“Poor Mr. Pudding,” said Eve, one night in early August, at the pavilion. They had danced until their slippers had been worn to pieces, and now sat in a circle on the floor, exhausted. When they had come to the pavilion that night, streamers lay on the floor, and they spent the next several hours dancing among ribbons.
“He nearly started crying this morning,” Eve continued, “when we came late and wouldn’t eat breakfast, because it was cold.”
“Poo on Mr. Pudding!” said Delphinium, who was often cranky when she was tired. Azalea, on the other hand, helped the girls to their feet, nudging the younger ones awake and scooping a sleeping Lily into her arms.
“We have been staying out too late,” she said. “We’ll have to be more attentive.” She slipped her hand into her skirt pocket for Lord Bradford’s watch, to see the hour. Azalea kept the watch in her pocket every night, checking it from time to time, always taking the girls back before it grew too late. It was easy, however, to forget about the time when the pavilion spun around them. Azalea dug into her skirt pocket a littler harder, and found nothing but a thimble.
“Bramble, have you seen the watch?”
“Me? No.” Bramble yawned.
“Has anyone seen the watch?”
The girls only answered with blinky, sleepy eyes. Anxiety seizing her throat, Azalea paced the dance floor, searching the marble, wondering if it had fallen from her pocket during the ribboned mazurka. She couldn’t just lose the watch like that—it wasn’t hers!
Azalea turned again, and this time the weighty, dark form of Mr. Keeper stood in the entrance, a silhouette of roguish ease. His hands cupped around an object, holding it close to his nose. Eyes closed, he inhaled deeply, as though breathing it in. Azalea caught a glimpse of gold between his long black fingers.
“Mr. Keeper!” said Azalea, relief washing over her. She strode to the entrance. “You found it!”
Mr. Keeper’s eyes snapped open, sharply black. Sighting Azalea, the sharpness diminished, and a flicker of a smile appeared. He lowered his hands. The watch, fob, and chain nestled in his gloved palms.
“Yes,” he said smoothly. “It had clattered to the edge here. Forgive me.”
Azalea made to pluck it from his hands, but his fingers closed on the watch, and he pulled back.
“Mr. Keeper,” said Azalea.
“Such a fine clock,” he said softly. “It belongs to your gentleman?”
Azalea’s breath caught from her throat to her chest, and her heart thumped in her corset. At the lattice beside them, the leaves rustled in the unfeelable breeze.
“Not…mine,” Azalea stammered. “Please, Mr. Keeper, if I could have it back—”
Mr. Keeper reached out and brought her hand to his. Azalea gasped; the press of his fingers seemed to touch her core. He felt so solid. It both thrilled and frightened her. Turning her palm upward, he placed the watch and chain in her shaking hand and curled her fingers over it. His hands lingered upon hers.
Then, in a silky movement, he released her hand and bowed them out, so quickly Azalea couldn’t recall even going over the bridge. She clasped the watch in her hand so hard the gold ornament curls imprinted her hand through her glove.
Several hours later, when her heartbeat had slowed to its normal pace, and Azalea didn’t blush every time she thought of Mr. Keeper’s hands on hers, she turned up the lamp on the round table in their room, retrieved a bit of newspaper from under her bed, and sat on a pouf, studying both the watch and the paper.
The Delchastrian war had had two battles in the past month, which worried them all. Between lessons and meals, and now slipper mending and sleep, Azalea read the Herald aloud to the girls. Worry etched in their faces. Afterward Azalea would have them tear and roll old tablecloth fabric for bandages.
This past week, however, the girls had squealed with delight over the paper. Azalea’s name was mentioned in Lady Aubrey’s gossip column. Lady Aubrey wrote the “Height of Society” news, which, in Eathesbury, usually involved a discussion on why Lady Caversham and Minister Fairweller would be such a fine match. Mother had never approved of Lady Aubrey’s column, and Azalea did not either—in theory. She couldn’t help but be interested this past week, when she was the subject.
“It looks like Lady Aubrey’s given up on Fairweller,” said Bramble, teasing and holding the paper just out of Azalea’s reach. “Look who she’s slated to be your fine gentleman.”
