The Fairy Stepmother Inc.

by Maggie Hoyt

  I sighed. “Do you remember his name?”

  “Yes. Lord Boscomb. I made sure I would remember his name.”

  Ah.

  Recognition must have shown on my face. “So you know him?” Fan asked.

  “I—yes,” I said.

  “Then why does he hate me?”

  I hesitated for a moment. I knew I couldn’t tell Fan the truth. She didn’t need to know everything about her father. But I had to say something, quickly, or she would see right through me. Fortunately for me, Ethan took my hesitation as directed toward him. He had a point—you didn’t air this kind of dirty laundry in front of others.

  “I should probably go,” he said.

  “Thank you, Ethan.”

  “Um, let me know if you need anything,” he told Fan.

  “Give your mother my best,” I said.

  As soon as he left, Fan fixed her eyes on me. “What happened?”

  “Lord Boscomb’s business failed—I suppose you would have been quite young when it happened. There were rumors that your father had caused the business to fail because Lady Boscomb had allegedly passed insider information along to your father in an effort to … flirt with him. Apparently, Lord Boscomb believed all the rumors.”

  As rumors go, those had been fairly on the mark. And flirt was a significant understatement.

  I expected Fan to call me out, to ask me if the rumors were true. Instead, she latched on to a different part of the story.

  “Wait, did Dad cheat on you?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I lied. He did. I knew. “Your father was very public, very charming, and very polarizing. There was an awful lot of gossip flying around. I never had any evidence for any of it.”

  “Why didn’t you do something?”

  “You can’t stop gossip, sweetheart. If I’d told people to stop, it would only have gotten worse.”

  “No, I mean why didn’t you get a divorce? If you weren’t happy, why didn’t you leave?”

  Her question stunned me momentarily. She’d never asked me this before. I assume she’d always believed that if I wasn’t happy, it was my fault. And even though she was starting to suspect that her father might have shouldered at least some of the blame, I couldn’t very well dump the full weight of her father’s misdeeds on her.

  “My father died when you were very young,” I said. “He barely left enough money for my mother, let alone me. If I’d left your father, I’d have had very little, and because of that, I was worried that your father would argue—probably successfully—that he should have custody of you. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  I paused. I’d rehearsed that explanation to myself for—well, for nearly twenty years—and I’d always felt so sure of it, like I’d thought everything through and I’d come to the only possible conclusion. Now that I’d said it out loud, it felt hollow. Would I accept this as an excuse from her?

  “Anyway, I’m very sorry that idiot took it out on you today. You’re not your father, obviously. It had nothing to do with you.”

  She nodded slowly, her tears finally starting to dry. As she stood up, I opened my arms and she hugged me tightly. She walked back to her bedroom, head down and shoulders a little hunched, and for a really, really brief moment I missed the Fan that would have told me I was stupid.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE DAY OF the garden party began bright and early. Maribelle arrived with the gowns we’d had designed for Fan. Maribelle believed every dress was equally perfect, and Fan had lost all confidence that any of them looked good, and since no one would listen to my opinions on fashion, the decision-making process was agonizing.

  When we’d finally settled on a gown and I saw Maribelle reach into her cosmetic purse, I opened the door and hustled Mina into the room.

  “Just let Mina take care of it,” I said. I didn’t care if Mina had never touched rouge in her life, as long as Maribelle was outside the chain of command.

  “Now, after we get there,” Maribelle said, sitting on Fan’s bed, “we’ll have to wait a little bit, but you shouldn’t go very far because Lady Allenby will call all the first-year debutantes to her so that she can present you. She’ll blow a big horn—well, she won’t blow it, but someone will—and then you’ll all gather around, and she’ll have you line up, and she’ll read your name and your sponsor, and then you’ll step forward and curtsy. Then they’ll have the debutante dance, where all the first-year girls dance with the first-year boys—and sometimes some second-year boys, if there aren’t enough. Or some second-year girls, I suppose, if there aren’t enough boys …”

  The longer Maribelle prattled, the more Fan’s brow furrowed and her lips tensed. I waited for Maribelle to take a breath and changed the subject.

