The Garden of Thorns

THEY RETURNED FROM the way they came. After Wyatt had parted ways with them, Alice was left in the hands of the crown prince. Given no other specific instruction other than to keep Hartley company, Alice was reduced to a mere shadow trailing after the red-haired and temperamental royalty.

He took his time to return to the garden. Instead of hurrying back to the gazebo where the ladies waited for him, he slowly strolled through the corridors, as relaxed as ever. It seemed clearer and clearer to Alice what his motive in calling her to the palace was.

"You wanted to use me as an excuse to leave, didn't you, Your Highness?"

Hartley jolted a little at Alice's words as if he was caught in the act. His footsteps stuttered, stumbling a little but he quickly regained his grace and elegance. Continuing on his way, Hartley refused to look Alice in the eye, choosing to glance out of the window instead as they journeyed back.

"This is my home," he replied curtly. "What makes you think that I need to have an excuse to go anywhere?"

"Oh, I don't know." Alice shrugged. "Maybe it's because of how utterly uncomfortable you looked with those girls. You didn't seem like you wanted to be there."

Hartley cleared his throat, his cheeks a little red with embarrassment. Alice knew at that moment that she had caught him in his act. Her heart soured a little, not for herself but for the prince that seemed without freedom. To think that no matter which world it was, there were still people that weren't comfortable even when they were in their own house. The four walls of a house truly didn't make a home.

The rest of the walk back was filled with silence. Hartley didn't make a move to reply to Alice's hanging words nor did Alice try to prompt him to speak. What was left between them was an air of comfortable silence, neither awkward nor agonizing.

☆ ☆ ☆

When they'd finally made it back to the garden, the women invited for tea were still around, gossips flying from their lips and their delicate laughter floating about the air. They waved their fans, delicate lace fluttering in the wind like a set of butterfly wings surrounded by nature. The women were all beautiful beyond reason, goddesses in their own right. However, Alice knew that their lips could spit words more vile and poisonous than any witch's.

"Your Highness!"

One of the women spotted Hartley and Alice approaching the gazebo once more. Elated, she rose to her feet, beaming brightly. The rest of the women followed, all standing in unison. Only after Hartley had returned to his own seat had they sat back down.

"You sure took your time, Your Highness," another jested. She hid behind her handheld fan, smiling coyly. Her eyes darted over to Alice — who was still hovering awkwardly behind Hartley's sit, not knowing what to do — before speaking, "Who's this?"

"Alice Clemente," Hartley introduced.

He raised a hand, beckoning her over before gesturing to the seat at the end of the table. Obediently, Alice sat down, carefully smoothening her skirt down before sitting. A servant immediately came flying over, providing her with the necessary plates, cups, and other silverware. Under her breath, Alice murmured a quick whisper of thanks.

"She's a distant relative of the Ragan's and is now under their care due to some personal reasons. Today, she is here as a personal guest of mine."

'Yes,' Alice bitterly thought in her head. 'As a way for you to throw these women off your tail.'

Hartley continued to speak, not noticing Alice's carefully masked irritation. If by chance he did notice, he hadn't commented on it. Instead, he continued with his introductions, naming all the ladies at the table. A servant arrived, filling their teacups with freshly brewed tea. In an instant, the area was swarmed with a mildly sweet scent.

Picking up the teacup, Alice carefully sipped at the piping hot drink. As she did so, her eyes scanned the entire table. Sitting at the end of the table gave her a clear and complete view of everyone else. She was the furthest away from Hartley, of course, but it also provided her the best view of him— along with everyone else. Each minute movement that they make could be easily seen by Alice without having her to turn around too often.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two girls leaning closer towards each other. One of them whispered, pink lips quickly moving behind the cover of her fuschia fan as she passed on her message. The woman that sat beside her suppressed a chuckle before turning to whisper to the next lady's ear, repeating the same message.

Alice frowned. She wasn't deaf nor was she too far away from the first lady that had started the message chain. Perhaps she wasn't even trying to hide the fact that she was talking about Alice behind her back.

"Looks like a weed had just entered our garden of rare flowers," Petunia had said.

The lady that sat beside her only grinned before passing the message on to the next, the proud and composed Rose Whitaker. Unlike the other two women, she hadn't even flinched, casually adding sugar into her tea as if she had heard nothing.

"Was the task that Lord Wyatt mentioned previously settled?" Dahlia asked, completely oblivious about the conversation on the other side of the table. She sliced into the lemon tart on her plate but made no move to eat the dessert, simply allowing her fork to hover over the sweet treat.

"For now," Hartley vaguely replied. His eyes darted over to Petunia for a brief second before returning to meet Dahlia's eye. "Apologies for disappearing halfway through our tea party."

Waving it off, Dahlia wore a patronizing smile that practically gleamed. "No need for apologies, Your Highness." She waved nonchalantly. "We ladies are more than happy to wait. An important figure like yourself would surely have urgent matters to attend to."

Hearing this, Alice snorted, rolling her eyes in disbelief. If she recalled properly, those were certainly not the words Dahlia had said when Wyatt first barged into their tea party. She finally understood perfectly as to why Hartley so desperately needed an excuse to run from this group of ladies. Everyone had dubbed them as a garden of flowers when truthfully, they were a pack of hyenas waiting for a prey to pounce on.

Unfortunately, Alice's reaction had not gone unheard. Dahlia was seated next to her, opposite Petunia. As such, that meant that she was on Alice's right. The lady immediately turned, eyebrows scrunched up and lips curled into a scowl filled with disdain.

