Linnet was not the daughter of an earl her father was a viscount, and not a very well-connected one at that. You must have heard about my first marriage that one was annulled because Windsor decided Augusta wasn’t good enough, and she’s the daughter of an earl.” My father is slightly deranged on the subject. “We royal dukes, you know…can’t do everything we’d like. “It’s a shame I can’t marry you,” he had said apologetically, when the scandal broke the evening before. The only thing he hadn’t done was offer his hand in marriage. And he had vehemently declared his love for her, not to mention thrown strawberries at her bedchamber window late one night (which had made an awful mess and had driven the gardener into a fury). He had kissed Linnet more than once in fact, he had kissed her a great many times. The prince in question was Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex. Though perhaps it’s more accurate to point to the nature of princes. The calamity had to do with the nature of kisses, and what kisses are purported to lead to. She was just the sort who could drive a stable boy to heroic feats, or a prince to less intrepid acts such as whacking through a bramble patch merely to give her a kiss.
Without even glancing at the glass, she knew that her hair was shining, her eyes were shining, and her teeth-well, perhaps they weren’t shining, but they were quite white. Still, her voice was perfectly agreeable, and she had been told that her laughter was like the chiming of golden bells and (though not larks) linnet songs were often mentioned. Linnet Berry Thrynne had all of the above, except perhaps the claim to lark-like melody. Let alone all that business about pearly teeth, the voice of a lark, and a face so beautifully shaped that angels would weep with envy. In short, it’s a rare woman who actually outshines the sun. But even they are prone to all the ills “that flesh is heir to,” as Hamlet had it in a long-ago complaint. They have the shadow of a mustache, or a nose so big that a mouse could ski down it.
They have yellowing teeth, or spotty skin. That sparkle makes it all the more sad that real women rarely live up to their fictional counterparts. Magnolia-skinned milkmaids rub shoulders with starry-eyed princesses and, in fact, counting two eyes in each bright-eyed damsel would result in a whole galaxy of twinkling stars. Beautiful girls in fairy stories are as common as pebbles on the beach.
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