Tournament of Ruses

by Kate Stradling

  The cat’s eye brooch seemed like such an innocuous decoration, but if Priscilla knew its meaning, doubtless everyone else did too. Flora deflected. “You can rest assured that’s for a totally unrelated reason.”

  “Which you’re not going to tell me,” Priscilla concluded. She hummed and changed tactics. “All right. What’re you doing for the exhibition, then? I’m playing a flute solo, Gussie is singing, Dot is reciting poetry, and Georgie, of course, will be favoring us all with a number on the harp. Is your talent a great secret?”

  “I’m only submitting a display,” Flora replied.

  During the second week of interviews, the palace had requested that all participants send a preliminary description of their exhibit “to facilitate proper allocation of space and resources.” With the deadline fast descending, Flora had gone with her gut inclination.

  “What sort of display?” Priscilla pressed. “Art? Tatted lace?”

  “Flower arranging,” said Flora.

  Her visitor’s brows arched. “Oh, really?” she said, trying to sound impressed.

  No, not really, Flora wanted to reply, but she didn’t.

  “That’s going to cost you a fortune at this time of year,” Priscilla continued. “The hothouses have all spiked their prices in anticipation of the Prince’s ball.”

  “My display is more of a how-to, not the actual arrangements,” said Flora delicately.

  She hadn’t known who would review the preliminary descriptions, so she had branded hers as flower arranging to keep it from getting rejected. In truth, it was her personal treatise on the botany of a Lenorean garden, and the only flowers in it were drawings. She had recruited Edmund to assist her with that: he inked the pictures, and she added watercolor to them each as he finished. She had seventeen already, and was hoping for twenty-four in all.

  Her paper, too, was shaping up nicely, especially since the appearance of her gardening notebook. She had always wanted to write something on this subject, and the tournament’s exhibition seemed like the perfect excuse.

  Still, she was loath to discuss it with anyone, Priscilla Irvine included.

  “You’re such a funny creature,” that girl remarked. “I can’t quite make heads or tails of you. What do you say to putting on an evening gown and coming with me to Lord Palmer’s?”

  “I can’t,” said Flora. “I declined his invitation.”

  She waved aside this excuse. “They won’t mind an extra, especially if it’s you.”

  “I can’t,” Flora repeated, determined to hold her ground.

  “Charles Moreland will be there.”

  She started but caught herself. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked, even as she could feel the blood rush to her cheeks.

  Priscilla suppressed a laugh. “Oh, just some more rumors, that’s all.”

  “There definitely should not be any rumors connecting me to him,” Flora declared.

  “Why not? Are you and Charles on bad terms?”

  “No. We’re not on any terms at all.”

  That was a lie. Charlie had taken his vow to help her seriously. He stopped by her palace office at least once a day to review her progress and point her to what she should study next. At the same time, though, he never lingered. Flora, already conscious of her vulnerable feelings towards him, was determined to view his service as general kindness and nothing more. It wasn’t “Flora Dalton” he helped, but “the novice guardian,” meaning that he would have done the same for anyone else in her situation.

  “Well, that’s not any fun,” said Priscilla, disappointed. “Can’t you at least try?”

  “Try what?” asked Flora.

  “Try to secure his attentions, of course. I’m sick to death of Georgie hanging all over him at these parties. I’ve had to observe it every night this week so far, and I’ve had enough!”

  A cold despair wrapped around Flora’s heart and squeezed. So Charlie had been attending these nightly parties. Well, why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he laugh, and dance, and flirt with Georgiana Winthrop to his heart’s content? Flora wanted to say something lighthearted, to convey her disinterest, but the words wouldn’t form. So she said something cynical instead.

  “How much longer will that last? Isn’t he supposed to be a lady-killer?”

  Priscilla chuckled. “He used to flirt with everyone equally. Georgie monopolizes him now, though.”

  Understanding dawned upon Flora’s mind, but she almost didn’t want to confirm it. Haltingly she asked, “Priscilla, are you in love with Charles Moreland?”

