Princess of Glass (19 page)

192

She got to her feet, and the rest of them followed, but Lady Margaret came in before they could leave the study. She was flushed and looked angry, and Poppy could tell that her mother's elegant cousin was still in high dudgeon over Ella's presence at the ball.

It was Marianne who stepped up to diffuse the situation.

"Oh, Mama! Please don't say anything about Lady Ella!" Marianne sniffled and threw her arms around her mother's neck. "I can't bear to hear any more about her!"

Lady Margaret hugged Marianne, looking almost disappointed. "All right, my love, all right. Shh."

"I'm going to take Marianne up to bed," Poppy said, rising to take Marianne's arm. "It's been such a long day."

"Yes, my dear," Lord Richard said to his wife. "Shall I escort you to our rooms? Thwaite wanted to have a look at some of our Far Eastern art pieces. Thwaite, you go on ahead, and I'll meet you."

And so, with Lord Richard helping his wife, Poppy pretending to help Marianne, and Roger ducking into the parlor to look at some vases there, they made their roundabout way to the top of the house.

Poppy knocked, and when a quavering voice told them to enter they all filed in. Ellen was sitting up in her bed with the blankets folded back from her feet, which gleamed eerily in the candlelight. She looked startled to see them all crowding into her small room, and embarrassed when she saw Roger.

"I'm sorry," she said softly to no one in particular.

193

"Not at all, my dear," said Lord Richard. He gestured for Poppy and Marianne to sit on the other bed, and leaned back casually against one of the walls. "As young as you are, and in your situation, it is no surprise that you were taken in by the Corley. Older and wiser people than you have made terrible bargains with that creature."

"Oh really?" Eleanora's voice was more bleak than interested.

"Oh yes," Lord Richard said. "People like your father. And myself."

Without even waiting for them to all stop gasping, Lord Richard plunged right into his story.

"I inherited the earldom from my father when I was only twenty-two. I was traveling abroad for a year after university, and I came home to find the old man gone, myself an earl, and a pile of debts I hardly knew what to do with. My father could never resist a business venture; he positively threw money at every ship's captain, explorer, and inventor who darkened his doorway. None of them ever amounted to anything, and he'd come to selling off family heirlooms, furniture, art--all for a fraction of what they were worth--just to send more money to these diamond hunters and steam-engine builders."

Lord Richard shook his head sadly "I was about to sell the country estate--I had no other choice--and was taking a ride around the grounds one last time. There's a stream that runs into a pool at the bottom of the park, and just as I stopped to water my horse the stream turned green. I started to back

194

away, but then I heard a voice telling me exactly what I wanted to hear: that my fortune was about to change, that I wouldn't have to sell the estate, that I could buy back our heirlooms. This benefactress, called the Corley, would make sure my luck ran high, and with a few hands of cards I would be wealthier than I'd ever dreamed."

There was silence in the room. Lord Richard stared at the worn floorboards, Marianne had her mouth open, Roger looked shocked, and Eleanora's eyes were as round as an owl's.

"What was the catch?" Poppy clasped her hands on her knees. "There's always a catch." She knew this for certain. After all, her mother's bargain with a creature of the underworld had resulted in her bearing twelve girls that the King Under Stone then tried to steal away for his sons to marry.

"The catch? First off, I helped to ruin your father, Eleanora, for which I am sorrier than anything else I have ever done in my life." Lord Richard smiled at the girl, not his usual rakish smile that made him seem years younger, but a hard, grim, sad smile. "When he tried to recover some of his fortune through cards, I was told to play against him over and over again, until he had not a farthing left to his name. And I did, heaven help me."

He coughed uncomfortably and stared over their heads at the wall. "After I'd restored the estate, bought back the things Pa had sold off, I invested some money and looked to get away from the Corley. I was married, we had Marianne, and Margaret didn't like my gambling, you see. For a time I told myself it was all to restore the family name, and then to provide for Margaret and our daughter, but the truth was that I could

195

have found other ways to make money, could have stopped much sooner.

"I was sick to death with what I had done. I no longer wished to play cards, ever again, and I told the Corley so."

"And she let you go?" Eleanora's soft voice was hopeful.

"Of course not!" A bitter laugh. "She flew into a towering rage! She said that Margaret had ruined me, that we were not fit to raise a child ..." He closed his eyes and whispered, "And she demanded that I give her Marianne."

"What?" Marianne clutched the iron bedstead, her face white.

"Clearly I refused," Lord Richard said, laying a gentle hand on his daughter's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "She said that you would be pampered and adored, raised as a princess, and one day be married to a prince."

"Why do these creatures always want to marry somebody off?" It sounded ridiculous as soon as Poppy said it, but she didn't care. She put an arm around Marianne's waist, and discovered that her hands were shaking. Marianne laid her head on Poppy's shoulder, and Poppy straightened, willing herself calm.

"What
is
the Corley?" Roger asked.

"How did you get out of the bargain?" Marianne said a beat later.

"I don't know what the Corley is, a witch or sorceress I suppose," Lord Richard said. "A vicious vindictive creature, whatever she is.

"I got out of the bargain by going to the Church and

196

admitting what I had done. They sent an army of mages to help me. The rituals went on for days, but at the last I was free of the Corley's hold."

Poppy blew her breath out in a great puff of air. So the Corley's grasp could be loosened. She wasn't as dangerous as Under Stone, then. Some good news at last!

"We'll contact these mages," Roger said decisively. He stepped toward Ellen. "We'll release you from your bargain, and everything will be all right," he told her.

