Chapter Twenty-One
Early in the morning, I went to Lucy. She was still asleep on her perch—shoulders dropped, eyes closed, wings crossed over her back, one foot invisibly tucked up inside of her feathers.
Such peace. Utter stillness. The light just breaking, the interior of the mews dark.
If I found my falcon spectacular in the midst of a hunt—the thrill of a fast-paced stoop, fledged body hurtling through air—in slumber, she was breathtaking.
A statue’s stillness belying predatory might.
I wanted to reach out and touch her, to run two fingers along her feathered breast, but some inner hawk’s sense alerted her to my presence, and she was up, head high, staring at me with flinty eyes.
“Morning,” I said, mildly.
She blinked at me.
“I see you’ve not made your castings.” I gestured down at the ground, which was empty save for the chalky excrement beneath her perch. “And you know very well I cannot take you out to hunt until you do.”
Lucy fluffed the downy feathers of her neck.
“We’ll keep up your carriage, then, and go for a short walk.
” I nodded, as if she’d suggested the idea.
Using one hand to untie the falconer’s knot that kept her on the perch, I extended the other—gloved—and she hopped on, mantling her wings for a moment before settling on the gauntlet.
Properly secured, she clenched her formidable talons tightly on the leather.
Back outside in the gloam, we went along the edge of the orchard.
Lucy’s face turned to a sky that threatened rain.
We walked until I could see Moussa’s coach dimly lit in the trees ahead of us.
I slowed and stopped and looked over at my bird.
She looked back at me and, steadily, turned her head sideways, then completely upside down, so her beak was to the sky.
“Lucy!” I said, in delight. She had not played in such a way since she was young.
Without taking my eyes off her, I reached out and plucked a dead leaf from the nearest tree.
She righted herself and took it in her beak in one swift movement, crunching on the foliage, and then, after a few noisy munches, tossed it into the air.
The pieces fell around my feet in a tiny cascade.
Enthralled, I plucked a second leaf and watched as Lucy repeated the game. The crunching, then the scattering of the pieces.
“You are just what I needed,” I told her. Less enthusiastically, I reverted my gaze back to the jongleur’s camp. “Now, let us hasten to conclude this whole affair.”
When we got a bit closer, I saw that Moussa’s coach had been turned into a poor facsimile of a wealthy man’s carriage.
He had used gold paint to make the wooden frame look gilded.
And the curtains and drapes I had seen from a distance were just sheets of canvas that had been tacked inside of the windows.
Moussa was wiping paint from the door of the carriage, removing a poorly drawn coat of arms.
“It is amazing,” I said, when I was close enough, keeping Lucy near my body, “what can be passed off as opulent in the absence of informed comparison.”
“And with darkness as an aid. I added apples,” he told me, gesturing to the heraldic symbols in front of him. “For the apples, of course. And a bird for Lucy.” He nodded to the falcon. “Morning, Luce.”
“No one has apples in their family crest.” I frowned. “And Elin already has a crest. It’s on the lintels.”
“This is your family crest,” he explained.
“Moussa.” I exhaled. “How could you?”
After we’d gotten back the night before, I’d waited until I heard his carriage return.
He’d driven Elin all the way up the drive to the front door, and she had exited and slipped inside.
I didn’t leave my room to welcome or confront her, but it was only after they were home that I allowed myself to sleep.
Moussa dropped his rag and stood, slowly, a hand on his back.
“Do not give me that routine now,” I scolded. “You should have discussed it with me!”
“It was just a bit of theater,” he protested, straightening. “You’d already left. You said she was allowed to attend. I merely attended to her attending.”
“You ferried her without a chaperone—without my knowledge. Without a modicum of sense!” Ever attuned to my emotions, Lucy tightened her talons on the glove. “And how? Was it a plan all along?”
He twisted his beard. “We improvised! She altered her dress with pins, and I worked on the carriage.”
“And where did the horses come from?”
Moussa gestured over at Lucky, who was munching clover under an apple tree. “And Arno, too. I used wig powder and wheat starch. Enough until they shone in the moonlight.”
I felt the beginning of a throbbing in my temples. “Do not mistake a bit of cider and a place to sleep as an invitation to involve yourself in such ways.”
“She’d perfected her minuet just so.” He dropped his eyes and gestured at his carriage. “Do not worry. I am leaving this day.”