  “Hah,” said the girl, which was no answer at all. She suddenly stood. “Are you sure you won’t come? It’ll be fun tonight.”

  “I can’t,” Flora reiterated. “Priscilla—”

  “Then I’d better get going before I’m too late to be fashionably so,” she interrupted. “Have a fun evening shut up here in your house, doing whatever it is you do.”

  She clasped Flora’s hand in farewell and move to the door. Flora watched her go in utter confusion.

  Priscilla paused on her way out.

  “I’m six months older than her, you know. I started going to parties first and met him first, but once she appeared that didn’t matter. I wasn’t smitten enough to take it seriously, either. I didn’t get my heart broken, Flora. I just missed an opportunity, that’s all. Or rather, the opportunity was snatched out from beneath me by someone more ambitious. Good night.”

  “Good night,” said Flora faintly.

  She had intended to work on her treatise that evening, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words. She couldn’t concentrate on much of anything, so she went to bed early.

  That despondency hovered over her for the next couple of days. It tainted Charlie’s visits to her office.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked her once.

  “I’m fine,” said Flora quickly.

  He let the subject drop, for which she was grateful. His social life was of no concern to her. She didn’t want a social life. She enjoyed her solitude and isolation.

  Or so she told herself.

  “These are the last of the drawings, Flora.”

  Edmund deposited a set of seven beautifully inked sheets, depicting flowers, leaves, and seed pods for seven separate plants. “Sorry they took me so long. You can color them all over the weekend, can’t you?”

  It was Friday, and the last day of consort interviews. On Monday morning, those with standing displays would set up their assigned area at the Royal Academy’s exhibition hall. In the afternoon, the consort candidates would promenade to the grand opening. The exhibition would last all week, leading up to the ball that marked the conclusion of the tournament.

  “I can finish,” Flora said confidently. “Watercolor doesn’t have to be precise; it’s a very forgiving medium. These look wonderful,” she added as she shuffled through the pages. “You did a beautiful job.”

  Edmund suppressed his instinctive grin and tried to appear humble. She had already written credit to him in her paper so that there was no question of origin. That someone his age could have such a steady, precise hand was a marvel to her, but she supposed that years of practicing magical seals had helped.

  He looked up, his mouth open to speak, but the words caught in his throat. His widening eyes focused on something behind Flora.

  With misgivings, she turned.

  Will stooped in the window, grinning and waving.

  “Oh, for—!” Flora started, and she hurried to let him in. He hadn’t visited her since Viola’s interview. She had used his library to research for her paper, but he wasn’t usually there, either.

  “Hello,” he said now as he hopped into the room, his unfailing good cheer upon his face. “Ed, I wonder if you’d mind looking for Gregor. Could you?”

  Edmund’s face twisted in a frown. “Why? Where’s he gone now?”

  “I haven’t the faintest clue. He keeps disappearing. I wonder if he’s not getting enough exercise, or if
the winter is making him stir-crazy.”

  “He’s probably skulking around the dungeons,” said Edmund as he moved to the door. “I caught him there last week. He likes the dark, I think.”

  “He likes the cover it gives him,” Will remarked. “If you can find him before he causes trouble, I’d be grateful.”

  Edmund answered with a mock military salute and was gone. Will turned his brilliant eyes upon Flora. “What say we have an adventure of our own?”

  She wasn’t going to fall for that again. “I’m expecting Viola any time now.”

  “I already talked to her. She’ll meet us there.”

  “Where?”

  “At the spyhole, of course. It’s the last day of interviews.”

  “I don’t think—” Flora began, but he didn’t let her protest any further.

  “That means the interview of one Georgiana Winthrop,” he coaxed. “Don’t pretend you’re not interested.”

  She snapped her mouth shut, perturbed. Of all the interviews she might want to spy on, Georgiana’s was at the top of the list. Still, “It’s not nice to spy,” she argued.

  “It’s harmless.”

