demanding to weepy and victimised in a matter of seconds. And I
liked
dogs, even small fussy ones, and felt quite bad about stepping on Pippin.
    “I say!” The wealthy young man turned grey eyes on me, looking stern. “What is the meaning of this? Is it true that you accosted Princess Amalia and attempted to kill her dog?”
    I didn’t even know how to answer. “P-Princess Amalia?” I stammered finally. “She’s a princess?” I shook my head to clear it, and remembered some Carlieff Town gossip about the crown prince being engaged to marry a foreign princess. Oh, dear.
    “Yes, she’s a princess.” The young man drew himself up stiffly and stared at me. “The Princess Amalia of Roulain.” Then he looked at my clothes. “Ah, just in from the country?” He relaxed a little.
    I blushed. Was it so obvious that I was a total bumpkin? But not so backward that I didn’t realise who this wealthy young man was. If the shrill girl was Princess Amalia, than this richly dressed youth must be the Crown Prince Milun.
    “Yes, Your Highness,” I murmured politely, making a small curtsy as my mother had taught me. “Forgive me. This is my first day in the King’s Seat, and I did not recognise the princess. I didn’t mean to step on her dog, truly I didn’t.”
    “There!” The prince gave me a patronising smile. “Very prettily said. You see, Amalia?” He turned to his betrothed. “She didn’t mean any harm.” He waved his hands at the brutes guarding the princess. “Pippin looks quite all right, as well.”
    It seemed a bit much to me that the princess needed four enormous men to guard her on a simple shopping trip, but I didn’t remark on it. Who was I to know the ways of royalty? Particularly foreign royalty.
    The little dog was watching all this with bright