My Sweet Daisy

Chaper 5 - A Scheme to Make Her Jealous

Chapter 5

A Scheme to Make Her Jealous

Richard sighed despondently. "I wonder if she feels the same way about me at times. I feel all she sees in me is a friend whose time she enjoys. Am I alone in my desire to want more out of our relationship?"

"I fear you may be right," Elisandra began carefully. "Aside from the courtesy she extends to you as a prince, she appears very apathetic towards you. I don't see the glow you usually see around a woman in love. Elena, for one, talked about nothing else but Adam during the times they were dating. Although I was glad at the time she had something to talk about with me other than her books, she drove me to entertain the thought of drowning myself in the pond many times. During the time Bella was in the palace receiving her training, she'd scheme with Elena and me to take attention off her, so she could visit Edward's quarters but Juliet... as you said, she seems only to find the idea of you courting her a delight. It's true she's reserved, but she hardly expresses any emotions at all towards you."

"You make a good point, Elise. She doesn't know how to express emotions very well, so how can she admit her feelings towards a man? I need to draw it out of her."

"That's not the point I was making... hold on," she folded her arms on the table, peering quizzically at him. "Supposing that's even possible, how exactly are you going to make her admit her feelings towards you?"

"That's where you can help. Now, you're fifteen and your mind is filled with mischief, but inwardly, you're a woman. If there's a way to go about it, you would know if you put your mind to it."

By instinct, Raphael knew it was time to make himself scarce. He made it a rule not to pry into the private matters of the royals he served, no matter how much he was forced to listen in on their conversations, and if his calculations were right, it would be no time before the prince involved him in one going on between him and the princess. He turned the cup over his head and gulped down the scalding liquid and stuffed as many biscuits as he could into his hand.

"I'm only fifteen, Richard. I go to parties. I don't help my brother warm up his cold love affair in which he himself is one of the icicles."

"Perhaps this will make it simpler for you. Assume you are aware Raphael holds a tender for you__,"

Raphael spewed the mouthful of liquid across the table. "I'm so sorry, Your Highnesses. I was taken aback by your absurd joke, my prince. I will get this cleaned up immediately."

"Sit and finish your breakfast first, Raphael. It was only an assumption. I need to make it as real for her as possible. All right, so Raphael is in love with you, you know it, but he's too shy to come out and confess to you. What would you do to make him forsake his senses and his shyness and be downright honest about it with you?"

"Richard, I'm only fifteen __"

Richard gave her a cynical look. "You're a very intelligent girl, full of schemes. What would the shrewd Elisa decide? When you were ten, you mopped for nearly a month, starving yourself, making yourself sickly, until father was so overwhelmed, he came an inch to order your engagement to Adam as you wished."

"Richard! I was young and naïve back then. I certainly didn't wait for Adam when it become apparent I'd nothing more than a younger sister to him or that he wasn't going to look at me the same way he looked at Elena. I wasn't even the only one who drooled over him. Have you forgotten the spectacle Lady Irene made of herself, hiding in his carriage for hours, hoping he would be compelled to marry her if word spread she had been with him unchaperoned late in the evening? It was fortunate Adam didn't take his carriage home that night."

"Since you're insistent on playing dumb, I will explain what was happening to you," Richard continued. "You felt threatened when the man you wanted turned his attention to another woman, Elena. Thus, you wanted, by any means possible, to tie him to your side before you lose him completely. I can employ this lesson to make Juliet feel she's losing me to someone else."