Snow

by Tracy Lynn

  “Always you, My Lady,” Alan answered, trying not to grunt under the weight of the gigantic glass. “People still discuss the blue outfit you wore to the concert, how you looked like a goddess of the sky.”

  “Mmmm.” Her response was noncommittal, but her eyes narrowed approvingly, and her lips tightened to hide a self-satisfied smile. “And Jessica?”

  “No one much talks about her being beautiful,” Alan said honestly, as he was forced. “They say she is a growing beauty, but even more they talk about what trouble she is to the servants.”

  The duchess chuckled at this, then fixed her dark blue eyes on his lighter ones.

  “And what of you? What do you think of our little duchess?”

  Alan had known this question was coming. “As much as it may be permitted, I care for the young lady like she was my own sister.”

  “Mmmm.” The duchess stared at him a moment, debating something internally. Then she went back to gazing at herself in the mirror. She touched herself lightly on the belly and frowned.

  Chapter Eight

  THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN: PRINCES COME COURTING

  The first guests had already begun to arrive, a day early. Jessica peeped out from behind a bush to watch the coaches, carriages, and phaetons pull up and the splendidly dressed people step out: women in long gowns with large bustles and matching parasols, and men in dove-gray jackets and hats. Some of the dashing young men rode horses, cantering up the graveled path, gloved hands to their hats as they addressed the duchess.

  Jessica was not to meet them formally until later and could hardly bear the anticipation. This is for me. It’s just a party that the duchess is throwing but it’s really all for me. She watched eagerly for people her own age and thought she saw a couple, a pair of strapping girls who, despite their size, seemed young.

  “Hey! Jess!” Davey whispered from behind her. She spun around.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. This was her hiding spot. “Oh, and I suppose you’ve decided that it’s all right to talk to me now,” she added haughtily.

  “Aw, Jess, c’mon.” He kicked his toe at the ground. “Tm trying to make it up to you.”

  There was a long pause as Jessica glared at the boy and he tried to work up the courage to talk. “Me and Michael, we were … it’s just … we’re not wanting to get on the bad side of the duchess, yeah? I’m apologizing here”

  That said, he sighed in relief. “Craddoc’s bitch had a litter of puppies last night. Want to come see? They’re playing with them now, in the clearing on the other side of the stream. You can choose one, as a birthday present,” he added hesitantly.

  Jessica’s eyes lit up. A dog of her own! She was old enough. And from the looks of it, many of the girls and women arriving had small lapdogs that they or their servants carried in. Of course, she would miss the excitement of watching more people arrive, and she was supposed to get dressed and washed for when she was introduced later today….

  “Thank you, Davey!” she said delightedly, and ran off to see the old gamekeeper. Along the way she managed to rip her petticoat and step into the stream, something she would no doubt be in trouble for later. All worries were forgotten when she saw the scene in the small clearing beyond: Craddoc and a few children sat around a big mother hound with six squirming babies, brown and cream and white.

  “Oh, they’re lovely!” Jessica sat down in the grass next to the mother and tried to pet all of the puppies at once.

  The old man laughed.

  “Davey’s keeping one for himself,” he said, “but I guess he told you about choosing one.”

  It took her an hour to decide; they were all equally adorable. Finally she chose one with slightly more black than the rest. “I’ll keep her until she’s weaned,” Craddoc said. “Come back in a fortnight, and she’ll be all ready for you.”

  Reluctantly Jessica left. It was probably past time for her to go home, in case she was missed. She took the back way so she could sneak in by the stables and not be seen; her hair was down, her face was muddy, and her dress was not quite ruined.

  She turned the corner to the muddy courtyard and there was a boy there about Alan’s age, smoking a long, thin cigar.

  He was handsome and well dressed, with brown wavy hair. His jacket fit him like a second skin. One shapely leg was propped on a barrel. He raised an eyebrow lazily in her direction.

