Excerpt: One Perfect Bride

Insignificant. Inferior. That was what he was. The Prince sighed as he wrestled, that evening, with the silver buttons on his burgundy satin tunic with the padded shoulders he always hoped would give him more of an athletic look than was normal for him. Without the padded shoulders, his thin figure just about disappeared under the formal attire he was compelled to wear while doing the work of a prince. With the padded shoulders, he looked like a thin, under sized man with large wads of padding on his shoulders. He sighed irritably, plucked the tunic off, turned it inside out, glared at the pads and then ripped them out and threw them in the royal waste basket.

A week earlier, he had gotten bold. His parents were gone. Years – no, centuries – of history, of tradition, no longer held him captive. He was bold. He was brave. He was daring! He would learn to dress himself.

“Your Highness, are you sure you want to do this?” Werther had asked him in some concern the day the prince laid out his plans to the valet.

“Werther,” said the Prince firmly, “this is definitiely something I want to do.”

“You’re sure it’s a good idea, sir?”

“It is, possibly,” said the Prince, “the very best idea I’ve ever had. Now, what do I need to do first?”

“Well, I suppose… you need to learn to handle buttons and buttonholes. Here, put this tunic on over your chemise.”

“What about the drawstrings on the chemise?”

“I’ll show you that later. Tying a bow is much more complicated than buttoning and unbuttoning, so it comes later. Till then, you let me do the strings. You handle the buttons.” The valet sighed. “Sir, I suspect this is going to get one of us in trouble. And YOU cannot be fired.”

“Never mind. I already know how to do buttons anyway. See?” The prince buttoned the top button of his tunic, then unbuttoned it again. A five year old, thought the valet, could not have been prouder than was his 22 year old royal student.

“How did you learn that, Sir? I’ve been doing up your buttons since your nanny quit doing it for you.”

“I,” said the prince with a smirk, “have been practicing with my pajama top before you get here in the morning.”

“Very good, sir. Now, do the other buttons all the way down!”

That first lesson had taught the Prince something important. Buttons did not merely go through buttonholes; they had to go through IN THE RIGHT ORDER, and you always had to get the FIRST one right, or none of the others would match and the garment would be fastened crooked. It had taken him all of the first three days to get that skill down to where he could actually button himself up without looking. Without looking!

“And to think,” he told his image in the mirror, proudly admiring his tunic all evenly buttoned up top to bottom, “that most of my servants probably have been doing this every day since before they learned to read.”