Princess of the Midnight Ball (5 page)

Rose nodded in sympathy.

“They’re down that-a-way,” Walter said, jerking his thumb to the left. “You might want to take your ease by the swan fountain, Princess, instead of the yellow-rose bower.” He was well acquainted with Rose’s favorite haunts.

“Thank you, Walter,” she said, and turned toward the fountain.

He saluted her with the shears as she passed.

Rose went along the westward path until she came to the swan fountain. It was one of the smaller ones, though the bowl below the statue of the larger-than-life swan was still large enough to bathe in. The bird’s bronze neck curved over the floating lilies, its beak just touching the clear water. There were benches all around the fountain, and it was on one of these Rose liked to sit and think. The palace peacocks, with their strange creaking cries, could be heard only faintly from here, making it a place of quiet reflection.

Literally. Rose could look through the clear water and see her image in the burnished bottom of the fountain. She wished that Master Orm and his gardeners weren’t quite so conscientious about keeping it clean. There was something disturbing about looking into the water and seeing a vision of your drowned self looking back.

Rose tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She hadn’t realized that she looked so tired. She was barely seventeen years old but thought she looked much older. She stirred the water with a finger, breaking up the image, and turned her back on the fountain to gaze out over the garden.

Why shouldn’t she appear tired? She had eleven younger sisters all looking to her for guidance. She had taken her mother’s place as the designated hostess for all social functions at the palace, and there had been a great many lately in the wake of the victory against Analousia. Just now there were three different foreign ambassadors at the palace, being wined and dined and hopefully signing lucrative trade agreements.

And almost every night there was the dancing.

There was always dancing after state dinners, and as the crown princess she was never “humiliated” by having to sit out a dance without a partner. King Gregor believed that an excess of revelry was unwholesome, however, so the dancing always ended promptly at eleven o’clock.

Which gave the twelve sisters just enough time to freshen up before they attended the Midnight Ball.

Rose turned back to the water and leaned over to look at her
reflection again. Did it show on her face that she was cursed? Tired, yes, she certainly appeared tired. But would a curse—her curse, her sisters’ curse, her mother’s curse—leave its mark too?

A sudden scuffling of the gravel on the path startled her, and she lost her balance, slipping headfirst into the water. But before she could crack her skull on the bottom of the fountain, a strong arm was around her waist, pulling her back.

“Easy, there! Easy!”

Sputtering, Rose found herself back on her favorite bench, only now she was sopping wet and embarrassed besides. A tall, rather handsome young man was standing over her, looking concerned. His brown gardening smock was open at the collar, despite the chill in the air, and she could see a thin white scar slashing the tanned skin it revealed. Curious, she couldn’t stop staring at this.

“Um,
fraulein?’

His voice drew her gaze upward. His voice was young, but his face was tanned from long hours in the sun, and there were even a few lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. His hair was very short, but looked like it might curl if given the chance.

“Fraulein
? Are you all right? Did I frighten you?”

Rose stopped staring and mustered her dignity. Of course he had startled her—she hadn’t suddenly decided to dive into an icy fountain for her health!—but she felt it would be rude to mention that. Instead she nodded graciously.

“Thank you for your help,” she said, trying to ignore the cold water that was dripping off her hair and soaking her
dress, or the fact that most of her shawl was still in the fountain, with only a corner of it hooked over her elbow.

“I’m Galen,” the young man said, picking up the rake he had dropped to help her. He held out his free hand.

Rose looked at him in shock. Did he not know who she was? True, the Westfalian court was rather informal, but princesses did not shake hands with gardeners in any country she had heard of. Then it occurred to her that he must be the new gardener, Master Orm’s nephew.

“Oh!” She stood but didn’t take his hand. “I’m Princess Rose,” she explained, smiling stiffly. She knew what would happen next: he would turn red, and then start stammering, and then back away. And whenever she passed him in the future, the awkward dance would be repeated.