  “Hello,” Jessica said, trying to think of something quickly.

  “Hello.” He looked her up and down. “Quite the preparations for a party going on there.”

  “It would seem so,” she answered hesitantly.

  “You’re all a mess—all covered in mud,” he observed. He pushed himself off the wall and sauntered over to her. She held her ground. Something wasn’t quite right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. The boy was handsome. Her heart raced.

  He came closer. She didn’t move.

  “Let me get some of that for you.” He reached over, and with a long finger he delicately brushed some dirt off her cheek.

  “Sir,” she began, uncertain of where any of this was going.

  He put his hand around her shoulder and pulled Jessica in for a kiss.

  Shocked, she let him.

  My first kiss! I wonder if this means we are to be married. He was certainly good looking enough for her, and the kissing itself was pleasant enough in a strange way, although he pushed his face into hers a little too hard.

  Then he reached up and grabbed her breast.

  “Stop it!” She pulled his hand away. His response was to pull her in to him harder, a hand around her waist. One of his legs locked around hers.

  “Come on,” he whispered in her ear. “This might be your only chance for a count.” He grabbed her bottom with his other hand.

  Wildly she tried to figure out what to do, what Alan would do, what one of Alan’s sisters would do.

  She kneed him between his legs.

  He let out a long groan of agony and released her, both actions immediately satisfying. He keeled over on the ground.

  The momentary triumph faded for Jessica. She felt like throwing up.

  “Father!” she screamed, running into the house. “Duchess!” she sobbed as she ran through the house. She made her way to the entrance room where she found her father and stepmother, both greeting another well-dressed couple.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” her father demanded. The duchess’s face dropped when she saw the state of Jessica’s dress.

  “This boy—he tried to kiss me—and then he—and then he—”

  The duchess took control of the situation immediately. She called the two maids. “Lucy, Anna—take Jessica upstairs immediately. Edward, would you mind seeing about this boy? Felicia, Lord Belingham—forgive this little intrusion. Let me personally show you the rooms where you will be staying….”

  The two evil maids swept Jessica, sobbing, out of the room and upstairs before anyone else could see her. When they arrived at the cool silence of Jessica’s room, she fell on her bed. The two maids left. Long after her tears finally dried up Jessica simply lay staring at the ceiling.

  Hours passed.

  The duchess finally came in. She closed the door behind her with a strange finality and approached Jessica with a predatory sway that reminded her of the boy.

  On guard for the second time that afternoon, Jessica slowly realized she would get no comfort out of this woman.

  “What,” the duchess asked slowly, “happened?”

  Jessica told her, and in doing so began crying again.

  “Oh,” the duchess said coolly. “You dress and act like a servant girl, and you’re surprised that he treated you this way?”

  “But he—he touched my—”

  “And what did you expect him to do, you alone there with him? Give you a bouquet of flowers?”

  “But he, he’s the one who …” Jessica was terribly confused. She didn’t think she had done anything wrong, besides making the mistake of leavin
g to see the puppy. The boy had hurt her, not the other way around. “But I am a duchess,” she said finally, thinking the older woman would approve. “One doesn’t treat a duchess that way.”

  “You look like a slattern!” The duchess slapped Jessica across the cheek. She said other things, too, but Jessica didn’t hear them. When she put her hand to her cheek, her fingertips came away with droplets of blood.

  “Behaving like a commoner—I have a hard time believing you are your father’s daughter. Maybe you aren’t,” the duchess said pensively. Then her eyes filled with rage. “Do you know what you did, behaving in front of Lord Belingham like that? Do you realize the embarrassment your father and I will have to suffer for it? And Count Donhall—it wouldn’t surprise me if his father never spoke to us again for what you did to him.”

  “I just wanted the puppy,” Jessica said softly, knowing full well she sounded like a five-year-old. But in the end, that was the heart of it, that was what had caused all of this.

