Page 2 of Royally Matched

My sister, the tomboy.

“I’m fine,” I insist as I check my makeup for the fifteenth time, wondering whether I should have allowed the makeup artist to give me winged eyeliner and false lashes.

Amelia props herself up on her elbows. “Convincing,” she deadpans.

“You’d be worried too if you were about to meet your future husband for the very first time,” I reply. “Sit up properly. You’ll crease your dress.”

She ignores my instruction.

No change there.

“I’m desperate to break out of the confines of this job I was born into, and here you are, painting yourself right into a princess corner,” Amelia grumps.

“I’m not painting myself into a corner. I’m meeting eligible suitors.”

“Same thing, if you ask me.” She props herself up onher elbows. “You know you don’t have to go through with this. So, you had a moment of insanity in which you told Father you want to have an arranged marriage. You can totally get out of this. Just tell him it was your time of the month, and you weren’t thinking straight. You know how much that sort of thing makes him nervous. The mystery of womanhood and all that. He won’t even question you, just mumble something about horses and leave the room.”

“The thing is, Ami, Iwantto have an arranged marriage,” I explain, not expecting her to understand in the least.

And why not? I’ve hardly had screaming success in the romance department doing it by myself. In fact, you could say my dating life is an abject disaster. Other than a few minor flirtations, I’ve only ever been seriously involved with one man—and he broke my heart.

So, you see? Getting Father to arrange a marriage for me is so much better, particularly when love has alluded me, much like Waldo in those books. I could never spot him.

She sits up and hugs one of the posts on my four-poster bed. “But what about love, Sofe? Romance?” She fixes me with her stare, waggling her brows at me. “What about the sizzle?”

“The sizzle? Ami, I’m not a steak.”

“The sizzle. You know, all those fabulous feelings you get when you meet someone you really, really fancy. The sizzle is the absolute bee’s knees.”

“Sizzle? Bees knees? You sound like you’re from the early 20thcentury.” I smooth my updo in the mirror once more, but it’s been hair sprayed to within an inch of its life. It does not budge. “I don’t care about sizzling or any of that stuff. It’s all rather a waste of time if you ask me.”

“Oh, done right, the sizzle isnevera waste of time. Notin a million years,” Ami replies, her brows still waggling, like a couple of hyperactive worms.

Of course she would say that. She’s my younger sister, full to the brim of all the younger sister clichés. She doesn’t feel driven to achieve terribly much, she has the unconditional, straightforward love of our parents who also don’t expect her to do anything of note, and she enjoys a jolly good time, particularly if my equally fun-loving brothers, Alex and Max, are around.

Me? I’m cut from an entirely different cloth.

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy having a good time. I’m not a robot. I’m just more sensible than they are. More thoughtful. I like art and architecture, I adore ballet, the Royal Ledonian Ballet in particular. I wouldn’t dream of going to the hottest new nightclubs in town—and I certainly don’t care about anything sizzling. Unless it’s a steak.

I accept who I am, and my siblings should, too.

“You say you’re not a robot, but that’s exactly what a robot would say, you know,” Amelia states. “Fancying someone is utterly divine. The best feeling in the world.”

“Attraction is not all it’s cracked up to be, Ami,” I reply in my “I know so much more than you do, little sister” tone. “It’s fleeting. It might be all consuming for about five minutes, but then you find out what the person is really like, and those sizzling feelings simply vanish into thin air.”

“Tell Alex that. He and Maddie had the sizzle even when they hated each other and they’re madly in love and can barely keep their hands off each other. Major,majorsizzle.”

She leans back on my bed once more, her hands placed over her heart. Thread a rose through her fingers and she’d look like she was in a coffin.

“He gave up everything to be with her. Everything,Sofe. It’s so romantic. I hope someone gives up everything for me someday when I finally get to live my life rather than have to be a stupid princess.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” I warn.

“I’m worried about you, Sofe. You have no romance in your soul.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not a compliment.”