Princess of Glass (17 page)

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"All right," Marianne said. "Have you got something for my mother and father?"

"Your father doesn't need anything," Poppy said. "The enchantment doesn't work on him."

"Why is that?" Marianne goggled at Poppy as they went back to the ballroom.

"I don't know," Poppy said, squinting at the dancers. "But Roger and I are doing all we can to--There she goes, quick!"

The dance had ended. Lady Ella had looked at the clock at the end of the ballroom and was now excusing herself to Christian. Poppy checked the clock, too, and saw that it was a quarter to midnight; roughly the same time that Lady Ella had left the gala the week before.

The princess saw Roger standing near the entrance hall and signaled to him with her fan. The ballroom was crowded and people were taking notice of Marianne's return to the party. Poppy wasn't sure she would be able to make it to the door in time to see where Ella went.

But Roger faded out through the doors just before Ella got there, with Christian as well as several other satellite admirers still trailing her. Poppy turned Marianne over to the sympathetic ladies who surrounded them, and aimed herself at the door out of the ballroom with as much speed as she could muster, considering the people in her way and the heavy gown she was wearing.

Poppy got outside just as the strange, basketlike gold carriage was leaving with Lady Ella. Roger was sitting in his own small buggy, which he had had brought around just behind

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Lady Ella's carriage and held at the ready. Poppy scrambled up onto the seat beside him, cursing and hoping fervently that she didn't ruin her new gown, and Roger whipped the horses forward.

He was wearing a large cloak over his evening clothes, and an old-fashioned three-cornered hat he had borrowed from a coachman. He took the reins in one hand and pulled a dark carriage rug from under the seat with the other. Poppy spread it over her light-colored gown.

Earlier, before Christian had fainted, Poppy and Roger had gone outside to see if they could get any information out of Lady Ella's servants. The carriage was easy enough to spot: no one had ever seen the like before and the horses gleamed so bright and white that they didn't look real.

But not only were all of Lady Ella's servants mute, their expressions were so hostile that Poppy found herself backing away, and the coachman went so far as to brandish his whip at Roger when the young man continued to snoop around the carriage. So Roger had a groom get his buggy ready and slip it into the queue of waiting carriages so they could follow Ella when she left.

And now they were racketing through Castleraugh after the golden carriage, which was traveling at an insane speed. It was fortunate that there were a number of carriages about this night, or it would have been very noticeable that they were being followed.

After a number of twists and turns, the golden carriage and the buggy following it had to slow down as they entered a

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well-lit but narrow alley that ran behind some very fine manors. Looking around in confusion, Poppy recognized the back of one of the enormous houses.

"We're behind Seadown House," she hissed to Roger, who nodded.

After their wild chase through the streets, they had looped right back to where they had started out, or almost. Normally those riding in the carriages were let out in the front of the house, not back in the mews.

To Poppy's continued consternation, Lady Ella's golden carriage drove through the Seadowns' back gate. Where could Ellen possibly hide a team of horses, a golden coach, and half a dozen servants?

Roger stopped the buggy in the alley close to the fence, and they stood up to look over at what was happening in the back courtyard. A large bonfire had been built near the kitchen garden, but had fallen to ash. As they watched, the coachman drove the horses straight for this ashy, cindery mess.

Poppy almost cried out: the red heart of the bonfire was still visible, and the horses would be burned for certain. But Roger put a hand on her arm to stop her, and they watched in awe as the horses unfalteringly walked through the remains of the fire and disappeared, followed by the golden coach with coachman, footmen, Ella, and all.

"Did you see that?" Poppy's voice was barely a whisper.

"Yes," Roger replied, sounding just as shaken.

Poppy had never seen anything like it before. The entrance to the Kingdom Under Stone had been magical, true, but she

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had known it her whole life. This was something else entirely, making a coach and horses and servants all disappear before you could blink, and Poppy's confidence crumbled in the face of it. What did she know, really, about breaking such a spell? Nothing.