  “Are you going to give away our hiding place again, like last time?”

  “Of course not!”

  “And you swear Viola’s coming?”

  “She may already be there, for all I know. It was practically her idea.”

  That detail threw Flora for a loop. One other point required clarification, though. “What about Charlie?”

  Will waggled his eyebrows knowingly. “Oh, you want him to come too?”

  “No!” said Flora, a little too vehemently. “That is… It seems like he’d be more entitled to watch than I am, and that spyhole isn’t big enough for four people.”

  “We could all squash in if we needed to,” he told her. Then, “Oh, calm your nerves. Charlie’s not coming anywhere near Miss Winthrop’s interview. He wants nothing to do with her.”

  “That’s not what I’ve been hearing,” Flora said cynically.

  “Never trust what you’ve been hearing, especially if it involves a Moreland,” Will retorted. “Look, I promise Charlie’s not coming. He’s assigned to the sentry post outside my apartment as we speak and can’t leave it until after lunchtime. You won’t get in trouble.”

  She could flounder for another excuse not to go, but there was no point. “All right,” she said, and she picked up a language book to bring with her, for appearances if nothing else.

  “You and Charlie are getting along these days, aren’t you?” Will inquired as she locked her office door.

  She spared him a wary glance. “I guess so.”

  “It’s not a bad thing, you know. Charlie’s a good guy.”

  “When he wants to be,” said Flora.

  Will hummed. “That could be said of any of us. Besides, if he’s been surly at all, it’s probably more my fault than his.”

  Flora stared up at him in bewilderment. “How’s that?”

  He put his hands in his pockets and ambled up the hall alongside her. “Let’s put it this way: before this whole tournament business came up, can you guess who the darling of the town was?”

  She frowned. “Georgiana?”

  “The male darling,” Will clarified.

  “Oh. I suppose it was Charlie.”

  He tapped his nose in acknowledgement. “So there he was, beloved of everyone, the center of attention at every function he went to, the most eligible bachelor in the country, and with one simple request, I shattered all of it—not on purpose, of course. I mean, there’s no one for me but Viola, so it’s not even like Charlie and I could ever be true rivals, but in an instant I became his rival, a rival he’d never anticipated. Every girl that had been batting her eyelashes at him suddenly turned her attention toward me. It can’t be nice, realizing that people favored you because of your status rather than from any true interest in you as a person.”

  “It isn’t,” said Flora knowingly. She’d experienced that variety of favor from the moment she arrived in the city. That didn’t excuse Charlie’s hot-and-cold behavior toward her, but it at least explained it, in some measure.

  “Well, so it’s made him a bit more cynical.”

  “Flirting with Georgiana Winthrop at evening parties is not my definition of cynical,” said Flora impulsively.

  “He’s a Moreland,” said Will. “They’re two-faced by nature, with the exception of Viola, who’s so honest that she makes up for the rest of them combined. Just remember, Flora: no man with an ounce of pride meekly returns to the woman who jilted him for greener pastures. If Georgiana Winthrop thinks Charlie’s happy with being second choice, she’s in for a rude awakening.”

  She mulled over this all the way to the spyhole. “Do you mean he’s intentionally leading her on?” she inquired at last. “That’s not very nice of him.”

  “She’s the one who’s vying to become someone else’s husband,” Will replied pragmatically, and Flora could hardly argue against that.

  They descended the dark stairs to the hidden nook. True to Will’s assertion, Viola already waited within. She motioned them to keep quiet as they entered.

  “Are we too late?” Will whispered as he settled next to her.

  “She just came in,” Viola whispered back.

  Flora sat on her other side and peered down into the room. Georgiana Winthrop exuded grace and confidence as she sat before the committee. Lord Winthrop, her father, reviewed her file.

  “Miss Winthrop,” he began, a note of indulgence in his voice, “I see here that you claim many friends among the noble families of Lenore. Do you find that those friendships have wavered at all during this competition so far?”

