Kale inhaled a deep, sputtering breath and let out an ear-ripping scream.
“You terrible man!” cried Eve above Kale’s screams, leaping to her stockings. “How dare you!”
Mr. Hyette laughed even more heartily. “You have very dainty ankles,” he said.
Azalea snatched up her boots and stockings from the jumbled pile and marched straight to the palace, crossing over the grass and through the bushes. The girls ran after, leaving a trail of water. Mr. Hyette laughed and strolled after them.
“Your Majesty!” Azalea shrieked when they reached the kitchen. “Your Ma-jes-ty!” Combined with Kale’s screams and the girls’ angry voices, the entire racket echoed throughout the palace.
The King emerged from the library, paperwork in hand, eyebrows furrowed.
“Well, what is it, what is it?” he said crossly. “Can you not let me work for five minutes at a time?”
The girls burst into angry cries. Kale let out another piercing shriek.
“Him—him—him—” said Delphinium, pointing a shaking finger at Mr. Hyette, who laughed still. “He—he—him!”
“He—he—he was spying on us!”
“And we weren’t even wearing our boots!”
“Or even our stockings!”
Thumpfwhap. The King threw Mr. Hyette up against the paneling. Mr. Hyette’s head slammed against the wainscot.
Kale stopped midscream, hiccupped, and giggled.
“Mr. Hyette!” said the King.
Mr. Hyette struggled against the King’s steel grip.
“Ow,” he said. “I say, ow!”
The King yanked Mr. Hyette from the wall and grabbed him by the scruff of his fluffy cravat. He handled Mr. Hyette out the entrance hall doors, slamming them behind him. Outside, gravel scuffled.
“I say,” said Bramble, in an impeccable impersonation of Mr. Hyette. “I say, I say! I say—this Royal Business could actually be quite a lot of fun!”
CHAPTER 16
Mr. Hyette set sail that evening, with his limbs still intact. Azalea was glad the King didn’t challenge him to a duel. The King was old-fashioned like that, and Azalea sincerely didn’t think Mr. Hyette deserved a bullet in his arm.
It did mean, however, that the girls had to stay inside the next two days. They stubbornly ate meals in their room, and between lessons Azalea had them help her search through the attics for the sugar teeth. “Searching” consisted of Azalea bossing the girls into rifling through the old trunks and dusty hatboxes, which they did with loud complaints. Whenever Azalea turned away, they ran off.
Instead, in preparation for the next gentleman, they made a List of Kingly Qualities. It included things such as “Nice to sisters” and “Gives sisters presents.” The list was four pages long by the time the second gentleman, a Mr. Oswald from the Delchastrian university, came.
He arrived with stacks of books, inkwells, and a general good-natured air that did not mind if the girls flocked to him and teased him about his bushy muttonchops.
“He is writing a book,” said the King, following them out into the sunny, crisp gardens. “About the gardens here. We have two of his books already. Library, north side, O. What say you, Miss Azalea? Does he pass that list of your sisters’?”
Azalea cocked her head. Was the King actually teasing her?
“He’ll have to shave,” she said, deciding to take his lead.
“And what,” said the King, stroking his own close-trimmed beard, “is wrong with whiskers?”
Azalea laughed, surprised at the King’s uncharacteristic funning.
Dinner was different, too, with the girls bringing in flowers for the centerpiece, teasing Mr. Oswald, and chattering on about the gardens over fish stew. The King asked them how their day went, and they answered shyly that it had been very fine. Azalea asked him how his hand was, and he sucked in his cheeks, raised his bandaged hand, and wiggled his fingers in response. Dinner didn’t progress so differently than it did when they had eaten with him before, but it was…nice. Something twisted inside Azalea. She had missed eating as a family.
In his three days’ stay, Mr. Oswald toured the gardens and scribbled in his notebook while the younger girls plucked snapdragons and pansies to show him. He was fascinated with the lilac labyrinth, the fountains, and the midnight flower clock, ringed about with stepping stones. The King remained in the gardens, too. He brought all of his work, inkwells, papers, blotters, and set them on a stone bench, stubbornly keeping sight of them all. He worked over papers while the girls took tea underneath canopies of ivy and honeysuckle, the fresh breeze ruffling their hair and dresses.
