Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Later that night, after the guests had been hefted away, I lay in bed, restless and cried-out.
No one has come to check on me, not even Aunt Teddy, who usually regales me with a catalog of my missteps at the end of every ball. But as soon as her daughter was declared Favourite, she was too busy lording her newfound position over the other vultures to pay me a lick of attention.
Sometimes I wonder why she’s so invested in finding me a match, why she insisted Granny Maggie send me up here year after year. I suspect her motives have little to do with me and more to do with excising the stain of my mother’s scandal from the family name.
Nevertheless, Lizzie’s crowning as Favourite has given us a boost that Aunt Teddy will no doubt exploit next week at the Bolton’s ball.
As if I give a fig about this Season any longer.
I thought I’d won everlasting love. Marriage would be nothing more than a consolation prize.
I cannot imagine trudging through this charade, seeing George and Jane together …
I am pre-emptively exhausted. And yet, I cannot sleep.
I rise, rubbing my puffy eyes, then throw a dressing gown over my chemise and grab my sketchbook from the night table. Granny Maggie was a firm believer in the therapeutic effects of creation. Perhaps a drawing session in the south gallery might relax me.
There’s a particular piece I’m pulled back to again and again.
The Knight Departs, artist unknown, is an achingly romantic oil pastel depicting a dark-haired knight in a soft embrace with a red-headed woman clad in flowing white.
An eclipse of moths swirls around the couple, all with dramatic, sage-colored wings, some nearly the size of the woman’s head.
I’ve seen the moths a few times in the woods outside the estate.
A few have been kind enough to pose for me.
In the painting, there’s a crimson ribbon wrapped around the tip of the knight’s sword, the lady’s favor, and the mood captured by the artist’s choices—the knight’s hand upon his lady’s face, the tenderness in his gaze, the fractured glint of the tear upon her cheek—always fills me with a pleasant, achy sort of nostalgia.
And after tonight’s disaster, who would begrudge me a bit of wallowing? The Knight Departs will be the perfect tool with which to torture myself.
As I make my way downstairs, the hallways are wondrously silent. I pass the grand ballroom, noticing a table newly overflowing with envelopes, bags, and wrapped packages.
Gifts for Lizzie. Gifts for a Favourite.
I stalk into the shadowed room, pulling the door shut and tossing my sketchbook aside as I survey the pile. My throat itches and the tips of my ears burn as jealousy overtakes me.
Why should some invented title warrant such a barrage of excess? Why should a Favourite get all the gifts and any man her father can pay for? Could she not leave some scraps for the rest of us?
Righteous fury sizzles through me, and I begin ripping through the gifts. A tiny, strangled voice—my overburdened conscience—points out that these trinkets belong to my cousin and not Jane, the woman who’s wronged me. Through no fault of her own, really.
I slap a gag on the far too reasonable voice and mentally shove her down the stairs as I sample every decadence—a sip of sparkling wine, a powdered truffle, half a lemon macaron. Chewy, citrusy perfection.
Ribbons and hand-written tags pile at my feet before my conscience limps back into play to warn me that someone will find this evidence tomorrow. And that once Aunt Teddy hears of it, she’s more likely to blame an innocent member of the staff than me.
At that, my frenzy slows. But not before my fingers brush against something smooth and—warm?
I pull out a silver box, no larger than the palm of my hand, and the air around me wavers. The words For the Favourite are carved into the lid in a beautiful script, and faint whispers leak from the seams.
The whispers grow louder as I pry the box open to reveal a thick silver ring bearing three distinct markings—a seven-pointed star, a crescent moon, and two crossed arrows forming an X.
There’s an engraving on the inside, written in a language I do not recognize.
An old dialect from the continent, perhaps?
I set the box aside, then bring the ring to my face to—
The clock’s gong has me swallowing an undignified scream.
I laugh at myself, leaning against the table and popping the other half of the macaron in my mouth. The ring holds a certain allure, despite its otherness. Or maybe because of it.
I did not get a ring tonight. I may never get one. So, what’s the harm in trying on this one?
I slip the warm silver onto my finger as the clock chimes twelve, then open the ballroom door and step across the threshold.