  “Well, you certainly aren’t getting a puppy,” the duchess promised. “That, and your absence at this party except when I specifically ask for it, are just the beginning. You want to dress like a commoner? Fine, you can dress that way all the time, and do the job of one too. If you’re not going to be a duchess, you can at least be useful. And one more thing,” she added as she left, “if I so much as imagine you talk to any of the serving staff again, including Alan, I will have you beaten—the way I should have in the beginning.”

  And the duchess, if nothing else, was a woman of her word.

  PART TWO

  Snow

  INTERLUDE: REFLECTIONS

  “Mirror, Mirror. When people speak, whom do they say is the fairest in town?”

  Alan held the looking glass up, as always; the duchess stared and primped into it as always. Some things had changed since the first time, however.

  There was the smell, to start with. Burnt flesh cut with a clean, metallic scent like the smell before a thunderstorm. There were the cages of animals—all young, all babies—against the farthest wall of her hidden sanctuary. There was the basket with a bundle in it, a heavy burden that needed to be gone by midnight. There were the vials and pills—blue, blood red, and light purple—with medicines for the duchess’s increasingly frequent fits.

  And there was one more thing that changed.

  Alan ground his teeth and stammered, but the necklace bade him speak.

  “For all her rags and dirt, those who catch a look at her face, the one called Snow—they claim she is the most beautiful, fey thing Kenigh has ever seen.”

  The duchess’s eyes might have been hazel, but the look they gave Alan was the blackest he had ever seen.

  Chapter Nine

  TRANSFIGURATION

  1. Spring

  Davey sat on the steps of the stable, waiting to run an errand for the coachman, when a figure dressed in old clothes struggled by, barely able to drag the bucket of slop she was burdened with, He leaped up, full of the newly discovered chivalry that often brought smiles and blushes, occasionally even kisses.

  “Here, let me help you with—” The pale girl turned her face to meet his.

  He stopped short, “Jess?”

  Deprived of sunlight, the starry freckles had faded from her face, and her copper-brown hair had grown in black. Her skin had whitened, becoming the pallor so many girls her age were trying to achieve by poisoning themselves with arsenic.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to be talking to me, Davey,” Her voice was low, as if she wasn’t accustomed to talk, “I’m being punished. They might dismiss you or your parents,”

  “I heard things, but didn’t believe them—making you do all the chores, scrubbing, and cleaning, and locking you up? A duchess?”

  She smiled wanly, remembering their last argument,“I’m no duchess. Not anymore, at least,”

  “I didn’t even know it was you just now,” he went on, “You’re as white as a snowman. And taller than you were,”

  He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, “Is this because of the dog I was going to give you?”

  “Oh, no.” Her eyes crinkled at his guilt and concern, and it was painfully obvious it had been a long time since she had grinned. “It’s because …” She shrugged, “It’s not your fault. How is—the puppy?”

  “The duke had a talk with old Craddoc and told him to give it to someone else, Jane Cooper, the bobby’s daughter.”

  “I hope she takes care of it,” she said sadly.

  “I’ll make sure of it,” Davey earnestly promised Jessica, the only thing he could do for her.

  “Well, I had better go before they catch me speaking to you,”

  “Well, be seeing you—Snow!”

  He said it with a lopsided grin, like they were seven again. That was the last time she ever spoke with David Allen.

  But the name Snow stayed with her.

  2. Summer

  She watched the seasons through the windows of her room, A pair of ravens had come in the spring and nested in the tallest pine, raising a family of fledglings who grew furry and then became slicked down with shiny black feathers and flew. Once she saw Alan climbing the tree toward the nest and was terrified for him. When she questioned him later he said nothing, only sweated and played with his necklace the way he sometimes did when they talked about the duchess.

