“And I most certainly do not approve of you all keeping secrets. You know I know where you go, and I know you know I know of it.”
“Um,” said Azalea. She tried to untangle the sentence, and gave up. She wondered how much of the magic in the passage he knew about. Did he know about the forest? She doubted it. Without Mr. Keeper, it was probably just an old storage room.
“There will be no secrets in this household.” The King set his hat on his head. “I will walk home. Mr. Pudding will wait with the carriage. And, Miss Azalea, take care your sisters don’t muss themselves. We are having guests for dinner tonight.”
The girls’ room that evening was a chatter of disagreement, the younger girls alternately jumping on their beds and peeking through the windows, keeping the lookout for arriving horses. They hadn’t had guests to dinner in months.
“No,” said Delphinium, stubbornly sitting on her bed. “We can’t. We swore to have meals in our room forever. We can’t stand eating with the King, remember?”
“She has a point, Az.” Bramble brushed through her sleek red hair. “I’d rather just stay up here. He can’t really expect us. Besides, I get too…chokey around him.”
“It is the rules,” said Flora.
“Seventeen, section two.” Eve rubbed her spectacles on her pillowcase hem.
Clover, who could never think unkindly of anyone, said, “He did—let us have our slippers.”
The girls pursed their lips and looked from Azalea to Delphinium to Clover to Bramble to Eve. Azalea clicked Lord Bradford’s watch open, shut, open, shut. She imagined the dinner table, the King and the guests sitting in awkward silence, staring at their soup. And after, the coffee in the library. The King was terrible at conversation—it was always up to Mother to glide between topics and steer the discussion. Azalea looked at her palms, still marked from her nails, then looked at the basket of slippers, tied together and ready for the night. She clicked the pocket watch closed.
“Rule number seventeen,” she said. “Everyone wash up.”
Washed and combed, the girls arrived at the dining room arches only a few minutes late. The King stood quickly when they arrived, and stared at them for several moments. His expression was unreadable.
Fairweller, Azalea was chagrined to see, was a guest. He sat to the right of the King and looked mildly annoyed, as always. His neck looked better.
The third guest had a gentle, solemn air to him. Azalea hesitated at the entries, her hand automatically touching the watch tucked in her pocket.
It was Lord Bradford. He bowed his head at her.
Azalea had to remind herself to breathe. He was back! And all right, too. She knew he’d been all right, of course, the papers never reported him as wounded, but it was an entirely different matter seeing him here, those soft brown eyes twinkling at her….
“It’s that rotten shilling-punter nuffermonk who stopped the tower!” Bramble whispered. “I hope he chokes!”
“He is a lord,” said Azalea. “And if you do anything to him, I’ll break your neck.”
Mrs. Graybe came from the kitchen door with a dozen plates, as though she had expected the girls to arrive at any moment, and Azalea helped her set the table while the gentlemen helped the girls with their chairs. Above the noise and clatter of dishes, the King leaned in to Azalea.
“It is high time you all decided to eat dinner as a family again,” he said in a low voice.
“It’s just for tonight.” Delphinium, seated next to Azalea, spoke without moving her eyes from the plate.
“Rule number seventeen,” said Eve reluctantly, from the other side.
The King straightened. His face held an odd expression. For a moment, he simply stood. Then his expression lapsed into unreadable, and he turned away.
The dinner of basted chicken, potatoes, and cake progressed well. Bramble seized the salt cellar, and Ivy spooned gobs of jam onto her chicken, but overall they behaved properly. At the end of the table, Fairweller and Lord Bradford discussed politics, and the King remained pensive.
“Parliamentary elections begin this next year,” Fairweller was saying. “The House could use a fine young head…. His Majesty and I thought you might be persuaded.”
Next to Azalea, Bramble had borrowed one of Delphinium’s drawing pencils and was writing on her napkin.
“To run?” said Lord Bradford.
His way of speaking fascinated Azalea. He was frugal with words. It was a stark contrast to her life with a dozen girls and thousands of easy words.
Kale, next to Lord Bradford, had eaten one piece of potato and seemed no longer hungry. She stood on her chair and reached for Lord Bradford’s wine. When he moved it out of reach, she pouted and sat down hard on her chair. Then she snuggled up to him, rubbed her cheek against his arm, and bit him.
Lord Bradford inhaled sharply.