At night, Azalea pinned the soft blooming flowers into the younger girls’ hair, and they crowded in front of the vanity, trying to catch a glimpse of their reflections in the small mirror.
The next gentleman came as Azalea sorted underneath the beds in their room, searching for the sugar teeth and only turning up dust, buttons, and several dead spiders. She abandoned her search to tend to the gentleman, reluctantly.
It was Mr. Penbrook, from the Yuletide. Still moist, too. A thin sheen of sweat glazed his face. While they took tea that afternoon in the gardens, he talked, and talked, and talked about parliament, passing bills, and how much his estates brought in. Bramble stood behind him and pretended to pour tea on his head.
Eventually the girls scarpered off with the cheese, and Bramble made to follow them into the blossoming foliage.
“Wait,” said Azalea, nearly overturning her wicker chair. She grabbed Bramble’s hand. “We haven’t finished searching the room.”
“Oh, really, Az,” said Bramble, pulling her hand away. “We have plenty of time. If we find them now, that’s the less time we have to dance in mourning.”
“But what if we don’t find them before Christmas?”
“Oh, they’ll turn up,” said Bramble, smiling brightly. “Ready to massacre the next person. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will be him.”
From his wicker chair, Mr. Penbrook smiled at both of them. A vague, clueless smile.
“Don’t leave me,” said Azalea. “Please.”
Bramble dipped into a flowing gracious-to-leave-you curtsy, her thin strand of balance infuriatingly perfect. Then she took off into the bushes.
“Miss Azalea!” said Mr. Penbrook. He grasped her hand. “We are finally alone! It is fate!”
“Mr. Penbrook!” said Azalea, trying to twist her gloved hand from his grip. “Really!”
“I am quite taken with you, Miss Azalea!” he said.
“Oh, honestly,” said Azalea. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore. Please let go.”
Mr. Penbrook released her hand, but he remained smiling his wet smile. Azalea peered past his face and even past the King, who stared at Mr. Penbrook with narrowed eyes, and saw the purple-flowered hedges in the distance.
“Mr. Penbrook,” said Azalea, standing. “Do take a turn through the gardens with me.”
Mr. Penbrook bounded to his feet. Azalea ran against the breeze to the lilac labyrinth. The thick smell of lilac dizzied her, and she had to duck beneath the hanging branches as she ran.
“Hurry now, Mr. Penbrook,” said Azalea, turning through the twisted, leafy tunnels. “You’ve got to keep up!”
“Ah, I see! Ha ha! This is perfect, my lady! Ah…princess…you are going a bit fast—”
“Come along, Mr. Penbrook!”
“Princess? Princess Azalea? Hello?”
Guilt reamed through Azalea as she finished searching the bedroom by herself. She knew she shouldn’t have done it. Unfortunately Mr. Penbrook was the sort of gentleman Mother had told her about. You could poison their horses, steal their pins, set their manors on fire, chop off their fingers, and they would still think you the sweetest little thing.
After dark fell, Azalea sent Mr. Pudding to fetch him. Mr. Penbrook arrived at the dining room, dazed, twigs in his hair, and smiled broadly at Azalea. Azalea groaned inwardly.
The next morning Mr. Penbrook did not
show up to breakfast. Azalea discovered that the King had sent him to write a forty-two-page report on the bridge conditions in Hannover. Both relieved and shy at this, Azalea helped Mrs. Graybe make basted chicken for dinner—the King’s favorite dish—and decided that having meals with him these next few weeks wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“So far we’ve been through eight gentlemen,” said Eve, one night several weeks later, at the pavilion. They retied their dance slippers, now coming apart at the seams, and sat on the floor in a ring. It was early morning, and the youngest ones had fallen asleep, little lumps on the side sofas, and everyone was yawning, signaling to Azalea that it was time to gather up the flock and go to bed.
“Eight gentlemen,” Eve continued, “and something’s been not quite right with every single one of them.”