  From the start of her confinement, they’d had to pretend they weren’t talking, but Alan had been even more silent to her than usual since that day. Snow was depressed, but she suspected something was up, He was always sneaking her little trinkets and things: a speckled robins egg, a tea cake, a little carved whistle in the shape of a dog, small books of poetry by Robert Burns, A new something appeared one day when she came back after her lessons to change into her scullery clothes: a basket at her window, as if carefully lowered from above. This was the biggest prize yet: Carefully tucked at the bottom with a white string round its neck was a tiny white kitten whose eyes had just opened and who gave a huge, red-tongued yawn when she lifted it out.

  Snow was very, very careful.

  The kitten slept under the covers with her at night curled between her neck and shoulder. Snow kept it in her pockets when she cleaned to keep it from mewing. She named it Katrina, She fed it milk and cheese and meat and cleaned up after it constantly.

  One day she came back from lessons to change into her scullery clothes, and Katrina was gone.

  3. Autumn

  Captain Andy Campbell surveyed his colleagues and compatriots. Lieutenant Commander Murray was looking a little gray, but then again Colin always did before a campaign. He rubbed his hands together and through the hair on his head. Field Commander Nigel Kensington stroked his whiskers wisely, still refining the plans, always the strategist. The hill rose depressingly high above them, but they would take it. They had God on their side; they were fighting for truth, honor, and Queen Victoria. In a far-off tree his spies were taking account of the situation and updating orders on an hourly basis. Captain Campbell loved these complicated missions. Why, compared to previous adventures in India, this was nothing.

  After their victory feast tonight, they might even begin planning the rescue of the Lady in the Castle.

  4. Winter

  The door flew open, and the duchess burst in,“I’ll do it myself!” she cried.

  Mice went flying. The tame—and carefully named—Andy Campbell, Colin Murray, and Nigel Kensington each scurried their separate ways from the hill pillow with the cookie on top, the towers made from novels by Sir Walter Scott.

  Snow knew better than to watch them go; the older woman would follow her eyes and see her friends,

  “My daughter” the duchess said, towering over her. Snow knew to never talk back but wouldn’t have chosen to anyway. There was a strange look in the older woman’s eyes. Her face was white, and blue veins throbbed on her forehead. She held a pair of sewing shears, Snow observed as the seconds stretched out. Pretty little silver ones, in
the shape of a bird, something large and vaguely foreign, “‘My’ ‘Daughter.’ How about a brother just like you?”

  Snow’s instinct was to look at the duchess’s face and belly, but she didn’t feel she could let her eyes stray from the other’s for a second.

  “Am I to congratulate you, My Lady?” she whispered.

  The duchess threw her head back and laughed. One of her hands whipped out with praying mantis precision and grabbed a lock of Snow’s hair. With a slower, slightly unsteadier movement, she snipped it off with the shears.

  Snow didn’t move.

  The duchess held the raven lock up to the light and looked at it with a critical eye. Then she turned and walked out.

  “Get Gwen to fix your hair,” she said over her shoulder.

  Spring came again, and still there was no heir for the duke, nor release for Snow.

  Chapter Ten

  A RAG, A BONE, A HANK OF HAIR

  “It should work. Why doesn’t it work?”

  Alan stood by the mirror, not compelled to hold it this time. Instead he surveyed the scene on the laboratory table from a safe distance, behind the duchess.

  Machinery hummed: strange things powered by strikes of lightning baited and caught by rods the duchess had had him mount outside her window, A series of brass rods and gears wove their way from the machines to the table and through a mirror with a frame similar to the one Alan was often burdened with. This one was smoky and black and didn’t reflect things properly, He tried not to look in it.

  What the mirror was aimed at was more horrible still. Propped up like a doll in the middle of the table was a stuffed body made of pink muslin, A baby’s skull, dug up from a cemetery—a memory Alan wished he could erase—was sewn to the top, and pearl button eyes were hammered into its sockets. Horribly familiar black hair was nailed to the skull. The duchess’s own blood trickled down its body; a bandage was around her wrist, and there was plaster on the area above her breast.