23. Lessons in Erosion
LESSONS IN EROSION
FRANCESCA
M y grandmother doesn’t come for me until two weeks later. I’m not sure whether it’s to ‘throw Eric off’, considering she still believes him to be some sort of spy sent to recuperate in the jaws of his family’s enemy. It sounds absurd; then again, everything about this family is absurd.
Unfortunately for her, Eric doesn’t seem to give a fuck about being ignored. I’ve never met a man so truly unaffected. But while Gran hasn’t exactly been interacting with him, she’s absolutely been deploying him, and on his arm she’s placed his trusty sidekick: me, apparently.
Every other day it’s been a fundraiser or a luncheon and because I love my people, I can’t say no.
Pair that with the prince who’s supposedly here to restore political relations, and you’ve got yourself a duo on tour.
Susannah slapped a Sheffolk emblem onto his suit jacket, pinned a lily to my chest and then shoved us before the camera like two mall mannequins.
And Eric continued to prove how atrocious he is at small talk, which means I’m not nearly as nervous as I usually am, considering I’m laughing at him.
He catches me sometimes, snorting discreetly into my glove, and his expression softens.
A reporter shoved a microphone at him yesterday during the greenhouse expansion at Thistleburst Gardens and asked what he liked best about Sheffolk’s cuisine.
Then this man, this future king, without even a hint of hesitation, replied with, “I love the slap chips .”
In that polished accent of his, it came out as more of a ‘ slaahp chuhps ’.
I almost bit through my lip. It was so painfully, stupidly adorable because he’s been scarfing them down for days now, practically guilt-tripping Lydia into making new batches.
But the press only stared at him like their brains ran out of storage space.
Just stunned silence everywhere, from the horticulturists and the donors—even the bees went quiet, I swear.
I had to lean over and whisper, “That’s South African cuisine, honey. Not Sheffolk.”
And Eric—God bless him—looked so mortified and turned back to the reporter in an attempt to explain. Which made it worse. “Yes, well… It’s a limp potato. A very limp potato, but cut into thick chips…”
A limp potato. I could almost picture how he abandons his knife and fork as soon as the bowl gets placed before him, burning his fingers on the first chip. And there he was, trying to put that enthusiasm into words. Wrong choice of words, though. A limp fucking potato.
I’ve been laughing about it ever since. Laughing about it now actually, as I finish my own bowl Arabella delivered from the kitchen. The smile, however, gets ripped right from my face when my grandmother’s grumbles grow louder.
Almost forgot she was here.
“Nasty business with those boys, I admit, but that locket’s back where it belongs now,” she says, fingers deftly pulling the long strands of my hair into a plait.
My eyes brush over her reflection in the mirror, lingering on the stern look she wears.
“I’m glad Hamish has sorted it out. It’s the first time he’s been useful in a long while. ”
“ Gran ,” I scold lightly, grabbing some wipes to clean my hands. Behind her, the morning’s light shines through the windows, illuminating her figure with a golden glow and making her seem like a disdainful goddess.
She hurrumphs, working faster. “Where’s the lie in my words, darling girl?
Edith has taken my poor boy, stomped every bit of his strength from him and sent back the shell.
Should I not be upset? Should I not grieve him?
” She ties the elastic so hard I fear she’ll snap it against her knuckles.
“No, it’s not right, but he’s taken charge of something, and that tells me he’s still in there. Behind this frightened man, of course.”
“Have you heard from Percy?” I ease the topic away from my poor uncle. “She’s always been the worst at answering messages, but they haven’t been delivered at all.”
“Your cousin has chosen—or should I say has been forced to choose—to spend her final days of girlhood barricaded with Edith and her brood. She’ll come home when Edith allows it, and not a moment sooner. Hamish has been bullied into it, I hear. Poor thing.”
I keep my gaze on my hairbrush, pulse quickening against my will at the thought of Edmund’s lingering touch. The castle is big enough to go days without seeing someone, more so when that person is actively avoiding you.
Still, to be certain, I ask anyway. “And Ed… chose not to stay with them? He’s here at Redford?”
My voice is careful, soft, and afraid of revealing too much. The words feel strange in my mouth. Do I sound worried for him, knowing how badly he needs distance from his mother? Or does my voice betray something far crueller and selfish, a relief that he’s gone?