“Oh, they’ve been all right,” said Azalea, wiggling her toes. She could see a bit of pink through the torn seam. These past few weeks had been a flurry of activity, with dukes and counts and even a viceroy arriving in very fine carriages. Viscount Scantlebury had even helped her look—unsuccessfully—for the sugar teeth in the cellar, and Sir Dietrich had actually been interesting to talk to. Azalea thought they were all nice—though not in a heart-twisting, breath-catching way. “They’ve all been awfully polite,” she said, as though to make up for not fancying them.
“You’re only saying that,” said Bramble, “because you’re too nice. We’ve found plenty of problems with them. Eve?”
Eve brought out a folded piece of stationery with the gentlemen’s names on it, and scrawled ink comments next to each one.
“Duke Orlington.”
“Had a wince. Next.”
“Baron Rosenthal.”
“Ha! He ate more than Ivy!”
“Oh, really,” said Azalea. “That’s not a good reason to discount—”
“Marquis DeLange,” Eve continued.
“Ugh, he was shorter than all of us!”
“That’s not—” said Azalea, but then changed her mind. It, actually, was.
“Anyway, the point is,” said Bramble, waving Eve’s piece of stationery away and smoothing her skirts primly over the marble. “None of them have been good enough for you.”
“Azalea,” said Delphinium. She sat on the marble across from Azalea, and leaned in to whisper, resting her elbows on the floor. “What about…you know…”
Azalea immediately colored, thinking of a gentleman with soft brown eyes.
“Keeper,” Delphinium finished. She bit her lip and looked around, her light blue eyes flickering with fear, as though afraid Keeper might have heard, then turned back to Azalea with a devilish sort of grin.
“Keeper?” said Azalea. “No, thank you!”
But the girls all now had wicked little grins across their faces, and Azalea cringed. She recognized those looks, and they said “merciless teasing.” Azalea had put up with quite a bit of that for the past several weeks, as the gardens turned from greens and purples to golds and reds and yellows. While the younger girls fought for seats next to the gentlemen at the dinner table, Delphinium drew pictures of what Azalea’s children would look like if she married them, and Bramble kicked her under the table to make her squeak.
“Keeper,” Bramble said in a syrupy voice, grinning. “Have you met anyone so blasted handsome?”
“Hush,” said Azalea through her teeth. “He can probably hear you!”
“And so dashing,” said Bramble, though her tone was a touch lower.
“And so perfect.”
“I’ve never seen anyone with such…fingers,” said Goldenrod.
Everyone paused.
“Well, yes, his fingers, too,” said Bramble. She stood with a flourish and made the other girls get up, forming a ring around Azalea. Azalea groaned. This was a parlor-game dance, one where the person in the middle was the ball, and the girls “threw” her to each other, each with something to say.
“So suppose Azalea finds the sugar teeth after all,” said Bramble, taking Azalea by the shoulders and spinning her. Azalea rolled her eyes but obliged, and let her feet turn beneath her. A slight push, and Azalea spun to Delphinium.
“She breaks them,” said Delphinium, catching Azalea and pushing her to Hollyhock in a spin, a ball with skirts.
“Snap!” said Hollyhock.
Azalea flinched. Hollyhock fumbled to spin her to Bramble again.
“And in a burst of fireworks, he emerges from the passage! Burst!”
She pushed Azalea to Eve. Eve stopped Azalea from spinning, and paused.
“What then, though?” she said. “Keeper can’t have anywhere to go.”
“Well,” said Bramble, her grin fading. “I suppose he’ll try to court and marry Az. He likes her best.”
Azalea paused, wondering how it would feel to be pressed up against Keeper, his long fingers cradling her head, his lips touching hers. If he kissed as well as he danced…
Her face burned like mad. She cast a fervid glance at the entrance, praying Keeper couldn’t see her.
“He arrives at the palace doors, on a fine black horse,” Delphinium prompted, picking up Bramble’s lost thread, and Eve spun her again, “silver flowers in his hand—”
“And the King opens the door—” squeaked Flora, who caught Azalea.
And then, everyone stopped. Azalea’s skirts twisted, then settled. It occurred to all of them what would happen next.
