The Rose Bargain

Chapter Eleven

Faith turns on her heel, and Emmett sprints after her, leaving me alone with Bram. For a moment we just stare at each other.

“I’m sorry—”

I sputter at the exact same moment he says, “Are you all right?”

“I—what?”

I expected scolding, outrage, anything other than the genuine concern on the prince’s face.

“I can explain,”

I finally breathe out. “I went through the wrong door. His Highness was walking out at the same time I walked in. We collided is all.”

“All right,”

he says again, looking at me with surprising kindness. There’s a warmth to his features I didn’t expect. “Would you like to dance?”

“It would certainly get Viscountess Bolingbroke off my back,” I say.

Prince Bram laughs, and it lights up his whole face. I’m close enough to see the way his eyes crinkle at the edges. “She is a fearsome creature, is she not? I’d never leave you to her wrath. Shall we?”

He extends a gloved hand, and I take it.

The ballroom is sparkling like a flute of champagne, completely drenched in golden candlelight.

Prince Bram takes me to the edge of the parquet floor as the orchestra kicks up a Viennese waltz. I’ve never danced with a boy—wasn’t allowed to until I was officially “out”

in society—but Bram is a steady lead even with my unsure feet.

Back when my parents still hosted dinner parties and Lydia and I were banished upstairs, we’d listen to the music drift up from the floors below. We’d grasp hands and twirl until gravity wrenched us apart and we landed on the floor, toppled over and laughing.

It’s different like this, with a boy’s broad shoulders under my palms. His back rises and falls under my hands, and it sends something kicking in my chest.

I’m an awkward partner. I don’t quite know what to do with my limbs or where to move my head. It doesn’t help that I’m still flustered from Emmett’s infuriating confrontation. Twice, I step on Bram’s toes. He doesn’t say anything.

“You’re a good dancer,”

I say, heart in my throat.

He grins as he turns us both in a wide circle around the floor. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

I scan the edge of the ballroom for Emmett and Faith, but they haven’t returned.

In my distraction, I stumble, but Bram doesn’t let me fall.

“Are your brother and Miss Fairchild acquainted?”

I dare to ask.

“Their secrets aren’t mine to tell.”

I raise a brow. “Secrets—how scandalous.”

He chuffs out a low laugh. “Scandal seems to be a favorite hobby of my dear brother.”

The song ends, and Prince Bram bows to me. He begins to walk away.

“Wait!”

I call. I’m not a romantic, I don’t think it’ll be me Bram chooses, but there’s this . . . tug I feel toward him. I’m completely fascinated by this boy with an easy smile who healed my hand with magic like it was as simple as breathing.

He turns back to me, a question on his face.

“I didn’t get the chance to thank you for the handkerchief.”

His brows knit together in confusion. “What?”

“Yesterday, you tied your handkerchief around my hand to stop the bleeding. I wanted to say thank you.”

A smile tugs at his lips. He looks so human, it would be easy to forget he’s not.

He ducks his head shyly. “Thank you for believing I might be someone worth bleeding for, Lady Ivy.”

Two songs later, Faith emerges to dance with Bram. She’s a beautiful dancer, his equal in every way, but her eyes are rimmed with red.

Emmett has vanished completely.

Caledonia Cottage is a nightmare when all six of us and the viscountess are crammed inside like tinned fish. There’s a kerfuffle before bed as Bolingbroke marches from room to room, counting us like chickens. But someone is always unaccounted for in the washroom, so we’re one off, and she grows cross, convinced we’re playing a prank on her.

When our tongue-lashing is over, Olive grows weepy over a missing doll, which Marion finds smushed at the bottom of her trunk.

Once everything has finally calmed down, Emmy wakes the whole house anew, clattering down the stairs in search of a midnight snack. (“I get hungry at night, and I miscounted the steps.”) We light a candle, slice some bread, and wrap her ankle before going to sleep once more.

It’s long past midnight when I jolt awake to see someone standing over me, a clammy hand clasped over my mouth. For a moment I think it’s one of the other girls playing a prank, but the figure above me isn’t laughing.

