The Rose Bargain

Chapter Thirteen

We wake the next morning to a flurry of activity in our little cottage. Our cook is in the kitchen below, with an army of maids setting out a lavish breakfast in our dining room. Three lady’s maids, one per room, wake us all and get to work setting our hair in elaborate updos and lacing us into corsets and the fine silk gowns provided by the Crown for our season. Lottie’s face betrays nothing of our secret rendezvous.

Once dressed and fed, we’re shepherded by footmen across the dew-damp lawn to the main palace, where Viscountess Bolingbroke awaits us in a parlor.

“Welcome, girls, to your first etiquette lesson,”

she trills as we sit down in uncomfortable embroidered love seats, our skirts fanning out around us. “These lessons will work in tandem with Her Majesty’s to ensure that whomever Bram picks is prepared for the royal duties that await her.”

I expect to set a table or learn English history, but instead she leads us in a series of bizarre exercises, drilling us for hours in riddles, maths, and word puzzles.

We’re given lap desks and sheets of paper. I’ve never been good at sitting down for school, and I keep getting distracted, gazing out the window at the green grass of Kensington Park. It’s busy today, lots of governesses pushing perambulators and women twirling silk parasols. My mind keeps floating back to Emmett. How am I supposed to make Bram fall in love with me when we haven’t been allowed any time together?

I wonder what my parents are doing right now. What about Lydia? Has she been told about losing the house?

Viscountess Bolingbroke raps her bony knuckle on the side of my desk. “Focus, Benton!”

Marion tips her page slightly toward me, and I copy her answers.

I suppose Bram did say he wanted a girl who was clever.

After tea, we gather on the south lawn. The queen is surrounded by a group of ladies-in-waiting, fanning themselves with feather fans, next to a champagne tower. Lingering on the edge of the crowd, I spot Bram and Emmett.

The party falls into a hush as we arrive. I hear whispers of “The six.”

It’s Viscountess Bolingbroke who makes the announcement, but everyone still faces the queen, like she’s the center of gravity and we’re all in her orbit. “What better way to welcome you to Kensington Palace than with a bit of merriment,”

says the viscountess. “This afternoon, Her Majesty invited a few select friends to join us for a hedge maze. In the center, you’ll find a small prize. Her Majesty loves a game.”

It is said that games were often how the Others lured humans in order to make bargains with them. They’d ask them to play a round of marbles or jacks or billiards and then enchant the objects to ensure their victory.

There is some debate among underground faerie scholars regarding which games humans invented and which were introduced to us by our strange visitors.

Queen Mor’s face twists into a smile as she picks up a full glass of champagne and smashes it on the ground. “Go!”

There’s a flurry of laughter as everyone takes off into the maze. Olive drags me by the hand, giggling. “Let’s find Bram.”

We run into Emmy first, who is trying to climb the walls. “I see Marion!”

Emmy shouts from halfway up the hedge. “Hi, Marion!”

From somewhere I hear Marion’s distant “Hello!”

Greer smacks into my side as she does a full circle in an attempt to go left. I feel a little guilty for laughing. “Should we wait for her?”

I ask Olive.

“No!”

Olive squeals, and pulls me away by the hand.

Emmy points left. “The boys are that way, let’s go!”

Greer shouts and kicks dirt at us as we sprint away.

We reach a fork, and Emmy and Olive take the one to the left. I veer right alone.

The hedge maze is darker here, and I soon hear the low sound of voices arguing.

I run into a dead end and find Faith and Emmett, standing too close. “Just tell me the truth—”

It sounds like she’s begging him.

I turn to go, but they freeze as they spot me. Faith walks away from Emmett, and as she passes me, she shoves me hard enough that I stumble backward into the hedge, the prickly branches cutting my arms.

“Faith!”

Emmett exclaims in horror and then extends a hand to pull me from the hedge. “Are you all right?”

he asks me.

I pull a clump of leaves from my hair. “I’ll survive.”

“Good,”

Emmett says. “Now go flirt with Bram.”

“Flirt?”

I reply in horror. I’ve never flirted with anyone.

“Yes, now’s a perfect chance.”

Before I can say no, he yells, “Brother, this way!”

and Bram rounds the corner, grinning.

Emmett raises his brows and nods toward his brother. “Uh, hi,” I say.

“Hello,”

Bram replies good-naturedly.

“Lady Ivy, tell Bram that hilarious thing you were just telling me,”

Emmett says. I could kill him.

“Um—”

I rack my brain for anything clever I’ve ever said. “Shrimps’ hearts are in their heads,”

I stammer.

“What?”

Bram says at the same time that Emmett says “What?”

even louder.

“Uh, shrimps’ hearts—”

“No, we heard you,”

Emmett says.

“Are you . . . fond of shrimp?”

Bram asks.

“Not particularly.”

“Oh,”

Bram says while Emmett stands behind him, looking at me wide-eyed and horrified.

“I’ll go now.”

I turn to walk in the opposite direction.

“Wait, no, the other hilarious thing!”

Emmett calls, and I run, not toward the center of the maze, but to hide from him.

I lose him and spend the next few minutes wandering aimlessly down corridor after corridor. Suddenly, completely by mistake, I find myself in the middle of the maze. Bram is already there, a golden trophy slung in his hand.

Emmett appears, seconds after me, out of breath, with a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He pushes his hair away from his face.

He tackles Bram good-naturedly. “Must you always win?”

Bram laughs along with him. “Yes.”

