“He sends his regrets,” said Fairweller, “and admonishes you to tend to the guests. He wishes to remain with your mother. Your doctor did not seem concerned.”
Azalea pushed the image of white lips out of her mind. Instead, she glowered at Fairweller’s black-gloved hand on her arm, escorting her. Why did the King have to ask Fairweller to take his place? Fairweller wasn’t bad looking, and he was young—especially for a Prime Minister. But, heavens! Azalea remembered their former Prime Minister, a Lord Bradford. Though the same age as the King himself, he had died when she was little. He was an agreeable gentleman who smelled of soap and coffee and always had a hint of a smile and a light in his eyes.
Fairweller, by contrast, was a thundercloud. He never smiled. The only color he wore was black, even his waistcoat and cufflinks, giving the impression of a sleek, overlarge spider. With the added disadvantage that you couldn’t squash him.
“Is Mother having the baby?” said Azalea. “It’s a bit early for the baby, isn’t it?”
“I hardly know,” said Fairweller.
Azalea gave him a dangerously sweet smile.
“I hope you’re good at dancing,” she said through her teeth. “Or this ball will be completely ruined.”
Fairweller brought her into perfect dance position.
The musicians began, the chattering hushed, and Azalea stepped off in waltz time with Fairweller. To her surprise, he was a masterful dancer. He swept her along the dance floor, guiding her about the corners and between skirts, flowing perfectly with the music. In fact, the only thing wrong with dancing with Fairweller was…well, dancing with Fairweller.
The waltz ended, the Prime Minister escorted her to the edge of the ballroom, and Azalea was flocked with gentlemen all asking for a dance.
The lively music, the decorations, the snow whorling past the windows and reflected in the mirrors on the other side, and the dancing transformed the ballroom into something almost magical. Azalea nearly forgot, as she danced the jigs, promenades, and waltzes, that the ballroom was old and drafty and the windows leaked when it rained.
She grinned inside every time a gentleman took her into dance position and his eyebrows rose, and rose even farther as he would lead her about the ballroom. They swept past ladies in chiffon and lace, their hoopskirts swaying with her breeze. She danced lightly, followed at even the slightest of touches, had a firm frame and strong form, and never forgot a step. By the time the gentlemen escorted her to a velvet chair at the ballroom’s side, they beamed and complimented her on her grace. Azalea returned the compliment with a sleek, deep curtsy that made her green skirts swath the floor in a silky puddle, and giggled inside when their mouths dropped. One day, she was determined, she would be quite as graceful as Mother. Mother didn’t walk. She glided.
Peals rumbled the floor as the tower chimed ten, and the guests began a bouncy polka. Azalea, who did not like the hard, breathless dance, slipped past the blur of dancers to the corner where the glimmering Christmas trees stood, hoping to spend a few moments out of sight. The ball had gone perfectly so far. If only Mother and her sisters were here, it would complete everything.
Azalea considered nipping upstairs to check on them. She imagined the girls, caged up in their room, music drifting through the floor. They would be sitting at the round table, staring at the picture pieces with glazed eyes. Azalea sighed. She poked one of the ornaments on the ribbon-and-silver decked tree.
The ornaments clinked. A hand shot out from the boughs, a handkerchief between its fingers. Azalea leaped back.
“Dry your tears,” said the tree, “young peep.”
“Great scott!” said Azalea, taking the handkerchief from the disembodied hand, which slipped back into the tree with a rustle. The handkerchief had sloppily embroidered letters in the corner. B.E.W.
“Only, you looked a nudge away from bursting into tears,” said the tree.
“Bramble!”
Behind branches dripping with silver-and-glass ornaments, a pair of yellow-green eyes winked at Azalea. Azalea bit back a delighted cry.
“Hulloa, Az!”
The trees, arranged around the corner of the ballroom, had left an empty pie-bit sort of space, now filled with sisters. All ten of them crowded about together on the floor, hidden, pressed between the trees and the wall.
“Looks…comfortable,” said Azalea.