  Flora could not totally contain her scoff. Where was the criminal interrogation of precious Georgiana? But then, had she really expected such a thing?

  “No, not one whit,” Georgiana replied. “We’ve all been very encouraging of each other. It’s not a matter of competition really, for whomever the Prince chooses must remember her friends, and her friends must support her in return. It’s a matter of loyalty, to country and to one another.”

  “Hear that?” the Prince whispered in Viola’s ear. “You have to remember Flora.”

  She shoved him away with a smothered laugh. Flora contemplated whether Georgiana’s interview was worth the price of sharing space with a pair of lovebirds.

  “Miss Winthrop,” said one of the lords below, “if the Eternal Prince were to choose you as his consort, what would you foresee as your role in that office?”

  Flora had received a similar question in her interview. She perked with interest to hear Georgiana’s response.

  “Naturally, the consort will become a jewel of the nation, someone for the women of Lenore to emulate, much like the Prime Minister’s wife.”

  Mrs. Moreland looked up from her notes, a blank expression on her face. Georgiana favored her with a simpering smile.

  “That was a mistake,” said Viola. “Mother hates it when people put her on a pedestal because of who she married.”

  “She deserves a pedestal,” Will replied. “Your father’s a menace.”

  Viola elbowed him. Flora pointedly focused on Georgiana.

  “Do you feel qualified to have the women of Lenore emulate you?” asked one of the interviewers curiously.

  Georgiana’s eyelashes fluttered demurely. “I try to be a good example. Refinement is evidence of a noble character. And I must say, my influence among my peers has been positive. Why, just recently, I took a newcomer under my wing and nursed her in the ways of society. I do not need to say her name, for you have already met with her, but she has gained great favor with the town, and even with the Prince himself, from what I’ve heard. I won’t claim total credit, of course, but I did polish her from quite a dowdy thing.”

  “Is she talking about me?” Flora asked in a dangerous voice.

  Viola saw her rising wrath and quickly laid a comforting hand on her arm.
“Pay her remarks no heed, Flora.”

  “I think that one’s made your mother angry, too, Viola,” said Will.

  This observation snapped Flora from her rage. She had been close to screaming, which would have been a disaster. As she inspected Mrs. Moreland now, though, she could see no evidence of anger on that woman’s face, but only her customary impassiveness.

  It was Elizabeth Moreland’s turn to ask a question. “Miss Winthrop,” she said. Her fellow committee members slouched.

  Georgiana straightened in anticipation. “Yes?”

  “In the event of an invasion from the Empire of Melanthos, how would you as consort assist with the Lenorean resistance?”

  Silence blanketed the room. Georgiana blinked and faltered. “Wh-what?”

  “What sort of a question is that?” Lord Winthrop interjected. “You’re supposed to ask about her favorite dessert!”

  “You advised me to vary my questions, did you not?” Mrs. Moreland replied innocently.

  He puffed up like a bullfrog. “At this point in the interviews? We have only a handful left! Mrs. Moreland, if you are singling out my daughter—”

  “It’s a legitimate question, Lord Winthrop,” Mrs. Moreland interrupted, “and much more substantive than asking a candidate’s opinion on the strength of her friendships, or whether she deems herself a good example. But if you think it unfair, or if Miss Winthrop does not feel up to answering, I will withdraw it.”

  Lord Winthrop glared daggers.

  “I—” said Georgiana haltingly.

  “Miss Winthrop, what is your favorite dessert?” asked Mrs. Moreland with a falsely sweet tone of voice.

  “I—” Georgiana said again, and she looked to her father appealingly.

  “I take it back,” Will whispered to Viola. “Your mother doesn’t deserve a pedestal. She’s a menace too!”

  Flora was inclined to agree. The unexpected question—on foreign policy, of all things—had thrown Georgiana off her stride. She stumbled over her answer to the simple dessert question and never quite regained her balance through the rest of the interview. A tense atmosphere stretched across the banquet hall; the only one who seemed wholly unaffected was Mrs. Moreland, who had caused it.