“Yes,” I told him, already turning to take Lucy back to the mews. “Best not to linger.”
A short while later, when I heard—then saw—the royal carriage through the window, I allowed myself the briefest moment of hope.
One cannot help but wonder if a congealed romantic interest may change their mind.
Perhaps, I reasoned, Simeon had come for Rosamund after all.
Perhaps he had worried over her sudden departure.
Perhaps absence does impact the heart, or at least draw its spotlight.
But when the prince emerged from the open mouth of his coach, his first words were: “You did not tell me there was another sister!”
I had come outside alone to receive him, hastily untying my apron and storing it behind a tapestry, doing my best to smooth my hair and cover a housedress with a more elegant mantle I placed over my shoulders.
I had no idea of the state of the rooms inside, though I could say with certainty none was fit to entertain a prince.
“We cannot keep track of ourselves,” I said, from the depths of my curtsy. When I rose, I saw that Simeon was still in his clothing from the ball. He couldn’t have slept, I realized, if he was arriving at our home so early.
“Lady Elin lives here.” He eyed the house behind me.
“Welcome to Bramley Hall,” I confirmed, and watched, in surprise, as Otto climbed through the door behind him, like a spider I couldn’t rid myself of.
He nodded at me without meeting my eyes and my breakfast soured in my stomach.
Not suitable. Of course he had come. Of course he stood at Prince Simeon’s side.
Of course the loyal bloodhound was the only one wearing a smart set of clean clothes.
I realized the prince was waiting for me to speak.
“Elin is inside and, I apologize, but still abed,” I explained. “She has not finished her toilette.”
“I’ll wait for her,” the prince said, gesturing vaguely toward the house.
“Wait?” I repeated. Otto watched me, expressionless.
“Yes. I will wait until she has finished her toilette,” he explained, gently, as though talking to a child. And indeed, I did feel a bit stupefied.
“We are honored by your visit … Your Royal Highness.” I was delaying the inevitable.
Simeon kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot. “Perhaps you will let her know?”
Otto cleared his throat.
“Of course.” I nodded. “I’ll let her know at once.”
Inside, Wenthelen and Alice were huddled in the entryway, trying to watch through the crack of the door.
“Shoo,” I told them.
“He asked to see Elin,” Wenthelen whispered, delighted. She turned from the door and stayed close at my heels. “Our Elin!”
“What happened at that ball?” Alice demanded, stepping in front of me. They had not yet heard us recount the whole story—but they had been kept up half the night by Rosie’s incessant weeping.
“I do not believe for one minute that you didn’t help Elin ready last night.” I glared at both of them, looking up at Alice and then down at Wenthelen. “So you know very well that Elin managed to come after all.”
“Of course we helped her. What else would we do!” Wenthelen tutted at me and went back to the door.
Alice frowned. “The girl deserves the same chances as her sisters.”
“She has more chances—” I began.
But Wenthelen, nose back in the crack, cried out: “Oh, he is handsome as ever. A face as sweet as a lamb. What does he want with Elin?”
“What does a man ever want with a girl?” Alice retorted.
I stepped around her.
“Shush,” I whispered, heading up the stairs. “I will have plenty of words for you both later. Do not wake Rosie or Mathilde. If they rise, tell them to stay in their rooms. And ready some coffee. More than one of us will soon need it.”
When I was out of sight, I picked up my pace, hurrying quickly through the house, down the hall, and toward the tower keep.
Not suitable. I heard Otto’s words in my mind again.
Did they apply, only, to my Tremaine girls?
Was Elin exempt from the same contempt? I wished I might have been able to nurse this wound in peace.
To have better protected Rosie and Mathilde from judgment.
To have never seen those blue buttons fastened around Elin’s torso.
Once again, I had to duck my head to get into her room.
“Get dressed,” I told her, for she was still under her quilts. “The royal carriage is here. For you.”
She sat up, her colorless hair tumbling down around her shoulders. “The prince?”
“The prince,” I confirmed. “And you’re still abed.”
She pulled the covers back hastily. “I was embracing the stillness of the morning for clarity of mind.” Going to a basin of water, she began to wash with a cloth. She made a face at the temperature, and then kept going.
I walked to her dressing area and saw the sky-colored wedding dress, hanging from a peg. I touched its hem. “Though it should hardly surprise you after last night.” Turning, I glared at her.