"We need to tell Lord Richard," she whispered."

" I agree."

Roger pulled his buggy through the gate and gave the reins to a startled groom who came sleepily out of the stable with straw in his hair when Roger shouted. Poppy asked him about the bonfire, and he looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing in his life.

They went into the manor through the kitchen and sent a maid to fetch Lord Richard. Poppy didn't want to get trapped among the guests once more, so they slipped along the passageway and into His Lordship's study.

Lord Richard came in a moment later, looking elegant in his evening clothes but with a line between his brows that hadn't left since Poppy and Roger had told him about Lady Ella the week before.

"She left at a quarter to midnight," Poppy said without preamble. There was, of course, no need to explain who she meant. "She got into a carriage made of gold, pulled by twelve white horses and manned by mute servants in white livery. We followed in Roger's buggy, and I don't think they noticed us. The coachman drove through the streets at breakneck speed for ten minutes or so, then doubled back and drove into the mews behind the manor. There was a bonfire

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there in the courtyard, or the remains of one. The carriage drove into the ashes and vanished." She sat down in one of the high-backed leather chairs and folded her hands in her lap, watching Lord Richard's face.

The handsome older man merely nodded. He looked at the ornate clock over the fireplace and nodded again. He reached out and pulled the bell, and they all sat in silence until a maid came.

"Lydia, please send Ellen to me," Lord Richard said.

"Oh no! What's she broken now?" Lydia grimaced.

"Nothing," Lord Richard said mildly. "I merely need to speak with her."

"Yes, Your Lordship." She bobbed a curtsy and went out.

"You're still not surprised by any of this," Poppy said.

"I'm afraid not," her host said. "I see that you have given charms and the potion to both Christian and Marianne," he said, changing the subject.

"Yes." Poppy followed the transition, seeing that he was not going to explain himself further. At least until Ellen arrived. Behind her, she heard Roger stir, and he finally sat in the other seat across from the desk. "And just in time, too. They were both behaving quite foolishly."

"I don't think that fainting is foolish on Christian's part," Roger said. "I think it's a sign that things are terribly wrong."

"Is that what happened?" Lord Richard frowned. "I wasn't able to see."

"The combination of the potion and Poppy's knitted charm appears to have done the trick," Roger said.

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"But he was still a bit taken with Ella... Ellen ... whatever she wants to be called." Poppy wrinkled her nose and tried to keep her voice steady. "What if we can't break the spell permanently? We've had to give Dickon three doses of the potion so far, and he hasn't gotten as close to her as Christian."

"Well," Roger huffed. "It's not entirely out of the question that Christian has feelings for Eleanora
despite
the enchantment, you know. She is very beautiful, and--"

He was interrupted by a soft scratching the door.

"Come in," Lord Richard said.

They all turned, expecting to see Ellen, back in her maid's uniform and looking innocent as a child caught with her hand in the biscuit tin. Poppy clenched her fists, ready to hear more of Ellen's denials, but it wasn't Ellen who came in.

It was Lydia again, looking triumphant.

"Pardon, Your Lordship, but she won't come," she said with great relish.

"Oh?" Lord Richard merely raised his eyebrows. Poppy opened her mouth, but he gave her a quelling look and she sat back in her chair. "Did she say why?"

"She said that she's injured," Lydia reported, still looking smug. "But she hasn't done a lick of work all night! She disappeared before the ball, and now she's lying under the blankets moaning."

Poppy hopped to her feet. "I'll go see what's amiss."

"Gently, Poppy, please," Lord Richard cautioned. "Just because she has not been very agreeable doesn't mean that she still isn't a victim."

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Poppy grimaced. "I know."

"May I come? I shall wait outside her bedroom, of course," Roger said.

"No, no," Lord Richard said. "Please rejoin the other guests, Roger. Poppy will probably do best on her own." He smiled down at Poppy, who grinned back.

She positively flew up the stairs to the little garret room where Ellen slept, and entered without knocking. She had been hoping to catch Ellen up and about, not at all weak or injured, but again was stopped short with surprise.

