Chapter 2

           Early in the morning Lizzy awoke and stretched like a cat before creeping around her room preparing for a day of rest and relaxation with her cousin.  From inside the wide wardrobe came a white silk slip with tiny lace roses at the shoulders, a pair of white silk slippers, white silk stockings, and a simple sky blue taffeta floor-length dress.  A silver jewelry box on the vanity provided two silver hair combs and a silver necklace with a charm in the shape of a scallop shell; a metallic duplicate of the pale pink birthmark on her forehead, just beneath her bangs.

            She dressed her black hair in a simple looping design that draped flatteringly over her graceful neck.  Then she walked down the stairs in a much more reserved attitude than she had ascended the night before.  She stepped back through the French doors and into the greenhouse, then peered through the fogged glass windows.  Stars winked down from the lightening sky.  The pale sliver of moon rocked its way through the heavens and over the horizon to be replaced by the first rays of the sun.

            A timid chorus of birdsong greeted Lizzy in the early morning.  Dainty dewdrops enhanced the beauty of the first blushing roses and tulips.  The lavender clouds were gashed with a clear pinkish-orange light.  Small grey pebbles in the garden path crunched under her slipper-shod feet.  She stooped to pick a daisy and tuck it behind her right ear.

            Wandering lazily into the apple orchard, she sat down on a stone bench engraved with scenes of centaurs, unicorns, and phoenixes and fingered the carvings absently.  A doe and her new fawn crept shyly into the orchard and began nibbling at worm-eaten windfalls.  Lizzy stood up slowly and picked an apple off the tree overhead.  She offered it tentatively to the doe.  The deer nibbled delicately.

            Just then, Christin opened the door to the greenhouse with a muffled squeak.  The deer were startled, and leapt away.  Lizzy turned and smiled at her cousin.

            “You are so lovely in the morning light,” Christin said kindly, with a hint of romance.  “You really should settle down and marry.”

            Lizzy grimaced, having sensed the angle of the discussion.  “Not yet, Cousin.  I still have so much of the world to see, so much yet to do.  And I am the captain of Your Majesty’s pirates.”

            “I know.  I would never trust any pirate as much as I trust you, or any other person for that matter.  And The Stormy Lass does need her captain.  But �" ” she paused, and then rushed ahead, “if you ever do want to settle down, there are several young barons who are looking for wives.”

            “Ha!  And you are sure they would desire a wife who has been, and is in her blood, a pirate?  A pirate who chases their kind around the ocean, appropriating hidden taxes?”

            The princess composed herself quickly, though it sounded as if her cousin was the one who was biased about occupations.  What girl could possibly want anything finer than a baron as a husband?  Still, it was breakfast time, and more urgent matters were at hand than whom Lizzy was going to marry.

            After they broke their fast, Christin prepared herself for the daily governmental morning meeting.  She invited Lizzy to come, but Lizzy told her that it would be odd for another woman whom many believed to be dead to suddenly appear at the meeting.  Lizzy assured Christin that she would listen in on the meeting from a side chamber.  “After all, I need to know whom I have to go chasing next!”