Azalea managed to grab the paper from Bramble’s hands, and the girls read over her shoulder. Lady Aubrey wrote of a Delchastrian gentleman, one dripping with lands and railways, who had the most unfortunate surname: Haftenravenscher. She spoke of what a marvelous match it would be economically, and had even interviewed him:
Lord Haftenravenscher states, “I think it would be corking to meet the princesses! I say, did you hear their palace was magic? It must be corking to live there. Our mums were great friends, ages ago! Like sisters! I say—it was a rum blow to hear the news. What a piece of you that takes. I say.”
The rest of the article followed more or less the same, with a lot of “I say”s.
Delphinium giggled at the paper. “Imagine having that surname! Azalea Haften-rafen-what?”
Bramble rolled her eyes and slipped the paper from Azalea’s hands.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said, rolling it up and tapping Delphinium on the head with it. “Someone as rich as him would never bother with us. Read the article. We’re just sport to him.”
Azalea ran her fingers through her long auburn hair, feeling a touch unwell. Bramble was right, of course. In fact, if there would be an arrangement between her and Lord Haftenravenscher, he would probably resent her for being penniless. It all felt like an ill-timed dance of accidents.
Still, Lady Aubrey’s column was not the reason she had kept the paper. On page three, where the captains and conditions of each regiment had been listed, Azalea found Lord Bradford’s name—Captain Bradford’s name—and although there hadn’t been any more information than that, she had pored over the type, worrying the paper until her fingertips were black. Now she considered the watch, tracing the gold ornamental swirls.
Your gentleman. Why would Mr. Keeper have guessed such a thing? If anyone had seen the watch, they would have guessed was it the King’s. How Mr. Keeper knew it belonged to a gentleman, not her gentleman, naturally, but a gentleman…. That was…unsettling. The glint in his eyes, just before they met hers…
Azalea gripped the pocket watch, suddenly feeling protective. They had kept it too long as it was. When Lord Bradford came back from the war, she promised herself, she would give it back.
CHAPTER 10
The end of summer brought warm rains that pattered against the draped windows and scents of lilac wafting from the gardens. The girls by now knew everything from a ladies’ chain, to an Eathesburian quadrille, to dance positions one through four, and every galop ever invented.
One hot day near the end of August, when the girls were enjoying tea in the cellar among the crates of potatoes, Eve burst through the door, flushed and breathless and waving the paper about in the air.
“Look,” she managed to say between breaths. “Look!”
They looked.
“The war!” cried Azalea.
“It’s over!” said Bramble, gaping and smiling at the same time.
“Over!” the girls echoed.
“A victory!”
“Huzzah!”
The younger girls hopped around in a quasi-reel, crying, “Huzzah! Huzzah!” in squeaky, excited voices, and kicking up dirt.
Azalea pored over the headlines and articles, heart fluttering so quickly she thought it would burst. It had ended with a battle; Azalea raked the front page, and then the ones after, searching for any familiar names among the wounded.
“Anyone we know?” said Bramble. “Anyone…at all?”
“No,” said Azalea, relief sweeping over her. “No.”
Everyone exhaled.
“Not tha
t we cared, naturally,” said Bramble.
“Naturally,” said Delphinium.
“I mean, I certainly don’t.”
“Neither do I.”
“It’s over!”
The paper changed so many hands that day that it became wrinkled and curled. Mrs. Graybe made cinnamon bread, a treat they could only afford on holidays, and Mr. Pudding walked about the palace, singing “Huzzah” in wheezing, out-of-tune tones. The Harold Herald, alive with news of the war, even printed an extra edition the next day, and among the news of the front page, the girls discovered that Minister Fairweller had been wounded. Clover, so tenderhearted, cried.
“Oh, he’s probably all right,” said Bramble. “It would take a lot to kill him. Like garlic and a stake through the heart.”
Clover still cried. That was Clover for you.
All of Eathesbury seemed to spring with life now the war was over. Gentlemen came and left the palace on Royal Business, speaking with Mr. Pudding about regiments and ships returning to port. Minister Fairweller was the first of these to arrive, striding into the palace on a sunny Tuesday morning.
