Chapter Five
The blood from my hand seeps into the edges of the scroll and dribbles down the spindly legs of the table.
I turn to walk back to my mother, but Bram bounds down the steps of the dais after me.
He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a midnight-blue silk handkerchief. Swiftly, he encircles my wrist with his cool fingers and tugs me closer to him. I let out a little gasp of surprise.
He wraps the fabric tightly around the wound and finishes with a knot. Then he presses his middle and pointer finger over the fabric right in the middle of my palm, where it throbs the worst. There’s a sudden rush of heat, then the pain stops.
I gasp softly, confused and relieved all at once.
He looks down at me and quirks a smile, showing off his single dimple. “I look forward to getting better acquainted, Lady Ivy.”
The shocked crowd parts, and I return to my mother’s side. She doesn’t scold like I’m expecting. Instead, she reaches down and squeezes my uninjured hand.
Hushed conversations fill the hall like a swarm of insects as the next few moments tick by.
I’m surprised when Olive Lisonbee takes a step forward. She’s always been a shy little thing. I’ve never seen her look quite so determined.
The tips of her ears burn as red as her hair as she presents herself to the queen. She curtsies, then turns toward Bram. “I’d like to be your bride.”
Her voice shakes only a little.
Bram smiles and gestures toward the contract. “Go on, then.”
One of the footmen places a fresh inkwell in front of her. It takes her four tries to cut deep enough to draw blood. She flinches each time the knife draws across her palm, but I respect her for not giving up.
When she’s finished, she returns to her mother’s side, but I don’t miss the way she glances down at Bram’s handkerchief tied around my hand with jealousy in her eyes.
After Olive, it’s Emmy Ito who signs. Her black hair shines like onyx as the light from the stained glass catches it.
After Emmy there are three girls I don’t recognize. Only one cries as the blade pierces her.
Next is Greer, my old friend, who is bodily pushed by her mother up to the now blood-soaked table. She drags her heels into the thick carpet, her face already streaked with tears. Her mother slices open her hand for her, and I’m close enough to hear her hiss, “He’ll choose you if you stop sniveling.”
A line has formed. Ten more girls in rapid succession. One signs her name, then stumbles and pretends to faint at Bram’s feet. She waits for him to reach out to her, but a footman beats him to it, hauls her to her feet, and sends her on her way.
There’s Lady Sara Middlebrook and her cousin Deidre Rutland next. They giggle audibly as they cut their hands and sign their names.
Queen Mor announces that there are only five minutes left, when Lady Marion Thorne comes forward. Her head is held high, her steps unhurried. She moves like she knows she’s already won. She probably has.
Marion has always been the prettiest of the girls our age, the richest too. Her mother, the only child of the Duke of Sherwood, shocked her family when she married an untitled man who immigrated from Accra to London to make a bargain with the queen. He made a good deal. Enough to buy him a London mansion and more than a few country estates. The queen rewarded him with his own dukedom, the first awarded in nearly a century. The subject of Marion’s match has been hotly debated. Whoever gets her and her sizable dowry will be lucky indeed.
She’s either just thrown away her future or made herself a princess. If I were a gambler, I’d put all my money on the latter.
Marion’s duchess-silk gown glows against her golden-brown skin, matching, perfectly, the color of the diamonds in the coronet set atop her dark curls.
Marion is so perfect, I used to wish I could hate her, but she’s genuinely lovely and funny. We both got kicked out of a midwinter choral performance last fall because she kept drawing little figures on the program and making me laugh. Of course, that was before she abandoned me with the rest of them. She’s easier to hate now.
I glance across the room to where Greer trembles next to her mother. She’s still trying to stanch the bleeding of her hand with the silk garniture of her skirt.
Unlike the rest of us, Marion doesn’t grimace as she cuts her hand. She stares the prince down, as if daring him to make it up to her.
“Less than two minutes remaining,”
Queen Mor announces.
Three more girls rush the stage, squabbling over the knife as they race to draw blood in time.
Then, with only seconds left, a girl I don’t recognize pushes through the crowd from the back of the room.
She’s exceptionally pretty, with parchment pale skin and masses of dark brown hair wound into an updo dotted with pearls.
In a single swift motion, she slashes her hand and scrawls her name.
She is the only other girl to get a reaction out of Bram. He presses his mouth into a thin line, as if he’s trying to stop himself from saying something.
The dark-haired girl doesn’t even look at him, as if he’s the least important part of this for her.
The queen stands from her throne and looks over all of us once more.
The room, which had been so still and perfect before the queen’s announcement, appears as if a storm has blown through it. Mothers are sweaty and sick with worry. Girls’ hands and dresses are stained with red. There’s a slow drip, drip, drip as blood runs in rivulets off the spindly table where the contract lies.
Twenty-four of us have signed up.
Twenty-three of us will leave this competition with nothing.
The queen cuts through the crowd, flanked by four stony-faced footmen in midnight-blue livery.
They swing open the double doors to the throne room as she peers over one shoulder and arches a brow. “Follow,”
she commands.