  “So, Maribelle—how about Clarrie Babcock?”

  “Oh my goodness, I know! Can you believe it? I can’t believe Lord Piminder is going to make the poor girl try to spin straw into gold! Where would he even get the idea?”

  “I heard that her father told him she could,” I said.

  Maribelle scrunched her nose in confusion. “Why?”

  “I think he just panicked. Said the first thing that came into his head.”

  She nodded knowingly. “It’s just so sad. Clarrie’s going to be humiliated, just because of true love.”

  “Well, I’m not sure. I think Clarrie’s a perfect candidate for a fairy godmother.”

  Maribelle brightened, but then immediately frowned. “Ooh, I don’t know. You don’t think that little man is going to show up, do you? What was his name?”

  “I can never remember,” Fan said. “I think it might be a different name depending on the book you read.”

  “That story makes me just a teensy bit uncomfortable,” Maribelle admitted quietly.

  “I don’t think it has to be him,” I said.

  “If I was that girl,” Mina said, “I’d tell him, ‘You can’t have my child, you greedy bugger. I’ve already given you my jewelry, now spin me that gold before I bash your head with my spindle!’”

  Maribelle was speechless.

  “I just think there’s no reason Clarrie couldn’t get a nice fairy,” I said.

  When we arrived at the Allenby estate, Fan immediately headed over to the dance floor.

  “I’ll just wait there,” she said. “That way I’m already there when she calls us.”

  Maribelle flitted away to make idle small talk, and rather uncharacteristically, I decided to make a little myself, although my conversations would be more strategic than idle.

  The first woman I found was the mother of another young debutante.

  “Have you heard about Clarrie Babcock?” I asked.

  “The poor girl! I always knew Piminder was heartless.”

  “Do you think she has a fairy godmother?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful! She might actually spin straw into gold!”

  “I’d almost pay to see that, wouldn’t you? See her come out of the tower or barn or wherever with an armful of gold?” I hinted.

  “Ooh, yes. What if we all lined up at dawn to wait for her? Cheer her on!”

  Success number one, I thought.

  “I just hope …” The woman hesitated. “Well, do you think that little wrinkled man is the one who will help her? It’s just that the illustrations always make him look repulsive.”

  Every woman I talked to said the same thing. They’d be eager to watch Clarrie present her gold, then they’d suddenly remember this ghoulish little gnome.

  “That fairy story is repugnant,” an older veteran of the Season said. “I don’t know who that girl was, but she should have rejected his help and accepted her fate.”

  “I don’t see why he has to be the one to help Clarrie.”

  “It’s unseemly, that’s what it is.”

  “But isn’t that all the more reason we should be standing by to watch the proceedings?” I pled.

  A newlywed noblewoman told me, “Oh, short of an actual wicked fair
y, I think he’s the worst one to get! Poor Clarrie!”

  “But maybe she’ll get a good fairy godmother! Who says it has to be him?” I tried to be cheerful. “I don’t know …”

  “Isn’t the girl in the story a little bit lazy? And doesn’t her father brag about how great she is at spinning?” The latter was true, the former wasn’t, according to my storybook, so I took a little artistic license. “Clarrie isn’t a bit lazy! And her father panicked. He wasn’t trying to boast. I think they could get a really nice fairy.”

  “That’s a good point. I certainly hope so!”

  “I imagine nearly all of Strachey will be there to watch when she presents the gold, just to see if a fairy came!” I said.

  “But if it isn’t that greedy little man, will it still be a real fairy story?” said a particularly stubborn partygoer.

  “Well, Clarrie Babcock can’t spin straw into gold on her own, but obviously, if she comes out with an armful of gold, we’ll know there were fairies involved.”

  “But then it isn’t the same story,” she argued.

  “Clarrie isn’t the same girl! It’s already different.”

  “I just don’t know if it counts if it doesn’t go exactly like the story.”