“It’s not so bad now that we can’t feel our legs.” Bramble grinned, her thin lips turning up into a wry smile. “It’s a bit squashy, but it’s worth it.”
Azalea peered through the branches. Clover cradled both Jessamine and Kale, who slept soundly. Eve pressed next to her, clutching a book. A pine branch was in her face.
“All right there, Eve?” said Azalea.
Eve turned a page of her book. “The light is bad,” she said.
Azalea cast a glance back at the blur of guests, still engrossed in their dance. “The King’s going to be dreadfully cross,” she said. “Didn’t he make you promise to stay inside?”
“We are inside!” said Bramble. “Da-dum! Next time the King will have to rethink his wording. Are you glad we’re here?”
Delight bubbled through Azalea, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Beyond words!”
The girls burst into a chatter.
“The ball is absolutely marvelous this year!”
“I can’t wait until I’m of age!”
“The food looks corking!”
“All the gentlemen are mad after you!”
“Just remember, don’t get attached to any of them,” said Delphinium, who thought herself an expert in matters of love, now she was twelve. “They’re not dancing with you because you’re you. They’re only dancing with you because if they marry you, they get to be King.”
Azalea’s smile faded. She took a step away from the Christmas trees, feeling as though a hand wrung her stomach.
“Oh…stuff it, Delphinium,” said Bramble.
“I just think she shouldn’t fall in love, that’s all,” said Delphinium. “Since parliament will choose the next king, she—”
“Yes, thank you.” Bramble pushed Delphinium back, which made the entire mass of pine trees rustle. Ornaments tinkled. Bramble turned back to Azalea, and her wry grin reappeared.
“I hope you’re grateful,” she said. “Our Great Christmas Tree Scandal took a lot of time. We told the King we’d be in our room all day—sulking, you know—and then slipped behind here after tea.”
“You’ve been here since tea?” said Azalea. “You must be hungry!”
“Hungry?” said Bramble. “We’re starving!”
“Oh, yes!” piped the other girls. “We haven’t had a crumb to eat, not a crumb crumb crumb!”
The mass of trees shook.
Azalea pulled back, laughing.
“I can fix that!” she said, and she swept to the dessert table.
She filled her plate with every sort of sweet—candied raspberries, rosemary tarts, iced walnuts, sticky sweet rolls—things they had only once a year, since parliament funded the Yuletide ball and could afford it. Their own rather poor household lived on porridge and potatoes. Back at the trees, as the polka wound to an end and a mazurka began, Azalea leaned down, as though to inspect her worn slippers, and shoved the plate beneath the branches. Several pairs of eager hands pulled it in, and the trees burst into delighted squeals.
Every fifth dance or so, careful to fill the plate during quick, breath-stealing jigs so as not to be noticed, Azalea delivered goodies to the girls. They cheered in tiny voices each time. While couples danced the varsovienne, Azalea stacked her platter with ten dainty glass bowls of pudding, a special request from the girls. The spoons and crystal clinked against the plate, piled like a castle. Azalea picked her way carefully to the trees—
—and nearly ran into a gentleman.
Azalea overbalanced with the puddings, and the top little bowl slid off the rest. The gentleman caught it with surprising speed between his thumb and forefin
ger, pulling back as Azalea’s skirts settled. His eyes took her in, her auburn ringlets and silk dress, and stopped on the plate stacked with puddings. Each one had a wallop of cream on the top.
Azalea, face hot, lifted her chin at him and coldly stared him down, daring him to say anything.
He opened his mouth, then shut it. Then slowly, as though afraid she would strike, he cautiously set the pudding bowl back on the top with a crystal clink, and backed away.
“Oh!” said Azalea. “You’re bleeding!”
And now she saw why he was hiding between the trees and the drapery. He was terribly disheveled! A strand of his mussed hair, the indiscriminate color between dark blond and brown, hung in his eyes. A streak of mud smeared his cheekbone and his fine black suit, and blood and dirt colored the handkerchief he now returned to pressing against his hand.
“It’s…nothing, really,” he stammered.
