“Were you poor, then?” The maid’s eyes grew very round. “Goodness, it doesn’t show! You’ve got the chin-tilt just right!”
“I’ve been practising,” said Annabel, very much pleased. “Belle has been working on it with me so the Deportment Master stops glaring at me.”
“That won’t stop him,” the maid said. “Not if you’re friends with Miss Farrah. If you’re rich now, you should know how to choose your friends.”
“I do,” Annabel said, in a less friendly voice.
The maid, young as she was, looked up at her with a sharper, more understanding look. “I can see that,” she said. “You should call for me if you need anything, Miss. I’m Jess. I know how to keep my mouth closed, too, if that’s what you need.”
“Actually,” said Annabel, “I need someone to be a bit chattery right now.”
“You want something to get around?”
“Nothing nasty,” Annabel assured her. “I just want the maids to know that I’m looking for someone to run messages quietly.”
“Goodness, at your age!” said Jess, showing her a shocked face. “You shouldn’t be sending messages to boys, Miss! That’s the sort of thing that gets you into trouble around here!”
Annabel giggled. “It’s not that. I just want to know which maids are willing to send messages.”
“All right,” said Jess. “Just make sure you don’t ask the little sour-faced thing who looks after the brasses downstairs. She only started a few days before term, but she won’t do anything beyond what she’s engaged for by the Aunts; won’t even look at you when she’s out in the village. She’s the sort who informs on you to the Head Maid.”
“I’ll remember that,” Annabel said, visited by another, more interesting thought. “Thank you.”
“I’ll put out the word,” said Jess. She curtseyed. “I’ll be on my way before the Head Maid wants to know why the second floor windows are all letting in the sunlight to fade the carpets. Good day, miss!”
It was likely, thought Annabel, gravitating more by accident than design toward the library she and Isabella had claimed earlier that week, that the message would get around to the other maids. It would be interesting to see which maids conveniently put themselves in her way over the next few days, hoping for a commission.
She found herself outside the library a moment later and blinked at the bright, peeling door in slight surprise. She hadn’t realised she was so close. She gazed at the door for a brief moment longer, considering her options, and entered the library. She had all the information that she could get at the moment, after all; and she was curious to know, now that she could find out without anyone witnessing her potential failure, if she could fit through the library window too.
She had just found a secure footing on the sofa back, her arms comfortably propped up on the window-ledge, when a familiar figure walked past the opening, mere feet away.
Dannick. What was Dannick doing here?
“Oh good!” Annabel said joyfully, startling the Guard considerably. He looked around cautiously, caught sight of the flash of colour low in the wall that was Annabel, and started toward her. Annabel said, “Just the person I wanted!”
Dannick went profoundly red, and bowed at her head and shoulders. “Your Highness. How can I be of assistance?”
“You might not be able to be of assistance at all,” said Annabel. “But I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask. Have you been at the school all this time, or have you been with Raoul in the village?”
“I’ve been at the school,” Dannick said. “I would have liked to be with the First Guard, but he wanted me here. I’ve been keeping an eye on the perimeter from the inside; nobody saw me arrive with the carriage, so the First Guard said it would be safest for me to pretend to be a footman.”
Annabel, thoughtfully, said, “I suppose you’re technically Belle’s job, but I don’t think she’ll mind.”
“Job, your highness?” Dannick looked distinctly worried.
“Yes; she’s meant to flirt with all the gardener’s boys and footmen. I’m supposed to be questioning maids; but I don’t think she’ll mind if I take you instead.”
If Dannick had looked worried before, he now seemed stunned. He asked faintly, “Are you going to flirt with me?”
“Good grief, no!” said Annabel. “Belle hasn’t taught me how to flirt yet; she does that part. I’ll just ask you questions, that’s all.”
“Oh,” said Dannick. “Oh. Well, I suppose that’s all right. What did you want to know, your highness?”
“You’re around the other footmen all the time,” Annabel began, wedging her elbows into the edges of the window frame and leaning comfortably forward. “Do any of them go to the village oftener than the others? Or just go in and out a lot? And are there any of them that seem a bit too friendly with either the teachers or the students?”
“There’s more than a few of ’em that are too friendly with the students,” Dannick said forthrightly. “If you’ll excuse me saying so, your highness.”
“Really? Good grief. This school really is a hotbed of scandal and trouble waiting to happen.” Annabel pondered that, and added, “That’s what Belle says.”
“Miss Farrah is right. But if it comes to that, there are always a few of them hoping for commissions—is that the sort of thing you meant?”
“Perhaps,” Annabel conceded. “But what about the ones who don’t really mix with the students or the other footmen, but spend a lot of time by themselves or in the village? Are there any of those?”
“One or two,” said Dannick. He crouched by the window and asked diffidently, “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for, your highness? More than ideas, I mean? Something you want me to keep an eye out for and report to you if I see it?”
“That depends,” Annabel said, deciding to be as absolutely, blindingly honest as Isabella. “I mean, I do; but I don’t know if I can trust you not to tell Melchior or Raoul.”