"I've already sent word to Roma," Lord Richard said, but his voice was still bleak.

"Roma?" Poppy looked at him, and their eyes locked. "And by the time they get your letter, and decide what to do, and send aid..."

"It might be too late," Lord Richard finished.

"It
will
be too late," Ellen whispered. "Christian must propose to me before he returns to the Danelaw for the holidays. Next week."

197

***

Eleanora

Wishing that she had confided in Lord Richard earlier, Ellen found herself being carried downstairs to one of the guest rooms by Roger Thwaite. There she was dressed in a lace-trimmed nightgown and was tucked into bed (by Mrs. Hanks, not Roger, of course), with a hot cup of chocolate at her elbow and the instruction to ring if she needed anything else.

"I blame myself for your family's downfall, Eleanora," Lord Richard announced. He held up a hand to stop her protesting. "Yes, your father's affairs were already in tatters when the Corley set me against him, but I fear I dealt him his deathblow. I will not hear of you working another minute as a servant, from now on you must be our guest, and we will care for you as for our own daughter."

"Thank you," Ellen said, her voice coming out in a sob.

Lord Richard took both her hands and squeezed them, and Marianne gave her a handkerchief and a smile.

"First she wanted Marianne, now she's got her claws into

198

Ellen," Poppy said, her hands busy knitting something small and pale that looked like a kind of sailor's knot. "And both of them were to marry princes. Why? And would she have married Marianne to Christian? Or would George have done just as well?" She frowned, counted stitches, and then went on knitting.

"Perhaps she's after the Dane navy," Roger said, coming back into the room now that Ellen was decent. "If the future queen of the Danelaw were beholden to her, it would give her quite a bit of power in the mortal world."

"Convenient that Christian is here to dance with Lady Ella, then, isn't it?" Poppy looked at them wryly, but Ellen thought she saw a flicker of something in her eyes. Fear?

"Do you think she's behind that as well?" Marianne's eyes were huge. "Did she make King Rupert invite Christian? How could she get to him?"

"This does seem a bit... all-encompassing," Lord Richard said, restlessly adjusting a picture frame. "The fact that she is able to make whole housefuls of people fall in love with Eleanora ... I don't know what to think ..." He trailed away, looking pensively at a painting of a deer drinking from some idyllic stream.

Ellen squirmed a little under her pile of blankets. Poppy must have caught the motion, and looked up again from her knitting. Her gaze wasn't fearful now, but thoughtful.

Marianne had been staring at the canopy of Ellen's bed, in much the same way her father was now gazing at the painting of the deer. Ellen wondered if the other girl resented

199

her: resented her birthday ending with them all fussing around a downtrodden maid who was now wearing one of Marianne's own nightgowns.

But Marianne, as she had several times tonight, surprised Ellen.

"Has the Corley been planning this since Ellen was born?" Marianne's voice was musing. "Did she have Ellen's father ruined so she could control Ellen?

"I wonder, Father, if she went after Ellen as a result of you backing out of the deal." She wrinkled her nose.

A tingling sensation ran through Ellen's body, from the top of her head all the way to her toenails, and she gasped aloud. Everyone looked at her, and she clutched the blankets tighter.

"The ironing ruined," she said, her voice coming out strangled. "Laundry soiled, china broken, hair tangled, silver tarnished! No matter how I tried for years to be a good maid, everything turned out wrong."

She looked up and met Poppy's eyes. She had talked to the princess before about this, and wasn't sure that Poppy had believed her at the time. Now she saw that the other girl did.

"I think she sabotaged my work, but why would my godmother--the Corley, I mean--care if I ruined the sheets?"

"If you'd enjoyed being in service you might not have been as ready to accept her deal," Marianne offered.

The Corley was to blame. And she'd been too caught in her pride and resentment to notice it.

Ellen looked down at the humps and hillocks of the

200

bedding. Her cheeks were burning, and she didn't dare to meet anyone's eyes.

"I think we should let Eleanora rest," Roger said.

She turned his words over, searching for traces of disgust, of condemnation, but found none. She looked up cautiously, and saw him smiling at her with a line of concern between his level brows.

"We should all get some rest," Lord Richard said. "And tomorrow, we'll start fresh."

They all wished each other good night, and the others filed out. Marianne turned out all the lamps but the one on the bedside table that Ellen could reach.

After they had gone, Ellen snuffed that one as well and lay in the dark, thinking. She had started the day as a maid named Ellen. Had danced at a ball as the most fascinating and yet hated woman in the room, Lady Ella. And now she was going to sleep as a guest of the Seadowns, someone to be respectfully bid good night, watched over and cared for.

Someone named Eleanora.

201

***

Prey

Now when she found herself dreaming of being in the Palace Under Stone, Poppy hardly had the energy to be frightened.

Jaded, she wandered the corridors, trailing her fingers along the cold walls and wondering what half-mad pronouncements Rionin and Blathen were going to make tonight. Whenever she encountered them, they swore that she would never leave again, or some such thing. She looked down and saw that she was wearing the violet and silver gown from Marianne's ball, and was quite pleased. It was her new favorite, and she wanted to make sure that Blathen got a good look at what he was missing, even if it was all in her own head.

She was still smiling about this when she came into the ballroom, and saw the usual arrangement: the courtiers dancing to give their king power, while Under Stone and his remaining brothers huddled on the dais. This time, though, there was someone with them. An old woman, crouched like a toad on a velvet-cushioned chair.

202