Entwined (13 page)

“Oh, joy, rapture, joy, all that,” said Bramble. Her yellow-green eyes sparkled at Azalea. “Sir John must have convinced the King.”

A card had been tucked inside the basket, and Azalea unfolded it to read:

D
ancing in slippers after two nights of boots was heaven; stepping on clouds. Although none of them could dance for very long, they laughed as merrily as though the Great Boot Bungling had never happened. They felt especially cheered in learning the next morning that the shoe arrangement would be the same as before, when Mother had taught them dancing. The shoemaker would mend their slippers every day, bringing the mended set to the palace and taking the basket of the torn ones away. When the twins realized this, they nearly cried with relief. They had pricked their fingers raw trying to stitch the soles.

The next day was Sunday, the girls' favorite day. Before mourning it had been the scourge of the week. Now, on their only day allowed out, they sat obediently through Mass, even more subdued than usual because the
King stiffly sat with them. Then, when the bells rang, they slipped out to the graveyard behind the cathedral.

It wasn't much of an outing, nothing like the flowered hedges and mossy fountains of the gardens, but the sun fell over everything in dappled yellows, and the air smelled like leaves, and the girls delighted in their time outside the palace.

After some time, the King arrived at the iron gate, tugging his glove over his bandaged hand, to see them draping posy strings over the weeping angel. He frowned.

“The carriage is waiting,” he said when Azalea came to him, Lily in her arms. “Azalea—”

“Don't be cross,” she said, trying to stand up to his towering sturdiness. “Let them have a little more time. It's our only chance outside. It counts as Royal Business, doesn't it?”

The King remained frowning, taking in Lily's pale face, then Azalea's, framed with black bonnet and veil. He turned his attention to the girls timidly playing in the sunlight, faces white, and his frown became more lined.

“I expect it does,” he said. “Don't be long.”

The King made to leave for the street. Azalea struggled inside herself.

“Wait,” she said.

The King turned, and Azalea tried to stammer out something.

“Thank you,” she said. “For the slippers.”

The King sucked in his cheeks, leaving indents on either side of his face. His fingers tapped the rim of the hat he held.

“I am not condoning this,” he said.

“No, sir,” said Azalea quickly.

“We are a house of mourning. You will be on time to all your lessons, and your meals, and there will be absolutely no talk of dancing. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I most certainly
do not
approve of you all keeping secrets. You know I know where you go, and I know you know
I
know of it.”

“Um,” said Azalea. She tried to untangle the sentence, and gave up. She wondered how much of the magic in the passage he knew about. Did he know about the forest? She doubted it. Without Mr. Keeper, it was probably just an old storage room.

“There will be no secrets in this household.” The King set his hat on his head. “I will walk home. Mr. Pudding will wait with the carriage. And, Miss Azalea, take care your sisters don't muss themselves. We are having guests for dinner tonight.”

 

The girls' room that evening was a chatter of disagreement, the younger girls alternately jumping on their beds and
peeking through the windows, keeping the lookout for arriving horses. They hadn't had guests to dinner in months.

“No,” said Delphinium, stubbornly sitting on her bed. “We can't. We swore to have meals in our room forever. We can't stand eating with the King, remember?”

“She has a point, Az.” Bramble brushed through her sleek red hair. “I'd rather just stay up here. He can't really expect us. Besides, I get too…chokey around him.”

“It
is
the rules,” said Flora.

“Seventeen, section two.” Eve rubbed her spectacles on her pillowcase hem.

Clover, who could never think unkindly of anyone, said, “He did—let us have our slippers.”

The girls pursed their lips and looked from Azalea to Delphinium to Clover to Bramble to Eve. Azalea clicked Lord Bradford's watch open, shut, open, shut. She imagined the dinner table, the King and the guests sitting in awkward silence, staring at their soup. And after, the coffee in the library. The King was terrible at conversation—it was always up to Mother to glide between topics and steer the discussion. Azalea looked at her palms, still marked from her nails, then looked at the basket of slippers, tied together and ready for
the night. She clicked the pocket watch closed.