He did turn red, but just a little, and his tan hid most of it. But instead of stammering and backing away, he gave her a bow and simply said, “A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. Please forgive me for not recognizing you.”

Now Rose was the one stammering. “Quite—quite all right. No harm done … Galen.”

“Do you need help getting back to the palace, Your Highness? The weather is quite chill, and you took a good dunking there.”

“Um, no, thank you.” She dragged her shawl out of the fountain and gathered the heavy, dripping mass together as best she could. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

He nodded courteously. “I’d better finish raking, then,” he said.

“Yes.”

He was still looking at her.

“Yes?” Now she was even more flustered and confused.

“If I have your leave to go, Your Highness …?”

“What? Oh! Of course.” She nodded her head and then, feeling foolish, made her escape. “Good-bye!” She walked quickly down the path that led to the palace.

After he was out of sight, she slowed down a little. The princesses did not require people to ask permission to leave; it was more the king’s prerogative.

“But where did he learn such nice manners?” she wondered aloud.

“What did you say, Rose?” Lily came around a hedge and stared at her. “Why are you all wet?”

“I’m not
all
wet,” Rose said irritably. “I’m
partly
wet. I fell in the fountain. The swan fountain. A gardener had to fish me out and… what are you doing?”

Lily was holding a basket full of handkerchiefs. Rose looked around and realized that they were at the entrance to the hedge maze. A chill breeze came rushing around them, rattling the autumn-dry hedge and making her shiver.

“Oh, it’s the younger set.” That was how the three youngest sisters—Orchid, Pansy, and Petunia—were referred to by the others. Rose, Lily, and Jonquil were the “older set,” and the six in the middle were “in-betweeners.” “They wanted to play Hansel and Gretel, so I’m leaving a trail of handkerchiefs for them. Except the handkerchiefs keep blowing away.”

“We wanted to use white rocks,” Orchid chimed in, popping
around the corner and startling Rose. “But Lily said that Master Orm would be angry if we rearranged his rocks. Do you think that he would? And aren’t they Papa’s rocks anyhow?”

“They wanted to use the pebbles from the main path,” Lily explained. “I was mostly worried that the rocks would chip the blades of the grass clippers, when they trim the lawn next.”

“A good idea,” Rose said, and then sneezed. “Oh dear, I’d best get inside.”

“Why are you all wet?” Orchid blinked up at her owlishly.

“I’m not all wet,” Rose said again. “I put my arm in a fountain.”

“And your head and your other arm and your shawl,” Orchid pointed out. “Which fountain was it? Was the water very cold?”

“The swan fountain, and yes it was,” Rose answered her. “Now why don’t we all go inside? It’s too chilly to play out here.”

“Yes,
Mother.”
Orchid rolled her eyes.

Rose didn’t bother to reply. Being called “Mother” on top of being cold, and wet, and upset about well, everything, had set her temper on the boil. She stamped off to the palace with her dripping shawl hanging from her arms. She passed Lilac and the twins, Poppy and Daisy, on her way to the room she shared with Lily and Jonquil. All three opened their mouths to say something but closed them again when they got a good look at Rose’s face.

Rose stalked into her room and slammed the door.

Jonquil was brushing her hair in front of the big looking glass above their dressing table. “Can I borrow your blue shawl? Violet and Iris say that the new under-gardener is handsome and I want to go see for myself.”

Rose threw her sopping shawl at Jonquil and climbed into bed, wet clothes and all.

By the time the dinner gong struck, Rose was running a temperature. She lay in her bed, miserable, and coughed into a handkerchief. Lily had seen Rose’s wet hair and gown sticking out of the covers, summoned a maid, and forcibly gotten her older sister dried off and into a nightgown. Rose barely noticed.

The shoemaker had brought new dancing slippers, since he knew all their sizes by heart, but she hadn’t tried hers on or even looked at them. The poor man was anxious to please—the princesses were his best customers, after all—so Lily assured him on Rose’s behalf that the workmanship was once more unsurpassed.

