“God forbid. I don’t want to look like Princess Mary. I’d perish if I had a complexion like hers.”

Lavender? Rose thought. What she needs is Clean and Pure acne cream. Or better still, Zitbegone.

“You don’t think half a cup would be too strong, do you?”

“No, probably not.”

“Do you ever get spots, Rose?”

“Oh yes, sometimes, milady. No escaping it, I guess.”

“What do you do?”

“Uh . . . well . . .”

“Well what?” the princess snapped as she swung her legs over the side of her bed. “Slippers, please.”

“They’re right there, milady.”

“What do you mean right there? They are at least half a foot to the right. I like my slippers directly under my feet when I prepare to climb out of bed,” the princess snapped. Imperious!

“Imperious” had been on Rose’s spelling list in school. They had to write sentences using five of the ten words that they were tested on. She had skipped “imperious” because she couldn’t think of a sentence. Well, she could now!

“Yes, milady. Sorry, milady.”

“Now tell me, what do you do about spots?”

What in the world was she going to say? She had to think fast.

“Well, milady, I make a paste.”

“With what?”

“Lavender’s part of it, and a little salt, and . . . and . . .”

“And what?”

Rose glanced at the huge fireplace. “Ashes.” Genius, she thought. She had learned that in fourth grade when they were studying the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims made soap out of lye and animal fat and ashes. That must have been . . . oh darn . . . when did the Pilgrims come to America? Sixteen something? It was 1620, that was the date! And what was it now? She had looked up Elizabeth’s birth date online. It was September 7, 1533. And Franny had told her that Elizabeth was ten or eleven. So it must be around 1544. So yes, 1544 was seventy-six years before 1620. Still, soap with ashes could have been invented. But Rose thought they should use it a little more on other parts of their body and not simply their faces. Royal or not, hygiene totally sucked here.

“Kindly make some up for me tout de suite!”

“Tout de suite?”

“Yes, immediately. That’s French.”

“You speak French?”

“And Italian.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You know, you say ‘really’ quite a bit. I think you could expand your vocabulary.”

Rose gasped. Things were too weird. Hadn’t her grandmother just said that to her?

“Why are you looking at me like that, girl?”

“It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Well, tout de suite with the lavender paste.”