“Rule number seventeen,” she said. “Everyone wash up.”

 

Washed and combed, the girls arrived at the dining room arches only a few minutes late. The King stood quickly when they arrived, and stared at them for several moments. His expression was unreadable.

Fairweller, Azalea was chagrined to see, was a guest. He sat to the right of the King and looked mildly annoyed, as always. His neck looked better.

The third guest had a gentle, solemn air to him. Azalea hesitated at the entries, her hand automatically touching the watch tucked in her pocket.

It was Lord Bradford. He bowed his head at her.

Azalea had to remind herself to breathe. He was back! And all right, too. She knew he'd been all right, of course, the papers never reported him as wounded, but it was an entirely different matter seeing him
here
, those soft brown eyes twinkling at her….

“It's that rotten shilling-punter nuffermonk who stopped the tower!” Bramble whispered. “I hope he chokes!”

“He is a
lord
,” said Azalea. “And if you do anything to him, I'll break your neck.”

Mrs. Graybe came from the kitchen door with a dozen
plates, as though she had expected the girls to arrive at any moment, and Azalea helped her set the table while the gentlemen helped the girls with their chairs. Above the noise and clatter of dishes, the King leaned in to Azalea.

“It is high time you all decided to eat dinner as a family again,” he said in a low voice.

“It's just for tonight.” Delphinium, seated next to Azalea, spoke without moving her eyes from the plate.

“Rule number seventeen,” said Eve reluctantly, from the other side.

The King straightened. His face held an odd expression. For a moment, he simply stood. Then his expression lapsed into unreadable, and he turned away.

The dinner of basted chicken, potatoes, and cake progressed well. Bramble seized the salt cellar, and Ivy spooned gobs of jam onto her chicken, but overall they behaved properly. At the end of the table, Fairweller and Lord Bradford discussed politics, and the King remained pensive.

“Parliamentary elections begin this next year,” Fairweller was saying. “The House could use a fine young head…. His Majesty and I thought you might be persuaded.”

Next to Azalea, Bramble had borrowed one of Delphinium's drawing pencils and was writing on her napkin.

“To run?” said Lord Bradford.

His way of speaking fascinated Azalea. He was frugal with words. It was a stark contrast to her life with a dozen girls and thousands of easy words.

Kale, next to Lord Bradford, had eaten one piece of potato and seemed no longer hungry. She stood on her chair and reached for Lord Bradford's wine. When he moved it out of reach, she pouted and sat down hard on her chair. Then she snuggled up to him, rubbed her cheek against his arm, and
bit
him.

Lord Bradford inhaled sharply.

“I'd rather not,” he said to Fairweller, gently untangling Kale from his arm. “I haven't a head for politics.”

“In my experience,” said Fairweller, “the best men for the country are those who do not. Your father was a very fine member of government. It has always been expected that you would run as well.”

Azalea caught a glimpse of what Bramble was writing on her napkin, faint in Delphinium's violet pencil:

Azalea burned with embarrassment as Bramble folded the napkin around the pencil and passed it to
Lord Bradford with the rolls. Lord Bradford took it and unfolded it in his lap. His dark eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. Then he folded the napkin and placed it under his plate. Bramble's yellow-green eyes narrowed.

“I'm flattered,” said Lord Bradford in his rich cream voice. Azalea hung on to the timbre of it, wondering if he had ever sung a glee or a catch. It was a voice that would mellow out the choir and give it a fuller sound. Lord Bradford continued. “I would rather not run for parliament.”

Bramble had taken another pencil from Delphinium, and Azalea's napkin, and wrote something new.

Azalea grimaced at her untouched food, burning in humiliation as Lord Bradford took the napkin and read it. This time, he looked to be discreetly writing something back beneath the table.

“It's not a matter of wanting to or not,” said Fairweller, who appeared more annoyed by the minute. “Or even what party you will run for. It is more a matter of duty. I find it odd you are shying away from this. He would be a fine member of the House, would he not, Your Highness?”

“What? Hmm? Oh. Yes. He would.”

