The Rose Bargain

Chapter Seventeen

I awake at dawn to the sound of the bedroom door swinging open with a clatter. Standing there in her nightdress and sleeping cap is Viscountess Bolingbroke, Faith by her side.

“She was out in the middle of the night,”

Faith declares, like she’s proposing to burn me at the stake. “It was all so terribly improper. I had to let you know as soon as possible.”

I open my mouth to protest, but my throat is on fire. I’m shivering and sweaty all at once. My body aches from the inside out, as if something is bruising and breaking endlessly. I blink away the sleep from my eyes and find my vision blurry at the edges.

Viscountess Bolingbroke rushes to my side and places her cool hand on my forehead. “She’s sick with fever, Miss Fairchild. Fetch the doctor and your lady’s maid. I’m not sure what sort of prank you’re playing, accusing your visibly ill competition of impropriety, but the next time you lie, I may have to tell Her Majesty.”

Faith sputters, her face bright red with anger, then storms out of the room.

When I awake, it’s to Lottie dabbing a cool cloth on my forehead.

“Shh, miss, you’re all right.”

She soothes me like I’m a child, and I let my eyes flutter shut.

“What happened?”

I rasp. Light streams in from the windows, and I suspect I’ve been asleep for a very long time.

“You’re running a fever, darling. Just relax.”

My hands hurt the worst. They’re swollen and ugly, my knuckles too stiff to move.

When I awake again, it’s Greer who is standing over me. “They told me to make you drink,”

she says, and tips a glass of cool water into my mouth. Every swallow is agony.

The darkness is freezing as it swallows me whole.

Emmy Ito

Marion and Faith are in the garden, Greer is holding vigil by Ivy’s bedside, Olive is in the kitchen, and my hair has never looked worse.

I swear my lady’s maid must hate me. Tonight I’m having dinner with Prince Bram, my reward for winning that blasted hedge maze—a meal, alone, with him, and I look like a poodle.

My maid used a curling rod on my front pieces and they’re dangling in front of my eyes like little springs. I swipe them away, frustrated, fold my fashion periodical, and pad across the cottage to see what Olive is doing in the kitchen.

“You’ve got flour in your hair,” I say.

She wipes it away, leaving a streak of white across her face.

I gesture at the rising dough by the hearth. “You’re going to bury us in brioche.”

“Poor Bram, then he’d have to die alone.”

The reminder of his immortality always makes me feel sick, but I laugh anyway because it’s Olive, and she smiles so big when I do.

I lean my elbow on the counter. “Be honest, do I look ridiculous?”

Olive taps flour out over the butcher-block counter as she considers. “You look like a very fancy dog.”

“Rude!”

“I said a fancy one!”

She wipes her hands on her apron. “Come here.”

She cranks the spout and wets a towel to run over the front pieces of my hair, smoothing out the horrible curls. She then rearranges the pins. “Much better.”

There’s a knock on the front door, and together we run to get it. Bram has come alone, wearing a burgundy waistcoat, his cravat in a ruffle, his face as perfect as always. He bows his head at us. “Lady Ito, you look lovely.”

“I did her hair!”

Olive exclaims, but I’ve already slammed the door behind us.

He leads me up a path, along the gentle hill that winds around the palace. “I hope you don’t mind I’ve arranged for dinner in the orangery tonight.”

I’m startled by the sound of footsteps behind us and turn to see an old woman in a horribly out-of-fashion dress following us.

“Our chaperone for the evening,”

Bram explains. “I am committed to propriety, but thought you might like to be rid of Bolingbroke for the evening. The Countess of Tribley is one of my school chum’s great-aunts. She’s really good fun, a hell of a cardplayer, but half-deaf, so I figured she’d do perfectly well.”

I laugh and wave to the old woman, who waves back.

The orangery is covered in one thousand votive candles that flicker against the glass walls in the dark.

There’s a table set with candlesticks, silver, and a white tablecloth under one of the orange trees. I’m not one for grand gestures, but it really is lovely, even I have to admit.

Countess Tribley takes an armchair in the corner and pulls out her knitting.

Bram is an attentive listener. He asks all the right questions. How many siblings (four brothers, I’m right in the middle). My interests (reading, the pianoforte, painting). What my hopes for the future are (travel).

“Travel?”

He looks taken aback. “Like, to the sea?”

“Across it,”

I answer too boldly.

I never wanted to marry, not like the other girls. It’s ironic, I suppose, that my great-grandparents risked everything crossing an ocean to come to this country and I’ve spent my whole life longing to leave it. I was never going to be able to do that with a husband by my side and an estate to run.

I didn’t plan on being a wife. I planned on being a painter, or a pirate, or a poet.

That’s the thing about girls like Marion and me, who were raised on stories about lands ruled by humans and not by a faerie queen. We know just how wide the rest of the world is.

I should have ducked out of the May Queen competition early, but as usual, my pride got the best of me. I spotted my father in the audience and remembered the lecture he’d given me over and over again in my youth. Whatever you do, try your best. It would have broken his heart to see me fail on purpose, and he would have been able to tell. I know he would have.

Bram’s face lights up. “I’ve seen so little of the human world. I dream of seeing more.”

I’m surprised to hear him say something in direct contradiction to his mother’s strict isolationist policies.

I tell him what my grandparents said about Kyoto, the winding streets and damp, hot summers. He’s alarmingly pretty as he listens, his perfect jawline cradled in his hand.

When I’m finished, he gestures at the beaded handbag I placed on the table.

“What’s in there?” he asks.

I pretend to be offended. “It’s rather rude to ask a lady what’s in her handbag.”

“But you’re not a typical lady. Is it money for passage? Are you leaving me so soon?” he jokes.

I take the bag and pull out the worn deck of tarot cards my governess gave me for my thirteenth birthday. I was worried we might have nothing to talk about, and the cards are good for conversation. It’s easier than talking about myself.

“Will you read for me?”

he asks. “We have oracles in my homeland, but they live mostly in trees and caves. I much prefer your company.”

I pass him the deck and have him shuffle, then pull a card. The devil smiles up at us from the table. Bram tuts his tongue. “Oh, I don’t like the look of him.”

My heart stutters in my chest, the affection I feel for Bram catching me off my guard. “It means someone is going to betray you.”

A look of worry flashes across his face, but he replaces it just as fast with that kind smile. “You now.”

I don’t need to bother, it’ll be the same card it’s been for months now. No matter how many times I shuffle, it’s always the same. The world.

“What does that mean?”

he asks after I draw the card.

It means I’m going to leave. “That I can have everything I want, if only I’m brave enough to take it.”

Looking at Bram in the flickering candlelight, I’m struck with the feeling that for the first time, I may have something I want to stay for.

Countess Tribley is napping in her armchair, so Bram walks me back to the cottage alone.

He leaves me at the front door with a gentle kiss to my hand. I suddenly understand what people mean when they say something has given them butterflies. There’s a riot of them in my stomach. “It’s been a pleasure, Lady Ito.”

“For me as well,”

I say, and I’m surprised to find I mean it.

He turns just in time to miss the flash of movement from the side door, but I see it: his brother, sneaking out of the cottage and fleeing into the night.