Violet Eyes by Debbie Viguié Read Free Book Online Page A

Cambrians, but we knew they were not. The men arrived not an hour after the woman had left.”
    “And you told them that I was your child?”
    “We did indeed, and they believed us and left. The next day we had word about the tragedy at the castle, that all the royal family had been killed: the king, the queen, two young princes, and a baby girl three weeks of age. There were rumors, however, that the girl’s body wasn’t found.”
    Violet gasped. “A baby girl! That could have been me.”
    “We have loved you and raised you as our own. But we have long suspected that you were the infantprincess, saved by a nursemaid and hidden from all.”
    “Is this true?” Violet asked, turning to look at her mother.
    Sarah nodded and then reached out her arms and folded Violet into an embrace.
    “Why are you telling me all this now?”
    “We should have told you years ago, but we were selfish, afraid we’d lose you,” William said.
    Violet began to weep. “That could never have happened.”
    “When the war was over, we were afraid how the new king and queen would react if they discovered the rightful heir was alive. They might have taken you from us, or worse.”
    A chill danced up Violet’s spine. Had she escaped death and never known it?
    “But now you must go to the castle,” Sarah said, her voice weaker.
    Violet shook her head. “I don’t want to be a princess or a queen. I just want to be your daughter. The king and queen have gotten along fine all these years. There’s nothing I could do for them, nothing I could offer.”
    “It’s not them that we’re thinking of,” William said quietly.
    “The boy loves you,” her mom said.
    Violet blushed. “He barely knows me.”
    “He knows enough. It’s possible to fall in love all in a moment. Your father and I did,” Sarah said, smiling gently at her husband.
    “And you love him,” William said.
    Violet lowered her eyes. “Even if I did care for him, he must marry a princess.”
    “Child, that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,” her father said. “You are a princess.”
    “I’m a princess,” she whispered slowly.
    Her mother’s face was filled with pain, and she was having a hard time breathing, but she smiled at Violet and said, “Now, go get your prince.”
    “But I can’t leave you, not when you’re—”
    Sarah shushed her. “I will live as long as I am supposed to live, and your being here won’t change that one way or the other. But I need to know that you’re fulfilling your destiny and fighting for your happiness.”
    An hour later, with her mother’s words ringing in her ears, Violet was in the barn saddling up Bessie with her father’s help. At the last, William held the horse’s head as Violet swung up onto her back.
    “Mother?” Violet asked.
    He shook his head. “She’s slipping away from us.”
    “I should stay.”
    “No. I know she doesn’t want you to remember her this way. Go and bring back a prince I can call my son.”
    She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I’m so frightened, Father,” she whispered.
    “I know,” he said. “But it’s only change, lass.”
    “Will you send word?” she asked.
    “When it’s over, I’ll come to the castle to see you outride, outcook, and outsmart all those other princesses.”
    Violet smiled sadly. Somehow she didn’t think she would be so lucky as to be allowed to compete with the others in those areas. She turned Bessie’s head toward the barn doors and urged the mare out into the storm.
    It took only a few seconds before she was drenched through to the skin. Her mind was torn between thoughts of her adoptive mother lying on her deathbed and the man that she loved marrying another. When the tears came, Violet let them fall freely, the storm without raging as the storm within gathered force.
    As they entered the village, Bessie turned toward the small marketplace she was accustomed to visiting. Violet gently pulled Bessie’s head back around and aimed the