Jonquil, having readily forgiven her older sister for the wet shawl incident, described the slippers to Rose in detail and then picked out a yellow gown for her to wear to supper. “This will match perfectly,” she said, holding up the gown where Rose could see it.

Rose hardly bothered to glance at it. Then she sneezed
three times in quick succession and pulled the covers over her head.

“I wish I were dead,” she moaned.

Petunia came twirling into the room. “Are you sick?” She danced up to Rose’s bedside and peered at her. “You look sick.
I’m
not sick. I’m never sick.” She twirled away.

Lily came over and felt Rose’s forehead. “I’ll send for Dr. Kelling,” she said in a worried voice. “You’re burning up.”

“I can’t be sick,” Rose said, struggling to get free of the covers. “I can’t.” But she couldn’t even move the heavy comforter off her legs, and fell back against the pillows with a groan. “I wish I were dead,” she said again.

Lily sent a message for the royal physician, and Jonquil put Rose’s new dancing slippers and the yellow gown away. Her brow was furrowed with anxiety, as was Lily’s. They stood on either side of their eldest sister’s bed, exchanging looks and restlessly adjusting the covers.

The other girls were gathered in the doorway that connected Rose, Jonquil, and Lily’s room to the room shared by Hyacinth, Violet, and the twins. Petunia kept breaking free of Daisy’s restraining hands to dance around Rose’s bed and sing for her. Hyacinth was praying, and Poppy said something under her breath that made Iris gasp.

“What’s all this?” Dr. Kelling arrived and looked around at the gathered sisters in bemusement. “Is this supposed to help?” A wave of his hand took in the dancing Petunia, the hovering older set, and the noise coming from Hyacinth and Poppy. “Is this a sickroom or a zoo? All of you, out!” He
made a shooing gesture at the sisters. “Oh, and Poppy? Mind your language!”

Daisy gathered up the younger set, while Poppy took Hyacinth by the arm with surprising gentleness and led her away. Jonquil and Lily refused to go, however, standing adamantly by Rose’s bed.

“Very well,” Dr. Kelling grunted. He had been the royal physician for over twenty years and had delivered all twelve of the princesses. “What happened?” As he said this, he took Rose’s pulse, then felt her forehead and looked in her mouth.

“She fell into a fountain in the garden,” Lily answered, since Rose was busy saying “ah” for the doctor.

“It’s much too cold to go swimming, don’t you know that?” Dr. Kelling joked. “Looks like you’ve caught a nasty chill,
liebchen
. Ague, to be certain. We can only pray that it does not turn to pneumonia.”

“I believe that Hyacinth is already doing that,” Jonquil said, smiling weakly. Through the closed door, they could still hear their sister’s murmured prayers, occasionally punctuated by Poppy’s shouts for quiet.

“You are not to leave this bed without my permission,” Dr. Kelling said with a wry smile for Jonquil’s jest. “I shall have a bowl of fresh oranges brought to you from the hothouse. You will eat three a day for the next week at least. Also, I’ll give the kitchen orders for some warming broths, and a soothing tea for the cough.”

“But the dancing,” Rose said, and was racked with a coughing fit that lasted several minutes. When it was over, she didn’t even
have the strength to keep her eyes open, but lay on the pillow and merely listened as Dr. Kelling told her that under no circumstances was she to leave her bed, let alone dance.

“Lily can sit beside your father and play hostess this evening,” Dr. Kelling said kindly, patting Rose’s white hand where it lay on the coverlet. “And for the next several nights. But don’t worry, I’m sure that she will give you back your place as soon as you are well.”

“Of course I will,” Lily said. But she didn’t even pretend to be cheerful.

“I’m sure that, in light of your illness, your father will cancel the dancing this evening,” Dr. Kelling said, “if it will distress you to know that your sisters are making merry while you lie ill in bed.”