Dannick spent some time digesting this, and Annabel wondered for a few moments if she had made a mistake. Then he said seriously, “My loyalty is to the First Guard, and he’s said to obey Melchior as if it was him, but when we were in school they taught us that our first loyalty was directly to the crown. So if you were tell me what you wanted me to watch out for, and order me to keep it secret from everyone else, I would be bound not to tell anyone else, even Melchior or the First Guard himself.”
“Lovely!” said Annabel happily. “Melchior never says things like that. He’s too busy being sneaky.”
“Is there—is there a particular reason why I shouldn’t tell Melchior?”
“There are two particular reasons,” Annabel said darkly. “The first one is that Melchior never tells me anything, so I don’t see why he should know everything I’m up to. The second one is that if he knows, he’ll probably make it hard to do what I’ve got to do.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not at all,” Annabel assured him. “And even if it is; well, there are things that will be dangerous when I’m queen, too. I should still be able to make the decision to do them without Melchior interfering.”
Dannick gave some thought to that as well. At last, he said, “I can’t disagree with that, your highness. Only, if you’ll allow me to be so bold, I think you shouldn’t expect to make decisions without other people being able to tell you they’re bad decisions. You don’t have to agree with them, but it doesn’t hurt to listen.”
“You’re a lovely, sensible sort of person,” Annabel told him, very much pleased. “Are you very fond of being a medical officer in the Guard? With all the moving around, I mean?”
“I like my company,” said Dannick cautiously. “But I’m more of a settled person, your highness. And my mother is by herself in the Capital, so—”
Annabel nodded decisively. “I’ll remember that. All right, then, do you think you can get some information for me?”
Dannick bowed. “It would be my pleasure, your highness. A
nd of course, you’ll be careful to order me to secrecy so that I can’t possibly share anything with anyone?”
“Very careful!” Annabel said, laughing. “It’s like I said before: I’d like you to look around the footmen and see if there are any of them who are particularly careful not to take commissions from any of the girls—or maybe just take commissions for one girl—but who still go to the village quite often. I expect they’d keep themselves away from the rest of the footmen a bit; they might think the footmen childish or frivolous, that sort of thing.”
“You’re looking for a messenger?”
Annabel nodded. “We’re sure there’s at least one or two in the school, and I might know of one in the maids.”
“Melchior and Raoul are looking as well,” Dannick said. “And I wouldn’t mention it but for the fact that—”
“Melchior has ordered you to look for the same thing?”
Dannick nodded.
“There’s no need to worry about it,” Annabel said. “If you find out something, report it to Raoul as well, just as he ordered you. I just don’t want them knowing what I’m doing at the moment. Oh, yes; the royal command is that you’re not to reveal my orders to anyone, regardless of who they are. Is that clear enough?”
“Very clear,” said Dannick. He was grinning, and only faintly red now.
That was an improvement, Annabel thought. She grinned back at him and said, “I’m sorry if I’ve stopped you from your business by calling you over.”
“It’s my pleasure, your highness. Besides, the duties of the footmen here always come second to the orders of the young Trenthams’ ladies. Actually, it’s part of our duties to make sure they know how to properly order a footman. Even if the orders take a long time to give, or perform, a Trenthams footman is always alert, always at the service of his young ladies. Or his queen, if it comes to that.”
Annabel laughed. “Is that why the footmen here always look so alert? Still, it’s past lunch time; you must be hungry. If I’d been Isabella, I would have flirted with you, taken my information and been merrily on my way. Instead, I’ve had a very sensible lesson in statecraft that I probably won’t forget and made you wait for your lunch. What a shame I didn’t put more effort into learning how to flirt!”
“On the contrary, Nan,” said a familiar voice. A pair of shiny black shoes appeared in the square of space beside Dannick. “I think you’re doing remarkably well. Dannick, isn’t there somewhere you ought to be—or at least something you ought to be doing?”
Dannick seemed to struggle with himself for a few moments before he rose, bowed once more to Annabel’s torso, once to Melchior, and turned back to the path he had been treading before Annabel hailed him.
“Isn’t he nice?” Annabel said, quite pleased with herself. “He notices things and he shares them.”
“That, I suppose, is a dig at me,” remarked Melchior, dropping to his haunches. “A man’s amiability is not to be measured by his willingness to answer all your questions, Nan.”
“From where I’m standing—”
“Are you standing? I had the impression you were wedged. Are you quite comfortable?”
“Very,” Annabel assured him. “Isabella is right; if you take off your bustle, it’s really quite easy to get through.”
Melchior closed his eyes for a pained moment. “Have you been removing your bustle, Nan?”
“No, I wanted to see if the rest of me could fit through first. Anyway, Isabella says we’re going to change the fashion to get rid of bustles, so I only have to wait a bit longer before I don’t have to worry about that. What are you doing, anyway? Don’t you have a class?”
“If it comes to that, I’m quite certain you’re meant to be in class.” Melchior’s thin lips were particularly sarcastic.
“There’s nothing on my schedule right now,” Annabel said, perfectly truthfully. Isabella had taken Elegant Carriage on Horseback off the schedule completely. “And you’ve skidded under the question. What are you doing?”