  Count? Count how? What sort of convoluted logic … I sighed.

  “Then don’t you think we’d better be there to decide?”

  Before I could start another conversation about that stupid little disturbing man-fairy, Lady Allenby’s horn sounded, although I missed who was actually blowing it.

  I wove my way through the crowd until I had a front-row vantage. Lord Allenby’s garden wasn’t at capacity yet; fashionably late often meant after the presentation of the new debutantes. The crowd consisted mainly of mothers and a few fathers sizing up the new arrivals. Every time Lady Allenby read a new name, some of the noblewomen would lean over and whisper something to a son or daughter, who would respond back with a nod or a shrug or, occasionally, a sneer.

  I scanned the crowd for any of Fan’s callers. Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of Lady Farthingbras watching Justice. I was still craning my neck to see the Relishes or the Rundles when I heard, “Miss Fanchon Envers, sponsored by Lady Maribelle Frandsen!”

  I saw Fan step forward—her knees looked like they were probably shaking—and curtsy. When she stepped back, I quickly surveyed the crowd again. She was getting a few whispers here and there, and I thought I saw some boys nodding to their mothers. A good result. I wasn’t going to approve of anyone who would pick my daughter off a menu, obviously, but a moderate level of popularity was for the best. I wanted her to have some hope of making friends, even if the Season had been a modest disaster so far.

  Eventually the dance started, and I held my breath for the first few measures. Just don’t fall over, I thought. Or step on someone, or get lost and just stand there. Luckily, she’d been assigned a partner even clumsier than she, so by comparison she was like a ballerina. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Since none of the dancers were truly bad enough to get tangled up and pull all the others down, the whole thing started to drag on. I fidgeted and watched the crowd. First, I noticed that hardly anyone paid attention to the dancers. Only a very few of the more sentimental mothers were watching, with tears in their eyes. Second, my eyes eventually caught a glimpse of a blazon of red hair moving through the crowd.

  Roompilda. What was she doing here? I’d sent her away. Did she have other clients here? Determined not to let her vanish into the multitude this time, I started following.

  “Excuse me, pardon me,” I whispered.

  She hadn’t left the crowd of dance watchers, but she was moving deeper in, past the line of family and dear friends and into the ranks of appraising mothers, many of whom were now grumbling as I bumped into them and blocked their view.

  “I beg your pardon!” said an affronted nobleman after I’d run into his shoulder.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, although I didn’t think it was particularly my fault he’d stepped right into my path.

  The collision broke my view of Roompilda. I looked in the direction I’d seen her last, but I’d lost her. I started to swivel, examining all the ways she could have turned, but all I found was that an awful lot of people in Strachey have red hair.

  Calm down, Evelyn. She can’t have gone far. Look systematically—there really aren’t that many redheads. No, no, too auburn, too orange, too male, too … there.

  She’d stopped. I sidled around until I could see who she was talking to: Lady Rundle and Damian. She was explaining something, and they were listening intently. What did she have to tell them? Why was she even speaking with them? She’d told me she had no idea who would be calling, I thought, and then I remembered she’d known exactly what Fan had said to them. These calls were set-ups, I realized, and then kicked myself because it really should have been obvious.

  Still, though—why? She’d been trying to get Fan practice, so why was she still chatting with the appointments Fan had botched? As Roompilda moved on from the Rundles, I tried to follow her, but within a few seconds, the music stopped. I turned toward the stage and joined in the polite applause.

  The crowd began to disperse across the grounds as the dancers exited the stage. I stood on my tiptoes and looked for Fan. When I caught her eye, I waved cheerfully at her, in a way I hoped was encouraging. She gave me a nervous smile. I watched her tentatively join a group of girls. Please, let her have a good day for once, I thought.

  I turned my attention back to Roompilda. I’d lost track of her again, of course, but my instincts said she wouldn’t go far. She was here on business, not pleasure. Surrounding the dance floor were tables and chairs, set up for partygoers to enjoy the nearby refreshments. Whatever Roompilda was up to, surely this was where she’d wait. I couldn’t envision her playing lawn tennis.

