The First Queen (Currently Being Updated)

Chapter 30

"Is it always this sunny here?"

The question came from Juliette. She insisted on helping me recuperate while she and her family were still here in Alendar. To be honest, I think I found a friend in her. She was much livelier than me, so full of energy, but she knew how to keep it from being a nuisance.

"Summer is just around the corner," I replied as we walked together through the gardens. "The sun tends to get stronger as spring departs and summer arrives, and then the cooling starts as fall approaches. Winter here is breathtaking."

"I can imagine." I gave her a soft smile as we made a turn into the rose garden. The smell of those that had just bloomed filled the air, making me close my eyes as I breathed it all in. Since I have woken up, I've noticed myself become analytical, more than how I usually am. Like now, for instance. When I took in the fragrance of the roses, I began thinking of how every breath we humans take must be taken to survive. How we will never know if the breath we exhale or inhale will be our last.

The doctor wanted me to take it easy, and I did not want to tire myself, so as soon as I saw us near a bench, I advanced forward, leaving Juliette behind momentarily to sit. Juliette let out laugh as she took a seat next to me. "You look fatigued, Eleanor." She is one of the few people whom I've allowed to address me without my formal title, despite the fact that we've only known each other until recently. And I was fatigue. I feet hurt, my head ached from time to time, and my wounds were taking forever to heal. I hated being in such a miserable state.

"This is nothing. Half, if not the entire court, can testify that I've been far from weak. It is something so strange and foreign to me." I looked straight ahead at the many roses, some just bloomed and some still closed, waiting to bloom when nature says the time is right.

"You'll get better, Eleanor. You know, Francis insists on staying until you fully recover," she said, putting a bit of emphasis on his name. He can't stay! I swear that man is relentless . . .

"Why does he care so much about me, Juliette? He hardly knows me! I mean, yes we've fought together," with words and on the battlefield, "but he is complicated. You say he cares about me yet he beds every woman who throws herself at him!" I couldn't find myself to hold back on te last part. I saw Juliette's eyes wide at my words. "Forgive me, I shouldn't say such things about –"

"You are right though," Juliette said sadly. She looked down at her hands as she continued to talk. "His . . . reputation, if you will, has spread far beyond the court back home and it seems that he has taken his activities here to your own home, bringing that Duchamp whore with us. I should be the one apologizing – no, what am I saying! It's him who should be apologizing to me, to Bridgette! Harper is too young to understand. Our father had a similar reputation when he was a bachelor, but once he laid eyes on our mother, there was only one woman in his life." I smiled at that. "My father, despite my mother and her . . . occasional involvements, he never took a mistress. I think there are still some good men left in the world, you just have to find them."

Juliette nodded her head in agreement. She looked at me with her mouth open to speak, but uncertainty flashed over her eyes and she closed her mouth and looked down at her lap. "Juliette, if you have something to say, say it. Speak freely." She glanced up at me slowly, as if looking over my face to see if I was being honest. Believe me, I may know how to keep my face from showing my emotions, but I had every intent on knowing what she had to say.

"It's just . . . Francis changed when he met you."

Oh dear.

"Don't get me wrong, I know he continued his affair with Margo, Lady Duchamp, even after you two kissed –"