Excerpt: One Perfect Bride

The prince held out his arms for his valet to slip the sleeves of his white linen chemise onto. He sighed as the valet adjusted the fullness of the ruffle at the wrist and tied the strings snugly to fit.

“Werther,” said the Prince, “am I a very homely man?’

“Your Highness, we have discussed this before,” said Werther, moving around behind the Prince to straighten his wide ruffled collar.

“Did we? I don’t remember,”said the Prince, sucking in his stomach so the valet could fasten the girdle that would help keep his chemise tucked into his breeches. “What did you say last time?”

“I said that girls don’t think the same way men do, your Highness. They’re all different and they don’t all like the same kind of looks in a man.”

“So you DO think I’m homely,”gloated the Prince, stepping into the blue velvet breeches his valet held out for him.

“Not at all, your Highness.” The valet buckled the fine morocco leather belt that held up the Prince’s pants and reached for a blue velvet tunic hanging over a chair nearby.

“You’re just saying that because you’ve known me since I was a baby and you don’t want me to feel bad,” objected the Prince. “Besides, if I don’t get married, you’ll have to keep dressing me all your life. Once I get married, it will be assumed I’m old enough to dress my own self and you can stay home and eat your wife’s good breakfast every day and linger for a second cup of tea while she does the dishes, instead of rushing up here to button my tunic for me.”

“I don’t mind dressing you,”protested the valet as he buttoned the Prince’s mother of pearl tunic buttons all the way up to his chin. “It’s your incessant griping and obsessing over your appearance that gets a bit, well, OLD, shall we say?”

“You haven’t answered my question yet,” the Prince pointed out.

“And I’m not going to, either,” sniffed the valet, as the prince sat down and extended his long, homely foot for the pointed satin slipper he would be wearing that day.

“Maybe I should fire you BEFORE I get married,” mused the Prince, sneaking a look at himself in the mirror almost in spite of himself. “If you weren’t working for me, you might tell me the truth about some of these embarrassing issues. What if I were your own son? Would you tell me the truth then?”

“If you were my son,” said the valet, “I’d give you a good smack and send you out to carry wood and water for your mother.”