But Azalea had already set the plate to the marble with a clunk and a clatter of spoons, and produced Bramble’s clean handkerchief from her sleeve.
“Hush,” she said, taking his hand and dabbing at the cut on his knuckle. “It isn’t bad. We’ll clean it right up. What were you thinking, using such a soiled handkerchief?”
The cut wasn’t deep, and the gentleman held still while Azalea tended to it. His large hand dwarfed her own, and she only just managed to wrap the handkerchief about it.
“My horse slipped on the way here,” he explained. His voice reminded Azalea of rich, thick cream, the sort one could add to any recipe to make it taste better. “The Courtroad bridge. I only just arrived.”
Azalea nodded, thinking of how the King avoided that icy bridge every winter. Expertly, she tied the ends of the handkerchief in a tight, dainty knot. The gentleman touched it.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You probably shouldn’t stay much longer,” said Azalea. “You need a proper bandage on it, or it will get infected and throb every time you turn a lady into the next step. You wouldn’t want that.”
“Assuredly not.” A hint of a smile graced his lips.
Azalea looked up at him again, this time past the mud and rumpled cravat and hair. Something about him was strikingly familiar. The way he stood; his solemn, gentle temperament. He had a long nose, but it was his eyes, warm and brown, that marked his features. Everyone in her family had blue or green eyes. The brown caught her off guard and fascinated her.
“Azalea, where’s our food?” the tree behind her whispered.
“We’re sta-aa-arving!”
Azalea kicked back into the boughs behind her, silencing the susurrus with a clink of ornaments.
“Did you—” said the gentleman.
“No,” said Azalea. “Have we met before?”
The gentleman smiled again and touched the corner of his bandage handkerchief across the embroidered letters B.E.W. “Ages ago,” he said. “When we were both younger. You…don’t remember me?”
Azalea shook her head.
“Sorry,” she said. “What’s your name?”
He inclined his head. “Lord Bradford.”
“Bradford!” said Azalea. “Like the former prime minister?”
“Very much like,” he said. And Azalea caught the spark of light in his eyes, twinkling through his solemn expression. It made her smile. No wonder he looked so familiar! She considered him and wondered if he knew that all of Eathesbury expected him to run for P.M., like his father. With his tousled hair and mussed suit, he didn’t quite look the picture.
“You’re not…engaged for this next dance, are you?” he said. “That is, if you—”
He stopped abruptly, clamping his mouth shut. His eyes stared straight ahead. Ornaments tinkled behind them, and Azalea looked down to see a pudgy little hand reaching out from beneath the tree, grabbing at his trouser ankle. Azalea cringed.
“Not there, Ivy, you great idiot,” came a whispered voice from among the boughs. “Left—left—no, left is this way—”
The hands peeking from between the tree skirts felt around, grabbed the ends of the platter, and slowly, with clinks and clatters, dragged the plate in. Lord Bradford’s eyebrows rose as the castle of puddings inched away and disappeared beneath the boughs. Squeals echoed from the trees.
Azalea buried her face in her hands.
“Ah—” said Lord Bradford.
“Don’t,” said Azalea. “Just…don’t.”
“There you are! Oh, dear. Am I interrupting something?”
Azalea and Lord Bradford quickly stepped apart to see Lady Caversham a pace away, her eyes wide with innocence. Lady Caversham reminded Azalea of one of the dolls in the shops on Silver Street: pale and perfect and expensive. Azalea forced a smile.
“Definitely not,” she said. “He’s mended up now.”
Lord Bradford’s eyes turned back to the trees behind them, his eyebrows high on his head, and Azalea looked up at him with the most pleading expression she could muster, begging him to not make a scene.
“Oh!” Lady Caversham gave a sharp cry. “What was that?”
“What was what?” said Azalea and Lord Bradford at the same time.
“The tree! Something moved behind it!”
The color drained from Azalea’s face.
“I didn’t…see anything,” she stammered.
Lady Caversham strode forward, the wispy flounces of her skirts fluttering behind her, trying to peer through the branches. “There was something—oh! There it was again!”