Olive Lisonbee

I miss the kitchen at our country house in Hampshire. I miss our cook, Mrs. Varvel, and the way she used to wake up before sunrise to roll out pastry dough with me. I miss foraging for mushrooms with my baby sister on my hip. I’ve never felt quite comfortable in my skin, but this homesickness hurts in places I haven’t felt before.

The kitchen in Caledonia Cottage is smaller, and I am here all alone. There’s a rack of gleaming copper pots above my head and an unfamiliar brick floor beneath my bare feet.

But at least the fire is roaring and the lanterns are lit. I peer out the plate glass window and look hopefully to the horizon. The first blue streaks of dawn aren’t here yet, I’ve got another few hours until their welcome arrival.

I don’t remember a time I wasn’t terrified of the dark. It was humiliating to ask Marion if I could keep the lantern lit all night and even more humiliating when she replied yes with that pitying expression she always has on her face when she looks at me.

She means well. They all mean well. Except maybe Faith, but I’m certain it’s just because she doesn’t know me yet.

Maybe if I win, they could all be my ladies-in-waiting. Then we’d all be friends forever. What fun that would be.

But I don’t think I’m going to win. I should have asked the queen for something better than a pretty face with perfect teeth. I should have asked her to make me brave like Ivy or funny like Emmy or interesting like Faith.

But Mother said someone would fall in love with my smile, and I liked the sound of that.

I tap flour out on the butcher block and roll out the square of dough into a long, flat oval. This is my favorite part, the part where I get my hands dirty.

A log in the fireplace pops and I nearly jump out of my skin.

My governess used to say I was afraid of my own shadow. I think it was supposed to be a figure of speech, but it was true. It felt like it was chasing me.

The dark makes me feel like I’m being watched. I like that even less.

I long for my room at home, with its big window that faces east. There was a lantern on every table, and the shadows were familiar.

I begged my mother all winter to let me delay my coming-out at least a year. I felt so unprepared for the season and what was expected of me after it, but she refused, saying it would cause nothing but gossip.

When the queen announced the competition for Prince Bram’s hand the day of the Pact Parade, I was relieved. Bram has such a sweet face and gentle demeanor. He seemed like the kind of boy from the books I read.

And being a princess seemed a more palatable prospect than being a wife.

Logically, of course, I knew I’d still be a wife, but it was different this way. Easier to stomach.

And I was right about Bram. He’s a dream. He’s been nothing but a perfect gentleman, the model of a prince right out of a storybook. He sent a footman with a handwritten thank-you note yesterday after I had a basket of iced buns delivered to him.

But I didn’t expect to feel so foolish around the other girls. They seem so much more grown-up than me. Faith told me yesterday that she’s kissed at least a dozen boys, and Marion already knows how to run a household and doesn’t need any lights on to sleep.

Even poor, disgraced Ivy Benton seems to have a better chance than I do. Bram couldn’t keep his eyes off her after they danced at the Twombleys’ ball. He wiped the tears from my cheeks when he danced with me, but the sting of watching him with the others didn’t fade.

Sometimes I feel like one day every other girl was given instructions on how to grow up, and I missed the lesson. It’s why I love baking so much. There’s no subtext or secrets in a recipe.

As I work the dough, I think of Bram. On nights like this I play out a little fantasy in my head, imagining that he visits the cottage late at night and finds me the only one awake. We talk for hours, and when dawn breaks, he takes me in his arms and kisses me as the first rays of sunlight dance across the grass.

In my dreams he tells me that he likes me just the way I am, that I’m the prettiest, most special girl he’s ever met.

He’ll fall in love with your smile. That’s what my mother said. I just have to keep smiling. Stiff upper lip. Don’t let them see how scared you are.

The day of the Pact Parade, I clasped my hands in front of me to keep them from shaking. The queen wasn’t as scary as I thought she’d be. She smiled at me kindly and told me I was a very pretty girl. That was nice. She didn’t have to say any of that.

When I told her I wanted a perfect smile, she said she thought it would suit me well. I made the deal in exchange for my fingernails easily. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it seems to bother everyone else. It’s honestly convenient. There’s no more dough stuck down under them.

I take a spoonful of soft yellow butter and smear it across the rolled-out brioche.

The creak of a footstep in the hall makes me jump. “Who’s there?”

I whisper.

No answer comes. I’m always imagining things.

I return to my dough. But when I look up again, there’s a figure darkening the doorway.

I shriek and drop my spoon with a clatter. The figure steps into the light. It’s only a footman. I sigh in relief, but he crosses the kitchen with heavy footfalls and grabs me in his arms so tight my ribs are nearly crushed.

I open my mouth to scream, but a vial is tipped between my lips. The liquid slides down my throat, bitter and thick.

“I’m sorry, miss,”

the footman whispers.

He scoops me up into his arms, and before I can protest, I am unconscious.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I come to with a gasp. The first thing I register is the pain of rocks digging directly into my spine. The second thing is how cold I am.

I’m shivering under my nightdress.

I blink my eyes open to an ink-black sky, a sliver of a moon, a smattering of stars.

I’m outdoors. Why am I outdoors?

There’s a gasp to my left, a sniffle, someone cries out.

I push myself up and look over to find Marion, Emmy, Faith, Greer, and Ivy, all as dazed as I am, in their nightdresses as well.

There are footsteps in the trees. I grip Ivy’s hand as someone approaches behind us.

Queen Mor’s first lesson has begun.