I speak his name lightly, yet my palm subconsciously slides over that spot on my thigh. I wonder if Gran can sense the contradiction written plainly across my face, if she hears the way my heart races at the thought of him still roaming these halls.
Gran’s smile thins, and she rubs my shoulders before pointing to the bed where the dress she has chosen for me is laid out.
It’s a shade of deep blue, bringing to mind the sky moments before nightfall strikes; it buttons from throat to hem in an elegant line of pearl fastenings.
The dress is severe in its architectural beauty, much like the woman that chose it.
“He may sleep in that room at the end of the hall, but he spends most of his time in the city. Susannah says he’s off with Charlie.
A good enough young man and an even better influence, I hear.
Pascoe has his reservations, but your grandfather says it does Ed good; his moods are softer when he returns, don’t you think? ”
Relief passes through me, chased quickly by shame.
I nod as Gran continues to talk about the progress Edmund has made in regard to diplomatic events: he speaks more, laughs a little easier and ends up having a good time more often than not.
It makes me hateful, the way I can’t bring myself to round up even a meagre amount of pride in my cousin, knowing how many years it’s taken him to genuinely enjoy himself at these events.
Gran’s enthusiasm tramples over my guilt, and she dips into Charlie’s family name—the Hendersons.
My attention snags on the mention of their school days again.
Valridge Prep . The sick knot in my stomach loosens, and the worst of my unease seeps away.
As I slip the dress on, I think of the pin back in the cottage, the evidence straight from the lake.
The locket was a prank. Just a prank. The certainty of it is an antidote, slowly pulling the poison from my veins.
But the song , whispers something inside me. Don’t forget the song.
The one thing that night that harbours Godwyn’s name.
Gran’s hands continue to move with the elegance of a woman who’s ordered the lives of thousands of people. Except now she’s rubbing at tea stains left by my mugs and trying to organise the glass bowl of elastics with hair stuck to them.
Her gaze drifts to the wall concealing the secret corridor. “You haven’t left the prince entirely to his own devices, have you? A man raised in that theatre of a palace can become dangerous when denied his usual audience.”
Scrutiny settles onto my spine. Each button down the front of my dress feels heavy.
I’m uncertain if she’s warning me against him or asking for a confession, if I should hand her reassurance or evidence.
By the grace of the ghosts in this castle, a tray of bracelets clatters to the ground without any wind to assist. Down on her knees she goes, carefully collecting my jewellery and setting it right, muttering things I can’t hear.
I catch my reflection in the floor-length mirror and find myself smiling softly at the thought of Eric, the kind that blooms without permission.
If only Gran knew how much he detests the very idea of being seen, how he loathes attention like a wound loathes salt.
It’s the oddest thing, how that moment in the corridor keeps playing inside my head whenever my heart’s at ease.
The way Eric hesitated before, ‘I can’t figure out your font’ .
My font.
The memory makes me smile harder, foolishly , and I tug at the dress to root myself in the present.
The way he rambled, sentences leaving him before he could stop them, each word a child set loose on the moors, and the awkward manner in which he tripped over each one to explain his way of sorting the world.
It was so honest, so startling in its specificity, that I forgot all about Redford and its hauntings.
I hold onto that rare, sweet conversation and onto the fact that someone wishes to know the girl, not the mask.
What would Gran say about that? About the truth that he may be the only thing that could shield me from Godwyn while I take his test?
When I turn to ask how I look, she’s already watching. The room feels ten times smaller for her attention. She raises a brow so slowly, and I shrug, cheeks warm.
“No, I haven’t left him alone. It’s just, he’s not like what the papers have been saying, you know. He doesn’t like attention, and he’s…” I trail off, trying to find the right word and failing.
She tilts her head, a lock of silver falling forward. “Did he confide in you yet, Francesca? Anything about his father or that vicious prime minister of theirs?”
The question has me battling against a flinch, her way of reminding me of the discussion we had.
The fracture between us will mend, yes, but it’ll be Sheffolk’s hand that holds the needle, and this prince is the thread.
I’m caught between her schemes and the instinct to protect him, as he did with me in the woods and the kitchen with Edmund.