Ellen was in bed, but she had thrown back the blankets and was clutching one of her feet. She had bitten her lower lip until it bled, and her face was wet with tears.

"What in heavens name--" Then Poppy caught sight of Ellen's other foot, and couldn't think of what to say next. After a moment she swore one of her brother-in-law Hein-rich's choicest oaths, and quickly shut the door behind her.

Ellen opened her eyes for a moment, but then shut them again. She rocked back and forth and whimpered, clearly beyond caring how she looked or who saw her.

And to Poppy's mind, she had good reason to be distressed. Because from the ankle down, Ellen's feet had turned into shining white glass.

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***

Belle

Cold.. So cold that it burned.

The paralyzing coldness of her feet was so intense that echoes of it shot up her legs like lightning bolts. Ellen lay on her narrow bed and sobbed, not caring that Poppy was there, staring at her.

How could her godmother have done this to her?

When the Corley first appeared to her--her own magical godmother to protect her and help her--Ellen had been filled with a constant thrill of excitement. At last, her life would finally be put to rights. She could leave servitude behind forever and restore her family's name. Her godmother had promised her all that and more: marriage to a doting and wealthy husband--a prince even! She would soon be the toast of Society, the most beautiful and envied woman in Castleraugh. The promises were all too glorious.

Far too glorious, in fact.

Since her first appearance as Lady Ella on the night of the

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royal gala, her godmother would hardly speak to her. In fact, she seemed annoyed when Ellen went to visit her in her glass-pillared palace. She had no time to talk, and when she did it was to scold Ellen for not dancing every dance with Prince Christian.

"But Roger Thwaite is an old friend," Ellen had protested. "We need to ensnare the prince," the Corley said. "Ensnare? But why? And if he doesn't fall in love with me--

"Do not even suggest such a thing, Eleanora," the Corley had retorted. "You will marry Prince Christian, and that is that! Now be off with you. It's late, and you need your rest. You look peaked, and I have already expended my powers quite enough on your behalf without having to work over your face to make it less drawn."

Terrified at what "working over her face" might entail, Ellen had fled. That had been last night, and so it was with great trepidation that she entered the Corley's palace tonight for her toilette. But her godmother was all smiles, and once again she was petted and pampered, massaged and scented.

And then the slippers, again, of glass.

Her feet had not been right since the night of the first gala. The skin had seemed smooth and unyielding, and her toes felt stiff. She tried to shrug it off as lack of dancing practice, and only mentioned it to the Corley when the stiffness hadn't faded by the night of Marianne's ball.

"You should have returned to me before the clock began to strike midnight last time, dear one," the Corley scolded as Ellen

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was sewn into the rose and gold gown. "Once you and your handsome prince are married, I will have time to fix your feet. But not now! Now we must get you ready for tonight. Let this serve as a reminder to be home before the clock begins to strike twelve!"

When she saw her godmother approach her with a swirling pan of liquid glass, gleaming like pink roses and gold, she felt sweat break out all over her body. Maids rushed to fan her and apply more rice powder to her damp forehead. She clenched the arms of the chair and didn't make a sound as her godmother shaped the glass.

Taking her mind off what was happening to her feet, she thought about her gown.

She had been praying that she wouldn't be dressed as a richer copy of Poppy again. It had made her feel a bit superior last time, but to keep doing it seemed mean.

But when she saw that she was to be gowned like a more luxurious version of Marianne, she felt her heart sink. Marianne was sweet, if a bit spoiled, and Ellen knew the girl would hate her for stealing away the young men at her birthday ball. It would be worse still to show up in Marianne's own gown.

One look at the Corley's face, however, her matronly smile fixed and her eyes hard, had convinced Ellen not to protest. For the masked ball she would have to be gowned differently from either girl. The whole point of it was to be unique so no one would guess who you were. And Poppy had said that she would not attend at all. Masked balls apparently caused her