"Manners Tutor! Manners Tutor!" Rapunzel collapsed at her desk, huffing and puffing.
Manners Tutor didn't look up from her papers. She just tsked and informed her student that princesses did not enter a room by galloping into it, fall onto furniture, or arrive at etiquette lessons five minutes late.
"Oh, I know that and I'm—I am sorry!" Rapunzel apologized sincerely. "But I have something to show you!"
Manners Tutor at last looked up from her papers and saw what a spectacle her student was. Dress wrinkled, hair ruffled, face red, and—what was that?
"You brought me flowers!" Manners Tutor exclaimed, immediately mollified. They were nice too, those tulips Rapunzel was grasping. White with shocks of red…very tasteful.
"These aren't for you!" Rapunzel burst out, though she set the bouquet on Manners Tutor's desk anyway. "That's what I'm—that is what I am trying to tell you," she corrected herself and slowed her speech. The red was draining from her face and she unconsciously straightened out her hair. "I just received them from Eugene—"
"—Mr. Fitzherbert—"
Rapunzel tried to obey most of Manners Tutor's rules of speech, but calling Eugene "Mr. Fitzherbert" was one she simply couldn't follow. It just seemed silly to call someone who'd died for you "Mr. Fitzherbert." Besides, her mother and father called him "Eugene," so surely she could, too.
"—and I know the book says red tulips mean a marriage proposal is coming, but these are part red, so I was wondering if that counted or if there was some other meaning for striped tulips but it doesn't say in my etiquette book."
Manners Tutor didn't catch the second half of the sentence because it descended into Rapunzel's nervous mumbling. Manners Tutor never corrected Rapunzel on her mumbling. She'd learned from the first day of lessons that criticizing her on that score only made matters a lot worse.
"Sit down Rapunzel," Manners Tutor instructed her.
Rapunzel, who had been gazing at the tulips with a goony expression, snapped back to attention and sat down at her desk automatically. Face forward, back straight, arms at sides—good. At the very least, Manners Tutor had succeeded in teaching her pupil how to sit down properly.
Then Rapunzel's fingers twitched, her gaze slid down to the tulips, and a sort of jelly-looseness rolled down her body. Gone was her perfect posture.
Oh good Heavens.
"Manners Tutor," Rapunzel asked, "did anyone ever give you flowers?"
Princesses did not ask their tutors personal questions. However, Manners Tutor just nodded.
"What kind? Who gave them to you? Did you like him?" Rapunzel leaned forward onto her desk excitedly.
Petunias, Gregory Whitehead, and yes, a great deal—oh, what was she doing? She couldn't actually answer these impertinent questions. In fact, at this moment she should be listing all of the rules Rapunzel had broken and informing her why an ex-thief was not a suitable consort for a princess, tulips or no.
When no answers were forthcoming, Rapunzel launched into another set of questions. Did she like tulips? Her botany book had said tulips came from the Ottoman Empire—how far away was the Ottoman Empire? What flowers were native to Corona?
"Really Princess," Manners Tutor sniffed, "I am not your Science Tutor, nor am I your Geography Tutor. Perhaps you had better ask them those questions."
Yes, but she'd already had those lessons today. Please, wouldn't she at least tell her what her bouquet meant? She bet she was very good at interpreting flowers!
"Well…" Manners Tutor sighed, "I suppose it would be a worthwhile exercise for our studies in courtship…"
Manners Tutor wasn't so bad, not if you flattered her a little.
"Now I do not want you to place too much credence in this," Manners Tutor warned Rapunzel as she plucked her copy of The Language of Flowers from the bookshelf. "You must remember that it is exceedingly unlikely Mr. Fitzherbert consulted a flower dictionary before he selected the tulips. In fact, he may not have chosen the tulips at all…"
Rapunzel nodded vigorously. "Of course," she agreed, not much listening to Manners Tutor's warnings. "So what do striped tulips mean?"
Manners Tutor flipped through the pages. "Bulbs…tulips. Now, the general connotations of tulips are love and fame, but there are more specific ones…here we are: striped tulips." She jabbed her finger at the passage in question. Rapunzel tensed her muscles and shut her eyes in anticipation. "Striped tulips," Manners Tutor read, "mean beautiful eyes."
Rapunzel opened her eyes—her beautiful eyes. "Beautiful eyes?" she asked. "It doesn't say anything in there about marriage?"
Manners Tutor shook her head and replaced the book on the shelf. "Just beautiful eyes."
Rapunzel grinned apologetically. "I know I shouldn't be disappointed—it's not as if Eugene cares anything about the language of flowers. And beautiful eyes—that's nice, isn't it?"
Manners Tutor gave a lady-like sniff. "If Mr. Fitzherbert has not already told you himself—with words, not with flowers—that you have beautiful eyes, there is no excuse for it."
"Oh, he has!" Rapunzel assured her.
"Good." Why it was 'good' that an ex-thief was telling the Princess she had beautiful eyes, Manners Tutor wasn't sure. Still, it seemed like the thing to say. "Mind you that does not mean he is in love with you. It just means he is not lying, because you do have beautiful eyes. But do not become vain about them. They are not that beautiful." In Manners Tutor's experience, young ladies usually thought far too much about whatever compliments they received. Though she had to admit, Rapunzel had never exhibited any signs of vanity, thank Heavens. There were enough problems to deal with already.
"Thank you," Rapunzel replied. "But he does love me," she added. She didn't say it defiantly, most just informing Manners Tutor of the fact so as not to worry her…as if Manners Tutor was spending sleepless nights worrying that Corona's Princess might not end up marrying an orphan thief.
No…as that goony expression again stole over Rapunzel's face when she fastened her gaze on the tulips, Manners Tutor admitted to herself that if anyone was worried that the Princess and the orphan thief wouldn't end up being married, their anxieties were groundless. Rapunzel was clearly intent on having him, and if Flynn Rider—Mr. Fitzherbert let an opportunity to marry royalty slip through his fingers, he was far less shrewd than Manners Tutor thought.
If Manners Tutor were not such a lady, she would have said "drat." Instead she just thought it.
Drat.