I kick wildly and raise my fists to swing, but in the time it takes for my eyes to adjust in the darkness, I see my lady’s maid standing above me, her finger pressed over her mouth in a shh motion.

“Emmett sent me. Come quickly, now,”

she whispers.

I glance to where Faith is sleeping soundly.

“Tell him I didn’t cheat and that I won’t kiss him. I’m going back to sleep,”

I whisper.

She frowns. “I’m under instruction to report back. If you don’t come with me, he’s going to come here himself.”

I groan and push myself up and out of bed, determined to end this business with him once and for all.

She leads me across the dark of Kensington Park, through the sunken garden, and into the orangery, a cavernous greenhouse of blooming citrus trees. The smell of orange blossoms hits me like a wall, and in the dark, the trees stretch toward the ceiling like spindly skeletons.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

She turns back to me, the moonlight streaking across her face. She’s got a tidy sort of face, her brown hair pulled back into a bun. I wonder if she’s another of Emmett’s girls.

“Charlotte Milbank, but everyone calls me Lottie.”

Lottie’s steps are quick and confident, like this is a route she knows well. She stops in front of the largest orange tree, one whose leaves brush the glass ceiling, and pushes it aside to reveal a nondescript door.

“I have no lantern. You must stay very close.”

I reach my arms out and feel cool, rough stone around me on all sides.

We’re in a tunnel.

My ragged breathing and the scraping of our shoes against the earth floor are the only sounds as we wind through the serpentine tunnels.

Before I can ask where we are, Lottie presses on a seam in the wall, and it swings open to reveal a room.

Suddenly there is a rush of fresh air and a strong hand in mine, helping me over the threshold. The room we’ve entered is warm, homey even, with teetering stacks of books and walls covered in tapestries. “Good evening,”

Emmett says with an infuriating smile, like he never doubted I’d come.

Against the wall opposite the fireplace is a four-poster bed covered in a forest green quilt. We’re in his bedroom.

I’m too anxious to sit, and I don’t want to give Emmett the impression that I intend to stay, so I position myself near the fireplace, next to the door.

Something rustles in the sheets, and I jump with a shriek. “What is that?”

Emmett shoves both hands into the quilt and scoops up a tiny, wriggling creature with scraggly wire hair and eyes bulging a little too far out of its skull.

“This noble beast is Pig.”

Emmett tucks the little dog against his chest and gives it a kiss on top of its fuzzy head. “Bram has his hunting dogs. I have Pig. My dad gave him to me for my fifth birthday. As the story goes, I burst right into tears and asked why he’d given me a piglet, and the name stuck. He stays mostly in my room. Doesn’t seem to like the smell of the queen.”

His father, the queen’s husband. “You must be close, you and your father,” I say.

He turns suddenly to rearrange a nearby stack of books. “Something like that,”

he says tightly.

When he turns around again, the bravado is firmly back in place. “You told me to find you somewhere more private. Never let it be said that I do things by halves.”

“I was speaking hypothetically. I didn’t expect to be kidnapped by your henchman.”

Lottie laughs. “This henchman is off to bed, good luck you two!”

“No, take me with you!”

I protest.

Lottie doesn’t listen; she shuts the hidden door behind her, leaving Emmett and me alone.

I stare him down, though I don’t cut a very intimidating figure in my lace-trimmed nightdress.

Emmett furrows his brow as he sinks down onto the edge of his bed. “Why do you dislike me so much?”

“I—”

“And don’t say it’s because I ran you over. I absolutely did no such thing.”

“You could have killed me!”

He huffs and leans back, now looking at the ceiling. “We’re going to need to find some common ground.”

“If I tell you why, will you let me leave?” I ask.

“You’re not my prisoner. But I must admit I am curious.”

My eyes sting at the memory. It was like a light within Lydia had been snuffed out by Emmett’s hand. Some part of me has always blamed him for the way everything fell apart after.

It was two years ago. I was too young to attend events, but I was still awake, in the drawing room, reading with Papa, when Mama and Lydia clattered through the door, much too early to be home from a ball. It was Lydia’s first season, soon after her bargain and debut at the Pact Parade, before things had gotten bad for her.

