Genevieve refused to look behind her as she walked. Not at the man who acted as though marriage to her was some kind of penance, nor at the woman with her mother's eyes.

Walking had always helped her clear her mind. Whenever she hit a rut with her studies, or was angry with one of her siblings, a walk in the gardens was all she needed to give her perspective. Perhaps she could ask a servant to show her where the gardens here were. After an hour or two, she'd be fine, and be able to be perfectly civil to the prince and his paramour at dinner.

Unfortunately, she heard footsteps racing to catch up to her. It was probably that horrible island girl wanting to play mother to her again. She quickened her pace until she heard her little sister's distinctive voice.

"Gen! Gen, wait!"

Genevieve sighed and stopped, allowing Isabella to catch up.

"What, Isabella?"

Isabella looked taken aback. "There's no need for that tone."

Genevieve rolled her eyes. "You sound like Maman."

She ignored that. "Why are you being so mean to Ro? She hasn't done anything to you."

"She's pretending to be my dead sister!"

"Our sister, " Isabella reminded her, "and she never said she was. That was all Prince Antonio. I think that Ro just wants to find her family, whether it's us, or if her mother was one of our servants."

Genevieve exhaled sharply. "She also wants to marry my fiance, in case you forgot about that insignificant little detail."

"But Gen, what if she is our sister? Rosella was supposed to marry him first."

"But Isa," Genevieve responded, mocking the whine in Isabella's voice, "she is not our sister. Our sister is dead. So anything that she would have done, or anything she would've gotten had she lived does not matter anymore, because she's dead."

She turned around, and continued her brisk walk towards the palace, hoping Isabella would get the message that she wished to be left alone. However, she should've known her sister better than that. Isabella walked faster to match her pace.

"Alright, fine, Ro's not our sister. But you're going to have to learn to get along with her no matter who she is. Prince Antonio is going to make her his Maîtresse-en-titre even if he doesn't marry her, your children will be half-siblings."

Merde. She hadn't even considered that. "And knowing how emotional he is, he'll probably insist they be raised together too."

"They might also just get married, even if she isn't a princess. Maman and Papa married for love, and he definitely wasn't royalty. But his father would fight it, wouldn't he?" Isabella asked her.

Merde, merde, shit. "Antonio is legally king. Peter is technically a regent, since he isn't Antonio's real father. If he dug his heels in, no one could really stop him from marrying the island girl."

"Perhaps it would be better, then, if Ro were Rosella."

Genevieve stopped in her tracks and turned, slowly, to face Isabella.

"What," she said quietly, enunciating each syllable, "the devil, could you mean by that?"

"I just mean," Isabella stammered, "if he's going to marry her either way, it would be better if we got an alliance out of it. I mean, that was what was supposed to happen in the first-"

"What was supposed to happen in the first place was that I become the Queen of Apollonia! Not the island girl, and not Rosella! Good god, Isabella, why do you even care if she's alive or not? You never knew her!"

Isabella snapped. "Because, Gen, I don't want to be her anymore! I'm so tired of feeling like a replacement for a sister I've never met! For God's sake, why can't I just be Isabella without having to be Rosella too?"

There was a moment where neither one of them said anything, before Isabella finally turned on her heel and ran into the palace.

Genevieve heaved a sigh, and plopped down on the nearest bench, her head in her hands. She didn't move until she felt the slightest tap on her shoulder. Her head shot up, hoping it was Isabella coming to reconcile, but it was just the island girl.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Ro said, indicating the place beside her on the bench.

"Go ahead," Genevieve responded, pursing her lips.

"I told Antonio to marry you. Apparently kings are able to find love outside of their marriage, while still fulfilling their duty."

Genevieve looked at her incredulously. "You realise that if you were a princess, you wouldn't be able to be his Maîtresse-en-titre? You might want to get your stories straight."

"There's nothing to "get straight". I know you don't believe me, but I truly don't care about titles or money or anything. I just want to find where I come from. And I love Antonio, I want to be with him no matter what."

"So you'll stop pretending to be my sister then. Because my parents are attending this wedding, and it would break their hearts to see someone disrespecting Rosella's legacy in the way you are."

"What was she like?" Ro blurted, before putting a hand over her mouth in embarrassment. "Sorry."

Genevieve smiled, despite herself. "She was my best friend. My brother, Derek, is the heir, so he and I spent less time together than Rosy and me. She used to get me in the worst trouble with our governess, because she would always dare me to do stupid things."

"Like climbing the garden trellises?"

"I still have scars from when I fell off of them into a rosebush!" Genevieve giggled.

Ro laughed. "It's a good thing you didn't try to scale the palace walls instead! God, you'd have broken both your legs!"

Genevieve's smile died. "Who told you about that? Prince Antonio? Rosella probably told him about that day when they met, and he told you so you could convince us to believe you."

"Antonio didn't-"

"I remember her, Ro. I'm sorry you don't have a family, I'm sorry you don't remember where you came from, but your grief for something you don't remember having is not the same as mine for a sister I loved dearly. Don't try to take her place."

Before Ro could respond, Genevieve had left, not allowing herself to cry until she reached her room, and she remembered that day, one week before Rosella was to leave for Apollonia.

1769

Rosella wanted to climb the palace walls. Genevieve wanted to live at least until luncheon.

"Geny, come on, don't be such a mauviette!"

"If not wanting to fall to my death makes me a mauviette, then you're welcome to call me that for the rest of our lives!"

"I thought we wanted to jump into Derek's schoolroom window to scare him!"

"No, Rosella, you wanted to. Can't we do something that isn't completely stupid?"

"I want to climb something! What about going into the orchard and climbing one of the orange trees?"

"Madame Arpin says we're not to leave the garden."

"We could climb the hedges?"

"We'd fall right through!"

"What about the hyacinth trellis? It's not too high, and it's just a ladder!"

Genevieve paused, considering this for a moment. For all her big talk, she really didn't want to be called a mauviette for all eternity. And it did sound just a little bit exciting.

"Fine," she groaned, "but I'm going first. I don't want to hear you brag about how easy it is before I've even started climbing."

Rosella smiled at her victory, following Genevieve gleefully to the hyacinth trellis. Genevieve gingerly began to climb up, gaining confidence as she climbed higher and higher.

"Look at you! You're almost as good at climbing as me!" Rosella called out.

Genevieve turned around, letting go with one hand to wave at her sister. But her other hand slipped, and before she could even try to regain her grip, she had landed rather ungracefully in her father's favourite rosebush.

"Oh my god, Gen! Are you alright!" Rosella ran over, holding out a hand to help her out of the bush. Genevieve took it, and pulled her into the bush alongside her.

"Ow! You méchant! You ruined my favourite dress!" Rosella said, slapping her hard on the shoulder.

Genevieve slapped her harder. "You ruined mine!"

This went on for what felt like hours, slapping, pulling each others' hair, and coming up with more and more outlandish insults, until finally, they heard Julien whistling as he walked nearer and nearer to the rosebush.

"Zut! Come on Gen!" Rosella exclaimed, extracting herself from the bush, and pulling Genevieve along with her, further ripping both their clothes and their skin.

They ran all the way to the hedge maze, before collapsing in exhilarated laughter.

"Papa is going to be so angry when he finds out!" whispered Genevieve, as though anyone could hear them.

"He won't find out. And if he does, I'll tell him I did it alone. You won't get in trouble."

"Promise?"

"Promise."