Fairweller blinked at the King for a moment, in which Lord Bradford handed Bramble her napkin. She opened it and turned a rosy pink.

My lady,
it read,
who isn't?

Bramble pursed her lips and kicked Lord Bradford beneath the table—hard. His face twitched before regaining its solemn expression. Azalea buried her face in her hands.

“All we ask is for you to consider it. That is all,” said Fairweller.

“Oh.” Lord Bradford's voice was slightly strangled. “Yes. Thank you.”

Bramble threw the pencil-smudged napkin onto her plate. “I'm done,” she said. “May we go to our room now?”

For the first time since the beginning of dinner, the King snapped to awareness.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Certainly not. To the library, young ladies.” He stood and cast a significant look at them all. “Those are the rules.”

Already horrified by her sisters' treatment of Lord Bradford, Azalea spent the evening in the library sitting on the sofa across from him, dying a thousand tiny deaths. Delphinium “accidentally” spilled coffee on him, Lily crawled to his shoe and began gnawing on his laces, and Ivy and Hollyhock crowded him on both sides, stitching
samplers and asking him every two minutes what he thought of them. He replied he thought them very fine.

In fact, he almost seemed to be enjoying himself. Inexplicably, so did the King.

Intent on saving some aspect of the evening, Azalea herded the girls upstairs, then slipped to the front court, where Mr. Pudding tended to Lord Bradford's horse. Azalea explained why she was out, and he gave her the reins, patted her on the head, and went inside.

Azalea waited patiently, twisting the reins around her hands. Lord Bradford's horse pawed the gravel, but was well trained enough that it did not try to nose her hair, a horse trait Azalea hated. Presently Lord Bradford appeared at the door with a stack of books, probably political, as the King and Fairweller bid him good night. Azalea ducked behind the horse, grateful that black blended in with so many things.

When the door closed, Azalea stepped out from behind the horse.

“Lord Bradford—”

“Gaah!”

He fell back against the banister, tripping over the stairs.

“Sorry! Sorry!” said Azalea. “I didn't frighten you?”

“No, no, quite all right,” he said. He peeled himself
from the banister and set to picking up the scattered books. “Naturally—”

“Naturally—” said Azalea, relieved. She picked his hat from the gravel and helped him with the books. “Sorry. I just had to apologize. About tonight. Honestly, we don't kick or bite or throw potatoes at all our guests.”

A crooked smile touched Lord Bradford's lips.

“Your family has spirit,” he said, taking his hat from Azalea. “I enjoyed the evening.”

“Well, yes, you've just come from a war,” said Azalea.

Lord Bradford laughed. It was a nice laugh. Quiet, unpracticed, sincere. Azalea liked it.

“I'm so sorry we've kept this for such a long time,” she said, pulling the watch from her skirt pocket. She unfolded Mother's handkerchief from around it, and offered it to Lord Bradford cradled in her hands. “We shouldn't have taken it in the first place.”

Lord Bradford's eyebrows rose at the offering, and he opened his mouth, then closed it. He lowered his eyes to the books in his hands, then back to Azalea, and he managed a smile.

“When we first met,” he said, “ages ago, you gave me a candy stick. Just like you did now, with your hands like that. Do you remember?”

Azalea raised an eyebrow.

“It happened when my father had just died,” he said, quietly. “You came to the graveyard, licking a candy stick. You saw me. You put the stick in my hands, folded my fingers over it, and kissed my fingertips.”

“That must have been sticky,” said Azalea.

Lord Bradford laughed. A warm, tickling sensation rippled through Azalea, and a memory flickered through her mind; one of wandering off from Mother on market day. The air smelled of cider. And then, peeking through the iron slats of the graveyard gate and seeing a forlorn boy on a stone bench. The memory, so distant, felt like a faded dream.

“You know,” he said, “all these years I thought you were your sister.”

Azalea gave a nod-shrug. “A lot of people make that mistake. It's because we're so close in age—less than a year apart each. In fact, of all of us, Clover looks the oldest, we think.”

“I still have your handkerchief, from the Yuletide.”