Lydia fell into Papa’s arms, her body racked with big, heaving sobs. I rushed to kneel at her side.

“What happened?” I asked.

Mama was red-faced, talking too fast. “I can’t be sure. One moment she was the belle of the ball, dancing with Prince Emmett himself; the next, she was stumbling, running from the party in this state. What happened, my darling?”

Lydia ran up the stairs, sobbing, screamed, “Leave me alone!”

and slammed the door.

I called for a cup of tea and a few minutes later knocked softly on her door. I entered to find her crying, still in her rumpled gown.

“I’m off to murder him after delivering this tea, so you might as well tell me what he did,” I said.

She looked up at me with her tear-streaked face. “We were dancing, and everything was fine. But then he—”

Lydia hiccupped. “He asked me to meet him alone in the garden. When I told him no, he told me I didn’t belong there, that I should go home.”

“That’s it. I’m killing him.”

Lydia let out a watery laugh, “I’m sure you can find him in the garden with some other girl.”

She told me later that it was particularly devastating because she suspected he was right. I could see how what he’d said haunted her.

I’ve hated him ever since.

I turn to Emmett now, his face unreadable in the low light of his room. “Two years ago, you attempted to seduce my sister at the Vaughns’ ball, and when she rejected you, you told her she didn’t belong there. She cried all night.”

Emmett sits up, a disarmingly confused look on his face as he searches for the memory. “Lydia Benton? When did we?”

His face falls. “Oh—”

“So you do remember?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t what you think.”

I reach for the hidden door. “I said why I don’t like you. Now please let me leave. That was our deal—”

Emmett interrupts me. “She was hyperventilating.”

“What?”

“Lydia. She was hyperventilating when I asked her to dance with me.”

“That seems cruel, to pull a breathless girl into a dance.”

“No, not like that. I could see her, sitting alone in the corner, panicking. I know how it feels at those awful parties. All those people watching you like you’re something for sale, waiting for you to do something worth gossiping about. I was trying to give her an escape.”

“That doesn’t explain the rest of it.”

Emmett sighs. “I asked her to come to the garden with me so she could catch her breath.”

I shake my head. “You told her she didn’t belong there.”

Emmett throws his hands up in frustration. “It was a compliment! I hate nearly all those miserable people!”

“Oh.”

It finally sinks in that Emmett was trying to do the right thing. I don’t like feeling stupid like this.

“Yeah. Oh.”

Emmett rises from the bed and crosses the room to me. “Is it my turn now?”

I look down at my muddy bare feet. “I suppose that seems fair.”

“Bram said you were a terrible dancer,”

he begins.

“That’s what you pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night to say?”

“What if it was?”

“I’m more than my dancing!”

I protest, annoyance back in full force.

“Sure, but it’s going to come up time and time again this season. Do you want to look like a fool?”

“You’re deflecting.”

But he isn’t wrong.

“No. I’m proposing a solution. We talk while I teach you to waltz. Two birds, one stone, you’ll be back in your bed within the hour.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I’m your only hope of making it back through those tunnels. You can try the front door, but servants talk. Ivy Benton leaving Emmett De Vere’s bedroom on the first night of the competition for his brother’s hand? My, what a story that would be.”

“I thought you were trying to prove to me that you’re not horrible.”

He arches a brow. “I didn’t say I’m not horrible.”

I huff out in frustration and extend my arms to him. “Fine.”

He takes a step forward, wraps one arm around my waist, and takes my other hand in his.

My hair is loose around my shoulders, and the heat of him is stifling through my thin nightdress.

He starts counting out softly. “We start with the basics. One, two, three, one, two, three.”

We’re barely moving, but I can’t quite get my balance. “Stop looking at your feet,”

he says. “Up here, at me.”

There are those eyes again. Looking at me as if he’s trying to undo a knot.

We settle into a rhythm. Step, slide, step. “Let’s play a game. We each get a question. We each tell the truth. We go one by one.”