  I joined the line for lemonade, the slowest line available, and looked for Roompilda among the seated guests as I waited. I was a few people away from getting my glass when I finally located her. She was sitting at a table on the fringe, reading a book. I received my glass of lemonade and looked around for an inconspicuous spot to spy on her.

  Just then, Maribelle spotted me.

  “Isn’t Fanchon so lovely? Didn’t she do so well?” she gushed, approaching me with a plate of pastries.

  “She did,” I said, maintaining a watch on Roompilda out of the corner of my eye. “I just hope she can finally have a pleasant time at one of these things.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she will! Everyone has fun at the garden party!”

  That was wishful naivety at its finest.

  “Let’s sit down,” I said, directing Maribelle toward a table that offered me a good view of Roompilda.

  “How are you, Maribelle?” I asked.

  While Maribelle gave me a complete rundown of each of her five children, from their developmental achievements to their eating habits to their bowel charts, I watched Roompilda, of course. Finally, by the time we’d reached child number four’s inability to digest beets and I’d run through my repertoire of conversational noises at least twenty times, someone approached Roompilda.

  He was obviously a messenger, wearing the uniform of the Pigeon Post Service, which turned a few heads as he drew near Roompilda’s table. Pigeon Post was a luxury even the wealthiest used rarely; coach delivery sufficed for all but the most urgent messages and emergencies. Who had the means to send a messenger pigeon to an etiquette coach? I could think of only one individual: the queen.

  The messenger handed Roompilda an envelope. She opened it and removed the slip of paper that had been folded and wrapped around the bird’s foot. After she’d read it, she shook her head to indicate there would be no response, and the messenger departed. She replaced the message in its envelope, slipped it into her carpetbag, and began walking farther into the garden.

  “Why don’t we walk around?” I told Maribelle, standing before she could respond.

  “Oh! What do you want to see?�
�� she asked, jumping to her feet. “Are we supposed to clean our tables, do you think? I feel bad about just leaving my plate for someone, but I don’t see a washbasin …”

  “That’s why they have servers,” I said. I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to steer her away from the table.

  “Oh, excuse me! Pardon me,” Maribelle exclaimed, taking a route through the maze of tables and chairs and brushing past heads as she went. “Lady Blount! Hello!”

  I just continued to push her through before she could begin chatting.

  “Evelyn, where are we going? Why are we in such a hurry?”

  I sighed. I was going to need Maribelle’s help. I doubted I could get close enough to Roompilda to eavesdrop without getting caught. With any luck, Roompilda wouldn’t recognize Maribelle.

  “Do you see that woman up ahead, with the red hair and the carpetbag? She’s the one I told you about—Fanchon’s etiquette coach.”

  “The one the queen sent?” she blurted piercingly.

  “Yes. Shh. I need to know what she’s doing here.”

  “Isn’t she here being Fanchon’s etiquette coach?” she whispered.

  “No. I fired her.”

  Maribelle gasped. “You fired someone from the queen?”

  “She didn’t have Fanchon’s best interests at heart! Her behavior has been suspicious, and I need to know what she’s up to!”

  “Are we following her?” Maribelle’s face lit up with excitement.

  I nodded. “She just got a message from the queen, delivered by Pigeon Post.” Maribelle’s mouth rounded into a perfect O of surprise. “That means it’s urgent, so whatever Roompilda has planned, it’s happening soon.”

  Maribelle and I walked slowly through the grounds, with our eyes on Roompilda several yards away. She was clearly headed toward the hedge maze, and as we neared our target, I could see why: Lady Farthingbras was seated near the entrance, fanning herself as she watched the line of people waiting their turn.

  “She’s going to speak to Lady Farthingbras,” I said. “I need you to eavesdrop.”

  “Me?” Maribelle whispered.

  “Roompilda doesn’t know you. She’ll recognize me. I just need to know what they say. I’ll wait over here.”