Awkward Chit-Chat

All eyes landed on Maria when she finally arrived, and the first face she saw was Arthur's.

Upon seeing how flustered she looked, he gave her a playful smile paired with raised, questioning eyebrows, while she looked away to avoid her face turning even more red than it was at that moment.

"You finally decided to join us then, my child?" The King said with a laugh. "Everyone, let's sit."

Maria stayed quiet as she made her way to the table with everyone else, and took a seat in her usual spot next to her brother.

One of the suitors had quickly made his way to her side to steal the seat next to her, and fumbled with his chair as she looked up to see who it was.

The Spanish prince, Rafael, sat down and looked over to give her a dashing smile.

"Your Highness," he said, "I am glad we finally get to see you today. You are a difficult woman to track down".

Maria, unsure of what he meant by the last part, responded, "Yes, it's nice to be able to see all of you as well. I'm sorry I didn't catch you earlier".

"Me too. I would have loved to glance into your beautiful eyes as I ate my breakfast this morning," he said as he licked his lips in an attempt to be seductive.

Maria gave a polite smile before looking away, still uncomfortable with the fact that they looked like they could be blood relatives.

The palace staff placed their chicken and vegetable dinner before them and everyone started to dine as chit-chat filled the air.

While they all were eating, Jason kept looking to his right at his sister, waiting for her to give any sort of update.

Jason had hoped that Maria would fill him in on her afternoon with Henri, but he also knew his sister well enough to know that she probably would not bring it up on her own.

He looked up and around at everyone to make sure no one was watching them before he leaned towards her, head still facing forward, and said, "I'm dying over here. How did your date go?".

Jason thought he had spoken soft enough for it to go unnoticed by anyone but his sister, but Rafael immediately whipped his head to the left, towards the siblings, and asked loud enough for everyone to hear, "You went on a date?"

Never in Maria's life had she seen the dining room go so quiet, so fast.

She looked in front of her at Julien whose eyes had widened, and she guessed that maybe he thought the question was in reference to his little surprise meeting with the princess the night before.

She answered Rafael, "Henri and I took a walk through the garden".

"How lovely," she heard Arthur reply with a deadpan expression and sarcasm dripping from his voice.

He did not even bother to look up from his plate while he made his comment, which annoyed Maria beyond belief for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on.

She looked over to find Henri, who was now more red than the tomatoes on his plate; whether it was from his pale skin being outside in the sun for too long, or from embarrassment from people publicly asking about their date, Maria couldn't tell.

He looked like he was trying to think of what to say, so Maria saved him by responding first.

"I've actually planned dates for each of you to have with me over the next couple of days, if that's alright with everyone".

The King, Queen, and Jason all watched intently, completely amused at the princes' reactions.

All of the men now had their gazes fixed on the princess.

Maria was sure that they assumed that the King would not let his daughter be alone with any of them until it was decided which one she would marry, so the news must have been shocking that they would get to spend one-on-one time with the woman they each hoped to make their wife.

Surely they did not think that the King would take his daughter's feelings into account when picking a husband for her, and the men were elated at the opportunity to woo the princess.

Julien looked a lot more relaxed than he did about a minute ago, while his brother still held a blank face that was difficult for Maria to read.

Rafael and Leonardo, on the other hand, both had huge smiles plastered on their faces at the news.

"Who gets to go next then?" Leonardo asked from a couple of seats down, still smiling.

Maria cleared her throat and reached into her dress pocket to pull out the letters that she had made in the wine room earlier that morning, and shuffled through them before she found the one she was looking for.

The Greeks were very advanced in most aspects, but Maria was so thankful for pockets in that moment that she could have kissed whoever put them in her fashion-forward dress, as they had saved her from an even more awkward moment of having to look back into Rafael's eyes.

She pulled Rafael's invitation and handed it to him.

His very large grin somehow managed to get even bigger as he took the parchment from her hand, eager to read it.

Maria hoped he would put it away and read it later, but she had no such luck as he started to read it out loud for the whole room to hear.

"Rafael, please join me in the morning at eleven for dancing and refreshments. Best, Maria".

He folded the parchment up and tucked it in his coat pocket before he turned to Maria and said, "I would be honored your Highness," while he bowed his head.

She smiled at him before she looked up at the others and said, "I'll be sure to send the rest of the invitations for everyone with enough time for you to get prepared on the day I have scheduled you for. I hope you will all find what I have planned to your liking".

"And with that, let's have some wine!" The King exclaimed as he stood from his chair, everyone else following suit.

Everyone started to make their way towards the wine room, and Jason quickly grabbed Maria's hand so that he could fold it into his arm.

"Geez, Mar, I'm sorry. I thought no one was paying attention to us."

"It's alright," she responded as she patted his arm with her spare hand, "It saved me from any awkward, individual conversations that might have occurred had they found out separately."

He smiled down at his sister as they started to walk slowly behind everyone.

"Well?"

Maria laughed and took the time to tell her brother how her date with Henri went so that he wouldn't burst from holding in all the questions he had.

"I knew Henri would be the best of the suitors to take first," Jason said after she told him about their time in the garden.

"Now brother, are you already picking favorites?" She asked, teasingly.

"I want nothing but the best for you, and he seems like a stand-up guy, is all," he said with a shrug.

Maria smiled at that, but was grateful that they had reached the wine room at that point in the conversation.

She had told her brother every detail about the date, but she left out the part where Henri had passionately kissed her, leaving her breathless at her door.

Even though the siblings typically shared everything with each other, and Maria knew all about her brother's first kiss, she wanted that moment to be just hers and Henri's for the time being.

Maria dropped her hand from Jason's arm as they entered the wine room and she looked around to see that the men had already poured themselves glasses.

They had heard so much about Greece having the best wine in that part of the world, and they did not want to wait for the palace staff to serve it to them because they could start to enjoy it sooner if they took matters into their own hands.

Maria giggled and her eyes found Julien's first.

When their eyes met, he started to walk over to her, and she noticed that he was holding two glasses of wine.