“Lady Caversham,” said Lord Bradford, stepping in front of her. He offered his hand and bowed. “If I may have the honor of this next dance?”
Lady Caversham tore her eyes away from the tree and narrowed them at Lord Bradford’s offered hand. She cast a glance at Azalea, and a slight smile crossed her perfect face.
“Well, if you insist,” she said. With a look at Azalea that said I win, she grasped Lord Bradford’s outstretched hand right over the handkerchief bandage—both he and Azalea winced—and part escorted, part dragged Lord Bradford to the dance floor.
He cast a glance back at Azalea. She fought the urge to pull him back and smooth his hair down.
Azalea didn’t catch sight of him for the rest of the night. The ball wound down like a music box, the guests leaving as the hours grew late. Near midnight, when Azalea delivered yet another plate of goodies to the girls, she rolled a Christmas apple underneath the trees, and it rolled back out. They had fallen asleep.
The last dance, the Entwine, was Azalea’s favorite. She had hoped to be asked it by Lord Bradford, but he had left, and instead she stood in dance position with a young, rather moist gentleman named Mr. Penbrook, who looked as though he couldn’t believe his luck. The rest of the guests moved in a ring to watch as she and Mr. Penbrook took the ends of a long sash.
The musicians began, and—
Slam.
The ballroom doors ricocheted open, startling the guests and silencing the music.
Fairweller.
“The ball is over!” he said, striding to the first window.
Polite protestations came from the guests.
“Minister?” said Azalea, stepping out of dance position. “What are you doing?”
Fairweller did not answer. He took a poker from the fireplace stand and used it to unlatch the high cords that held the drapery up in arches. The fabric rippled to the floor, masking the frosted windows.
“Oh, ho,” said an older parliament gentleman. “It’s the little princesses again, is it? Ho, ho! Have you looked in the chandeliers?”
Some of the guests chuckled at this. Azalea flushed.
“Do you need us to find them?” said one of the ladies. “They nearly froze to death last year.”
“I need you all to go home.” Fairweller strode to the next window and unlatched the cords there as well. “If you please.”
The guests turned to Azalea, whose cheeks burned.
“Minister,” she said.
Across the ballroom, Fairweller’s ir
on gray eyes met Azalea’s. Something hardened in them—something Azalea could not read—and it staggered her. She dropped the end of the sash.
“Oh,” she said. Then, to the guests, “Th-thank you all for coming. Next year we’ll…be certain to have a ball that ends normally.”
This brought chuckles and a smattering of applause. While Fairweller continued to drape the windows along the wall, Azalea saw each guest to the door, helped the musicians pack up their instruments, and wished everyone a good holiday as they left.
When they were all gone, the ballroom felt hollow.
“You didn’t have to end it like that,” said Azalea. “It was almost over.”
Fairweller finished draping the last window.
“Your sisters, Miss Azalea.”
Azalea sighed. Another debacle. The King would be cross again this year, which meant meals in their bedroom and no dance lessons for at least a week. Worn out, Azalea led Fairweller to the trees. He pushed a tree aside, the stand scraping the marble, and revealed the girls.
They slept, snuggled together like a nest of swans, empty pudding bowls and spoons strewn about them. They used tree skirts as blankets, and looked angelic. Nothing like they normally did.
Fairweller stared down at them, unmoving. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He closed his eyes, then opened them. He turned sharply around—and strode across the dance floor. He cast aside the fire poker. It clanged across the marble. He left, slamming the ballroom doors behind him.
The chandelier lamps flickered.
“That,” said Azalea, blinking at the ballroom doors, “was odd.”
She turned to the mass of sleeping girls, a jumble of brightly colored cottons and shawls among the silk tree skirts, and smiled, suddenly feeling very, very drowsy.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup!”
Azalea groaned as ten pairs of hands poked her awake. She had been so tired last night, she hadn’t even bothered going to bed. Instead she fell asleep right there with her sisters, using a tree skirt as a pillow.
“Stop, stop, stop,” she moaned. “The buttons of this dress dig into the spine, you have no idea.”
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