Something straightforward for once. “Deal.”

“Ladies first.”

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”

I stumble, but his steady arms keep me upright.

“Because I need you to win. I intend to help you.”

“Why—”

He shakes his head.

“My turn,”

he interjects. “Why were you wearing boots yesterday?”

“My family is too poor to afford new shoes.”

It feels like betraying them to admit it. “Why do you need me to win?”

Step, slide, step.

“My father’s life’s work depends on it. Is that what you bargained for? Something to help your family financially?”

I step on his toes.

He winces. “Try to keep your steps the same length every time.”

“I didn’t make a bargain,”

I say. “What was your bargain?”

He’s been eighteen for months, surely he’s made one by now.

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “I’ll never make a bargain,”

he murmurs. “Why didn’t you make one?”

I don’t know how to explain succinctly. “I tried. I asked her to undo my sister’s bargain, but she said it couldn’t be done. There was nothing else I wanted.”

“Nothing?”

I shake my head. “It’s not your turn.”

“You didn’t ask me anything, I figured I’d take my chances.”

There’s a hint of a grin playing at the edge of his mouth.

“What is your father’s work?”

I ask. “Why does it depend on me winning?”

“Now it’s time to attempt turning.”

He guides us in a wide circle. “Stop trying to lead.”

“I’m not trying to lead! You’re deflecting again.”

“My father wishes to build a world better than this one. I share his wish.”

I’m getting frustrated. “But what on earth does that have to do with me?”

There’s a storm raging behind Emmett’s eyes. There’s so much he’s not telling me, so I decide to lay my own cards on the table.

“You want the truth? My sister’s disappearance ruined not only her, but our whole family. We’re sullied. Notorious. A laughingstock. I stood no chance of any invitations this season without this competition. My sister can’t remember her bargain, nor anything from the weeks she disappeared, and I can’t shake the feeling that they’re linked. I thought if I could get the queen to reverse it, give my sister her memory back, she might begin to heal. But then the queen announced the competition for Bram’s hand, and I saw, for the first time in months, an opportunity to help my family get back into society’s good graces. We’re going to lose our house. My father’s tenant farms are failing. His business associates wouldn’t speak to him before, but they might now. He could get a loan. I could make things right. My mother might stop crying so often.”

Emmett’s steps have slowed. We’ve stopped dancing, but he’s still holding me in his arms.

“She wouldn’t undo your sister’s bargain?”

Emmett whispers.

“She said the bargain cannot be undone, it doesn’t work like that. And I hate her for it. I hate the things she’s done to my family and to everyone else. I hate her. I’d be a terrible princess because of it. Bram won’t pick me. He shouldn’t.”

Emmett’s eye narrow. “You hate her?”

“As much as I’ve ever hated anything.”

“And you want to undo your sister’s bargain?”

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

“We need each other, you and I.”

My heart quickens. “What do you mean?”

“My father’s bargain was this.”

He gestures vaguely to the palace walls around him. “My mother died in childbirth. For the first eight years of my life, it was just my father and me. He read books to me. We played in the garden, fought with little wooden swords. Sometimes I don’t even know which memories are real and which ones I made up. It’s all bathed in this hazy light. He was all I had. And then he married Queen Mor and bargained to legitimize me as a prince. The cost was that he could never speak to me again. Suddenly I was alone, in big, drafty palace rooms, with only toy soldiers and a governess to keep me company. I didn’t understand. I still don’t completely. I had a lonely childhood and then a lonely adolescence. It wasn’t until Bram showed up that I remembered what it was like to have a family.”

“You have my sympathy, but I’m not sure what that has to do with me,”

I say, confused.

Emmett rolls his eyes. “Are you always this impatient?”

“No.” Yes.

“I was twelve when I first started finding the notes hidden in the books. My father, unable to speak to me any other way, started dog-earing passages and underlining words and phrases. He was communicating with me. It took me years to put it all together. He wants to unseat the queen.”

My blood runs cold. Unseat the queen? If she found out about even a hint of rebellion, we would all be destroyed. She’s hung people at Traitors’ Gate for much less. “How?”