He did not extend any greeting to them, in typical Fairweller fashion, but instead went straightaway to the library to sort through paperwork. To the horror and utter fascination of them all, he had a red, raw wound that extended from beneath his collar up the side of his neck, reaching his ear. It was bandaged, but a rust red mark had soaked through. He winced whenever he turned his head.
Clover, flaring pink with indignation, stormed into the library with a steaming kettle of ginger tea and a teacup, and set them both hard on the King’s desk.
“You,” she said. “You—you—you—you drink this! At once!”
Clover was so very rarely angry that this was both amusing and frightening. Fairweller paused in his paperwork and blinked at her, which made Clover even angrier.
“Three cups,” she said, pouring the tea and thrusting it into his hands. “Three cups, at least! Have you seen the doctor? Well? Drink it!”
Fairweller drank.
He was not used to being ordered about, Azalea supposed. He lived alone in his austere manor. Clover folded her arms and watched him with pursed lips as he meekly sipped the tea. He almost looked like a frightened schoolboy. The girls watched from the doorway of the library.
“Will the King be home soon, Minister?” said Flora, the first to dare a question. She raised a finger, as though she were in lessons.
“He should arrive within three weeks,” said Fairweller, smelling the tea and cringing. “He remained behind to see to the regiments. If you had written him, you would have known this already.”
The girls flared up with indignation.
“We haven’t written him?” said Bramble, her ears red. “He hasn’t written us!”
“Yes.” Fairweller took a sip of the strong-smelling tea. “Your family is very interesting.”
Fairweller wasn’t the only gentleman to arrive. Several days later, among the exciting come-and-go of Royal Business, Azalea followed humming noises, and discovered a tall, thin young gentleman in the portrait gallery. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, and he bobbed on the balls of his feet.
The portrait gallery was a long hall, with windows along one side and oil paintings along the other. It was a hall reserved for visitors and guests, with sofas so fine that if one sneezed ten paces away, they would stain. The girls weren’t allowed to touch them. Velvet ropes blocked glass cases of government documents, standing on pedestals in the middle of the room. The gentleman, next to one of them, caught sight of Azalea, and he brightened.
“Oh, hulloa!” he said, in a strong Delchastrian accent. “I say! Hulloa!”
“Hu—I mean, hello,” said Azalea. He reminded her of a long, stretchy piece of taffy wearing a checkered waistcoat. She stared at his offensively green bow tie.
“I say! Are you the princesses?” He beamed as Clover, Delphinium, and all the younger girls arrived behind Azalea. “I’ve heard stories! Spiffing to meet you, just spiffing!” He strode to Azalea, grasped her hand, and shook it vigorously, as though she was a gentleman.
The younger girls giggled and whispered to one another behind their hands. Azalea pushed a smile and tugged her hand away, feeling slightly defeminized.
Bramble arrived at the gallery door, pink cheeked, her thin lips turned in a grin. Several pins had fallen out of her deep red hair, giving it a slightly tumbled appearance. She worked to pin a strand back.
The gentleman’s eyes caught her, and his smile faded.
“I say,” he said.
Bramble’s grin disappeared when she spotted the gangly fellow.
“Who the devil are you?” she said.
“Um, Lord Teddie,” he said, scrunching his hat rim between his fingers. “Um, our mothers were chums. They did watercolor together. Ages ago. They were like sisters. So, that, you know, makes us, um, cousins. Um. Except, actually, we’re not.”
Bramble’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh, so you’re Lord Haftenravenscher,” she said.
Lord Teddie beamed. “Oh, well done,” he said. “You said it right. Except everyone calls me Lord Teddie, Haftenravenscher is such a mouthful, I know it is. So you can call me Lord Teddie. Rolls off the tongue. Teddie Teddie! Haha.”
“We’re not allowed visitors in mourning,” said Bramble. “Especially those who think they’re on holiday.”
Her tone was so cold, it made the smile slide from Lord Teddie’s face. Instantly, however, it was back, and accompanied with a bounciness to his feet.
