CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 22

Luckily for me, she was looking at Papà. Glaring at Papà.

"Busted," he breathed.

"Yes." I wasn't any louder. When Mamma looked like that: tight-lipped, ruddy cheeks, heaving bosom, you'd be better to walk off the edge of the earth and consumed by dragons than remain within the vicinity.

"Dear heart, you know you shouldn't be upset in your condition." Papà had a way with words, and not always a good way.

"You should stick with poetry," I murmured to him.

Because, of course, Mamma took exception. "In my condition?"

I winced at the volume and eased backward, hoping I could pass as a boxwood until I could slip through the stiff branches and flee the vicinity.

"In my condition? I shouldn't be upset in my condition? Why should I be upset? When my husband and daughter conspire to keep some awful occurrence from me?"

Mary, Mother of God, protect me.

"An occurrence that will cause grief and death to my family and jeopardize my children? I remember what happened twenty years ago, Romeo. I was in that tomb, remember? I thought you were dead and I stabbed myself for love."

Here she goes.

Mamma bared her chest. "I have the scar to prove it!" Catching sight of me slinking away, she pointed at the ground in front of her. "Come back here, young lady!"

Shit, shit, shit."Madam Mother, I listen and obey." I returned and toed the line.

She tapped her foot and looked between the two of us. "Well?"

I thought I'd be less likely to enrage her in the telling, so I took a breath and said, "Porcia was poisoned. There are some ugly insinuations about my confrontation with her last night complicated by my apothecary work. Papà believes our current friendly associations with Prince Escalus and Princess Bella could defuse the rumors."

"There, my true and loving lodestar. That's not so bad, is it?" Papà asked encouragingly.

"Let. Me. Think. In the space of a day, our eldest daughter, our daughter who has been repeatedly betrothed and never married, who weekly visits Friar Laurence to learn how to make potions and medicines"—clearly, this was a critique—"lost her most recent future groom to a stabbing to the heart in our own home. Because she was seen going into the garden with a knife, she is accused of killing him, and rescued only by the just intercession of Verona's prince. She publicly battles with an unpleasant woman who is dead the next day, and the good people of Verona are accusing her of"—Mamma pretended to think—"witchcraft. I did get that right, didn't I?"

I nodded glumly.

"My aging husband is going to try and skewer everyone we know in Verona to right the balance, we're dependent on Prince Escalus to save us, who, as we know, rules our republic on the sufferance of his people and on his own strength and wiliness . . . and because of my condition, I'm not supposed to get excited?"

Dear reader . . . as you know, no matter how mature you are, it never gets easier to have your mother yell at you. The barrage of words create an ongoing crisis of guilt, denial, desperate attempts at appeasement, and the pure, simple knowledge that she's only yelling because she loves you and she's off the edge of the cliff because she fears for your life and well-being.

As a response, irritation or wrath is out. You have to go with appeasement and hope that works.

I curtsied again, lower than before. "Madam Mother, at any time I'm sorry to bring travail upon you. I've done my best always to be an obedient daughter—"

Swiftly she interrupted me. "Except in the matter of marriage."

"Those earlier missteps were nothing more than chance and bad luck . . ."

She used that mother-guilt-pinning glare on me.

It worked. I looked guilty. I floundered in a sea of guilt. I bobbed to the surface to spit out a desperate, stupid, guilty comment. "I didn't know that you knew—"

"You're almost twenty and the cleverest female beneath heaven"—sarcasm dripped from her tone—"but I recognize shrewd machination when I see it."

"Wait," Papà said in confusion. "What are you two talking about? Are you saying Rosie deliberately maneuvered her early suitors to leave her and marry someone else?"

Mamma rolled her eyes at him.

This was bad. Very bad. How to explain my adroit exertions without hurting Papà's feelings and insulting Mamma? This task was beyond even my previously smug and now obviously not-so-crafty talents.

I heard a sudden burst of angry shouting out by the swing.

Saved!

"The children are fighting. I'd better go see—" I took a step to go around them.

Mamma pointed her finger in my face. "Stay here. Even in my condition, my diplomacy is better than yours." She swung that finger at Papà. "You. Come with me."

He followed like a heeling dog. "But, Juliet, the suitors always fell in love with someone else. Rosie can't have arranged that!"

I put my hand on my forehead and staggered back to the alcove bench. What had happened to my happy, smug, well-ordered life? If I looked up into Verona's blue sky, would I see boxes full of disasters piled up, teetering, waiting for the slightest breeze of scandal to crash down upon my head? Surely nothing else could go wrong . . .

Hastily I crossed myself to ward off the bad luck I might have brought on myself, then jumped half out of my skin when a man's voice behind me said, "Rosaline, my love, I fear for your life!"