It comes out in a whisper.

“I’ve spent the last six years researching. Books on the Others are forbidden, most were burned long ago, but from what I gather, a faerie bargain can be broken one of two ways. The first way is that the fae who made the bargain agrees to undo it. Obviously this is extremely unlikely.”

My mind flashes to Mrs. Osbourne’s storybook turning to ashes in the kitchen hearth. “But there is another way?”

“A faerie bargain is null and void if the fae who made it violates the terms of their own bargain. Queen Mor’s first bargain was with King Edward on the battlefield. That bargain made her queen. All subsequent bargains have been made between a queen and her subjects.”

I take a breath as understanding dawns on me. “Which means, if we can get her to violate the terms of the bargain she made with King Edward, every other bargain will be void. The whole system will crumble.”

Emmett smiles in approval. “Exactly.”

“But how do we get her to do that?”

“First, we have to figure out exactly what the wording of that bargain was. Which I believe my father has already done.”

Emmett crosses the room to his desk and pulls out stacks of paper, pages ripped from books, torn scraps of fabric with ink scrawls all over them. I don’t see how anyone could make sense of them. But Emmett begins to lay them on the floor in an arrangement clearly only he understands.

All of England, yours to reign over

The cities, valleys, and fields of clover

The one twice crowned, the ruler of all

As long as your heart beats, yours to call

These terms shall not bend

A sovereign twice crowned shall rule to the end.

“What do you think?”

Emmett asks.

“That’s some seriously bad poetry.”

“Not the point I’m trying to make.”

The words rattle around in my head. “Twice crowned? That’s an odd phrase.”

Emmett nods. “That was her trick. Edward thought she meant him, crowned once on the battlefield and once at Eltham Palace. But she meant herself, crowned once as queen of the Otherworld and once as queen here.”

“How would we break it? King Edward is dead.”

“But his bargain remains. She’s already crowned you as May Queen.”

Emmett leans forward, his eyes flickering in the firelight. “If you win, you’ll be crowned again as princess. ‘The one twice crowned’ will now be two. Her bargain will be void.”

My head is spinning. “But why would she crown anyone as May Queen if it could threaten her rule like that?”

“It’s been over four hundred years. Maybe she’s gotten complacent and forgotten. Or maybe she’s certain the one who won May Queen won’t be selected as Bram’s bride. We have to make sure Bram is so in love with you that even if his own mother says he cannot have you, he will elope. We have to make him love you. Love you for real.”

An uncomfortable feeling curdles in my stomach. Sedition, trickery, risking my family, everything I’ve ever held dear for a shot in the dark.

Emmett must sense my hesitation, because he leans in. “It has to be you, Ivy. This is our only chance of unseating her, of creating an England free of her bargains and her cruelty. We could bring this country into the modern world.”

“How does Bram feel about all this? Why not just tell him?”

“Bram loves his mother too much to betray her. And even if he wanted to, the Others can’t lie. I can’t confide this to him. It puts everyone at too much risk.”

“I—”

I stutter, but there’s no way to verbalize the storm raging within me. It’s all too much to take in.

“You’re the only hope I have.”

I cross the room in anxious pacing. “My family never thought I’d make a match, even at the best of times. I’m awkward and mouthy and not a beauty, not like my sister or the other girls in the competition. How am I supposed to make a prince fall in love with me?”

“You don’t see yourself very clearly, do you?”

I stop, finally still, but he’s been looking at me the whole time. “You really were just trying to help Lydia that night?” I ask.

He blinks slowly, then nods. “She looked like she needed a friend.”

“What about the night you ran me over—did I look like I needed a friend too?”

You know, you’re really quite pretty.

He laughs like I’ve made a joke. “That was different.”

An awkward silence stretches between us, and he crosses the room to me.

“I’m scared,”

I say. It feels worth telling him the truth.

Emmett places both hands on my shoulders, the warm weight of them steadying.

His voice is low and serious, but his eyes flicker like coals in the fire. “If you let me help you, Ivy Benton, you could be queen.”