Melchior sighed, and threw a look around. “Perhaps you should invite me in,” he suggested, leaning closer. “For some reason, Nan—for some reason—I seem to have the greatest difficulty in either hearing sounds from or getting into a room for which I provided the security spell.”
“Are you really?” Annabel asked, pleased with her simulation of surprise. “Isn’t that funny? Why do you think that is?”
“I can’t imagine. Perhaps a second security spell was added by mistake; such an odd thing to happen, Nan.”
“That would be an odd thing,” agreed Annabel, wriggling back carefully through the window. “Oh, all right! I invite you in—just this once. No trying to sneak in later. And if you don’t answer my questions I’ll just kick you out again.”
“Will you?” Melchior sounded very affable, but when he slithered elegantly through the window and into the library, his face wasn’t particularly affable. It was smiling, however, so Annabel wasn’t afraid that he was trying to cause another quarrel. “And how exactly would you propose to do that, Nan?”
“I’d probably use the staff,” she said. “Maybe I’d erase a bit of shine off your shoes, too. Why aren’t you at your first class, Melchior?”
“The staff is very useful,” agreed Melchior, the amusement in his eyes growing. “However, it does presuppose your ability to use it. If you can’t move your arms, how do you suppose you’ll go about using it?”
Annabel scoffed. “Why wouldn’t I be able to use my arms?”
“Any number of reasons,” said Melchior, sauntering closer. “But the one that immediately springs to mind, Nan, is this one.”
“Hey!” said Annabel in surprise. One swift step forward and a sudden dart from Melchior, and her arms were pinned to her sides, her chin resting roughly where it could touch the top button of Melchior’s black, silver-traced vest. “That’s not fair! I wasn’t expecting a sneak attack!”
“Men don’t typically give much warning when they’re going to kiss someone.”
“Yes, but I’d be on my guard with anyone else,” protested Annabel. “And you’re not going to kiss me, so why would I be on my guard?”
Very thoughtfully, Melchior said, “I don’t know. Perhaps I shall kiss you.”
Annabel, remembering the reproofs she had suffered from Melchior over the last few months due to her habit of patting him on the head or sitting too close to him, laughed out loud. “You wouldn’t!” she said, still laughing. “I know that!”
Melchior looked both startled and faintly annoyed. “I fail to see why you should know that so well, Nan!”
“Well, it would be like expecting Dannick to want to kiss me!” protested Annabel. She thought about that and said, “Actually, he does go very red when I talk to him, so maybe—”
“I trust, Nan,” said Melchior, in a dangerously calm voice, “that you are not planning on asking Dannick if he would like to kiss you?”
“At least he’d tell me he wanted to kiss me if I asked him!” instantly said Annabel. “He answers questions. He doesn’t—”
“Ask me, Nan,” Melchior said. His arms loosened a little and slid further down, at the same time freeing Annabel’s arms and curving around her waist. There was that smile again, the one that wasn’t quite the exasperation of Melchior or the fondness of Blackfoot. “I’ll answer you truthfully, I promise. Ask me if I want to kiss you.”
Annabel spluttered a small, surprised cough into his top button. “You taught me not to ask questions when I already know the answer!” she said. “You won’t even let me pat you on the head! Why would you kiss me?”
To her surprise, that made Melchior drop his arms completely and take a step back. His lips were particularly thin and sarcastic as he said, “I see that I’ll be some time yet in reminding you that I’m no longer a cat, Nan.”
Annabel was conscious of a desire for Isabella’s presence, if only to speculate on Melchior’s possible meaning. She pulled in a silent sigh and smothered it before
it could become an exasperated one. “But what does that have to do with kissing me?”
Melchior didn’t answer at once, and it occurred to Annabel that she recognised the expression on his face. This was Melchior in the lightening quick moment before he made a decision, all the possibilities and outcomes flowing through his mind.
“Don’t try to map out the best way to answer,” she said. “Just explain.”
“I could explain,” Melchior said, and stepped forward again. “But I’m credibly informed by the Awesome Aunts that Trenthams favours the approach of Demonstration over that of Explanation.”
“What demonstration?” asked Annabel, fighting the urge to cough again. Was there something stuck in her throat, or was the library simply dusty?
“A demonstration usually works best when a thing is demonstrated, I find,” said Melchior, his hazel eyes bright and narrow. His smile made Annabel’s fingers close involuntarily around the pencil staff they had only loosely been clasping, but she didn’t try to raise the staff, even when Melchior’s long fingers closed over her own and pulled her gently toward himself again.
“Hullo!” said a voice at the door.
Through the freestanding bookcase shelves Annabel could see the blue smock of a junior Trenthams Miss. She turned her startled eyes from the doorway and up at Melchior again, but to her surprise, he didn’t let her go. Instead, he gave one more, gentle tug that pulled Annabel right back into his arms, still smiling down at her.
“Oh, hullo,” said that voice again. The smock stayed, politely, exactly where it was; trying neither to crane or bend to catch a better look at them. “Sorry to butt in and all that, but is this where the invitation wanted us to go? Only there’ll be a few other girls coming soon and unless you want the Awesome Aunts to know that there are people cuddling in the library, you’d probably better tell your beau to sneak out the window.”
9
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