“Oh, I’m not visiting!” he said. “Strictly R.B., that’s me! Ha! Rhyme. I say, is this one your mother?”
He waved his hat to the small picture of Mother hanging on the wall. The Wentworth family only owned one portrait of her, painted when Azalea was little. They hadn’t had the money to commission a conservatory painter, and so had gotten something that sort of looked like Mother, if you squinted and turned your head. Azalea was surprised the King hadn’t locked it away. Every other stitch of dress, jewelry, and hair comb had been locked in trunks, then locked again in Mother’s room.
Lord Teddie peered at the portrait through squinted eyes.
“It sort of looks like her,” he said. “But it hasn’t got zing. The light. In her eyes.”
Azalea tilted her head, nonplussed. The girls cast one another glances.
“You knew her?” said Eve.
“Oh, great muffins,” he said, bouncing up and down again. “Everyone knew your mother. I knew her before she boffed off to Eathesbury! Met her at one of Mother’s balls. She taught me a bit of the Entwine, you know. I was five.”
“You were five?” cried Hollyhock, tugging at his hand. “You weren’t of age and they let you go to a ball?”
“Crumbs, yes! Best way to learn how to dance, I say!”
The younger girls crowded about Lord Teddie, hopping with eagerness. Azalea groaned inwardly, thinking of the headache she would have explaining to the girls that they still wouldn’t be allowed at balls until they were fifteen.
Lord Teddie took the attention, the tugs on the suitcoat, and the pestering questions with a great bashful grin.
“Well,” he said, ducking his head a bit shyly before plucking the picture from the wall. “I suppose I ought to go, then. Before the cab leaves without me, anyway. Unless, you know, you wanted to…invite me to dinner, or something.”
“Oh, stay for dinner!” the younger ones peeped.
“What are you doing with Mother’s portrait?” said Bramble.
Lord Teddie’s face turned a bright shade of red, looking at the portrait tucked beneath his arm, then to Bramble, then back to the portrait.
“Um,” he said. “Nothing.”
“You’re taking it!” Bramble’s eyes flared a bright yellow. Azalea knew that look. She grabbed at Bramble’s hand, hoping to pull her back before Bramble’s mouth whipped like a viper.
“No—no—no—” Lord Teddie backed away, usin
g the portrait as a shield. “I mean—well, yes, I am, but—well, look, I have permission!”
Still holding up the portrait, he fished in his suitcoat and brought out a folded note. Bramble snatched it from his hand and read it. Her thin red eyebrows arched above her forehead.
“No,” she said. “He wouldn’t—”
Azalea took the crumpled note from her and read the King’s stiff, formal penmanship. It was addressed to Mr. Pudding. Short, concise. It dictated that the gentleman would be taking Mother’s portrait.
That was all.
It occurred to Azalea, through the mist of shock and disappointment, that she should have expected this. With everything else of Mother’s out of sight, it was only a matter of time before the portrait was gone, too. Perhaps they were even lucky, in that someone rich was willing to buy it.
“You’re really going to take it!” Bramble’s eyes blazed. She clenched her fists and bore in on the gentleman. “Everything else of Mother’s is locked away; we don’t have anything left! How could you come in here—and—and do such a thing? You have no soul!”
Lord Teddie cowered.
“Toodle pip,” he said, and bounded off.
Bramble charged after him in a flurry of black skirts and crinolines. The girls followed at a bound, hoping to catch up. Lord Teddie’s long legs sent him flying out the entrance hall door before they even reached the mezzanine. He barreled into the waiting cab’s door, losing his hat, and the carriage was off in a spatter of gravel.
His head peeked above the back window in time to see Bramble throw his silk hat to the ground, and grind it into the gravel with the heel of her boot.
That night at the pavilion the girls didn’t dance. Instead they sat in a circle and spoke in low voices. It didn’t hurt so much, somehow, when they whispered. Above them, the invisible orchestra played soft, soothing gavottes.
“I know it didn’t look like her,” said Bramble, in a hollow voice. Her venom had dwindled to weariness. “I can’t believe he would just take it. I can’t believe the King would let anyone take it.”
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