“And boxes Keeper straight in the face,” Azalea finished.
Everyone managed to giggle, though it was true. Azalea shook her head, smiling.
“Well,” said Eve as they gathered the sleeping girls up from their cushions. “It would be odd if you married him anyway.”
“Aye,” said Bramble. “Your children would be disappearing all over the place.”
As they left, Keeper appeared at the arched entrance, bowing them out. When Azalea thanked him, his long fingers twitched. Azalea wondered if he had heard the whole thing. In a fleeting moment, she almost wished the King did know about Keeper. He had eyes that seemed to see everything.
Still, it wasn’t just Keeper the King would certainly dislike. The King surveyed all the gentlemen who came to the palace with that freezing-ice look he was known for. When December dawned, crisp and cold, curling the garden leaves with frost, the King used a look just as frigid on Viscount Duquette. Viscount Duquette had only been invited because he was a university fellow, which the King seemed to prefer. But Viscount Duquette, handsome, well educated, graying at the sides, had come for one reason only: Clover.
“Your beauty has reached somewhat legendary status, where I am from,” he said over a dinner of hot soup and rolls. He raised his wine glass to Clover, who blushed to shame. “I am pleased to see the rumors were no exaggeration. To fine beauty, my lady, to romance, and to stories of golden hair.”
The King threw Viscount Duquette out.
Doomed to be stuck inside for the next two days, the girls bickered and snapped at one another, and Clover looked close to tears. She cast longing glances through the curtains to the gardens, then would turn away quickly.
Lately she had been helping Old Tom clip and bundle the plants before the snow came, but Azalea hadn’t thought she enjoyed it that much.
“It’s all my fault,” she said, when they prepared tea in the scrubbed kitchen. “If I hadn’t—”
“What, been born pretty?” said Bramble. She swished the water in the kettle. “This is why we need to watch out for each other. Az knows.”
“We can use the extra time inside to look for the sugar teeth,” said Azalea.
The girls groaned.
Bread and cheese had been sliced and the servants’ table had been set when the King arrived. The girls stood not just from protocol, but from surprise. Next to him, dressed in a fine black suit, with a gold-tipped walking stick, stood Fairweller.
“Ladies,” said the King. “This is our guest for the next two days.”
Spoons clattered.
??
?You’re joking,” said Bramble.
“That will do.” The King’s voice was crisp. “Minister Fairweller has been very generous to volunteer so you could all be allowed out.”
“But you said Azalea wouldn’t—” said Flora.
“For heaven’s sake!” said the King. “Just tolerate him for the next two days, will you?”
They made Fairweller carry the basket. And the blanket. And the steaming kettle. He did so without a word. Half an hour later, they huddled under the tea tree, a great cozy pine in the wall-and-stairs part of the garden that blocked out the wind. Blanket spread, food unbundled, tea poured in steaming puffs, all without a word from Fairweller. There’d been no room on the blanket, so he knelt on the sappy needles that coated the ground.
Azalea busied herself with blowing on the younger girls’ tea, cooling it, trying to avoid eye contact. Eve gave a cough.
“You know, Minister,” said Delphinium, looking him up and down with her blue eyes. “You really aren’t bad looking. A red-colored waistcoat would do wonders for you. You should wear one to your next speech. All the ladies would tease their husbands into voting for you.”
Fairweller’s lips grew thin.
“I would rather not talk about politics at this moment,” he said.
The girls exchanged glances.
“Can you talk about other things?” said Bramble.
“I can be agreeable,” said Fairweller. “If the other party is.”
“Oh, well,” said Bramble. “There goes that, then.”
“Minister, why are you doing this?” said Azalea, setting her teacup on its saucer. “I mean, it’s nice of you to offer so we can be in the gardens, but surely you would rather be in your own manor? We know you don’t like us very much.”
Something flickered in Fairweller’s face as his colorless gray eyes took in all of them.
“I am doing it,” he said, “because it is clear to me you have found one of the palace’s magic passages in your room.”
Teacups rattled. Flora grasped Azalea’s hand.
“And if you expect me to stand idly by,” said Fairweller, “and let you become trapped or worse with magic—”