"What was that?" She practically barked, glaring fiercely. "I'm sure I just heard a pig snorting."

"My, have you?" Alice pondered out loud. She slowly took a bite out of her scone, licking the sweet blueberry jam off her lips. "Your hearing must be faulty then, Lady Dahlia. I don't see any farm animals in the garden."

"How crude," Petunia cut in, answering before Dahlia could even think of a reply. The latter was fuming, her cheeks red like an apple's as she glowered at Alice. "It seems like commoners truly have no manners to speak of. Prince Hartley." She turned her question to the crown prince, who sat watching. "I wonder if it's truly a good idea to bring such a girl to join our tea party today when we all know what today is truly all about."

Alice hadn't spent much time with the crown prince of Gladiolum. While his younger brother, Prince Spade, was always smiling, the times which Alice had encountered Prince Hartley was spent with him scowling more often than not. He was hardly ever wearing pleasant expressions, usually adorning melancholy or annoyance as his favorite accessory. However, in front of the noble ladies, Hartley wore a pleasant smile befitting of a charming prince from the fairy tales Alice had grown up with.

"I didn't forget if that was what you're implying, Lady Petunia." The corners of Hartley's lips were tilted upward politely, his voice gentle. Despite what it seemed, Alice had spent enough time with Wyatt to recognize that grin of his. The image of Wyatt's faux cordiality overlapped Hartley at the moment. "Alice is someone I consider as a friend. Since she's in the palace today, wouldn't it be rather ungentlemanly of me to have left her out of our social gathering?"

With the prince having spoken, there was no room left for rebuttal by someone of a significantly lower social standing. Petunia could only swallow her anger and back down, gritting her teeth hard as she nodded once. Silently, Alice allowed herself a small celebration. She hadn't thought that the temperamental prince would speak up for her but she surely wasn't going to complain about it.

Wyatt and Charlie were right. Life in the noble social circle was a constant competition in seeing whose mask lasts the longest.

"Of course, Your Highness," Azalea spoke up this time, answering for Petunia with a chirp.

Her hand came to rest on Hartley's hand on the table. As she did so, Hartley turned to her agonizingly slow, his expression hardening. His implications were as clear as day to everyone at the table. Seeing the look in Hartley's eyes, Azalea gingerly withdrew her hand, flushing in embarrassment.

"Perhaps..." Hartley started, pupils that were filled with disgust still focused on Azalea. "Perhaps it isn't just one of us that has to watch their propriety."

The gazebo was plunged in silence after that sentence. With that said, the tea party ended, the air colder than what the weather should have allowed.

☆ ☆ ☆

"Thank you for sticking up for me," Alice thanked Hartley after the guests had all left the garden for their own residences. "I… honestly didn't expect you would."

"Hmph." Folding his arms across his chest, Hartley scowled. "Despite what you think, I won't leave someone to rot right in front of my eyes when they've done nothing wrong."

"Well… I didn't think you would speak up for me 'cause I assumed that you agreed with the noble ladies. After all, you made it quite clear that you think yourself above others simply because you're born into a royal family."

Hartley's jaw ticked. "And when did I say that outright?"

"The evening of the ball," Alice answered. "You said that I treated the palace like a peasant's playground."

Lips twitching as if desperate to rebut, Hartley, unfortunately, found no words. Eventually, he murmured under his breath softly, not once meeting Alice's eye. "But I didn't say that I thought myself above others," he grumbled.

Alice giggled. "You know, you really aren't a bad person, Your Highness. I might've misjudged you that night. You're a pretty decent guy, albeit armed with a rather poisonous tongue."

"That night…" Hartley echoed. Then, he snapped up, eyes opening wide as he suddenly spun to face Alice, at a loss for words but at the same time unable to pick what to say first. "Y-You… How did you… Did Wyatt tell you? Wyatt exposed my identity, didn't he? That brat! Wait 'till I get my hands on him. I'm going to rip out his tongue this ti—"

"Wyatt didn't say anything," Alice interjected. Her words left Hartley in a blunder, eyebrows tilted and scrunched as his blue eyes searched for telling answers on her face but unable to find any. "I guessed. You'll have to go back to school if you think that a mask covering just the top half of your face — not even your eyes — is sufficient in hiding your identity. Especially when there are portraits of you all over the palace."

Hearing Alice's answer, Hartley's shoulders finally slackened. He chuckled, shaking his head in incredulity.

"Ah," he sighed. "I think I finally understand why my brother is so intrigued by you."

"Spade? He talked about me?"

"Some things have no need for words," Hartley replied fairly.

"There's something that I wanted to confirm, though," Alice said. "Something that does need to be said in words. Did you mean what you said just now, Your Highness? That you think of me as a friend?"

"I was just saying it," he huffed. However, his telling scarlet cheeks betrayed his thoughts. His eyes darted around, refusing to land on Alice's figure.

Alice grinned. "So that's a 'no', then?"

"I… I…" Hartley's jaw clenched. "I never said that explicitly. Take it as you will."

Giggling at his round-about response, Alice stretched out a hand for him to shake. He stared at it, frowning, before looking up at Alice.

"What?" He barked.

"I would love to be your friend too, Your Highness."

"Ngh—" Blushing even redder, Hartley coughed in surprise. "Yea…" He slipped his hands into hers, clasping it gently. Even through his gloves, Alice could feel the warmth of his body heat. Despite his cold words, he was still very much human. Just an overly sheltered teenager that probably never knew true friendship due to his position as the crown prince. "Sure. Whatever."