“Miss Azalea!” said Mr. Penbrook. He grasped her hand. “We are finally alone! It is fate!”
“Mr. Penbrook!” said Azalea, trying to twist her gloved hand from his grip. “Really!”
“I am quite taken with you, Miss Azalea!” he said.
“Oh, honestly,” said Azalea. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore. Please let go.”
Mr. Penbrook released her hand, but he remained smiling his wet smile. Azalea peered past his face and even past the King, who stared at Mr. Penbrook with narrowed eyes, and saw the purple-flowered hedges in the distance.
“Mr. Penbrook,” said Azalea, standing. “Do take a turn through the gardens with me.”
Mr. Penbrook bounded to his feet. Azalea ran against the breeze to the lilac labyrinth. The thick smell of lilac dizzied her, and she had to duck beneath the hanging branches as she ran.
“Hurry now, Mr. Penbrook,” said Azalea, turning through the twisted, leafy tunnels. “You’ve got to keep up!”
“Ah, I see! Ha ha! This is perfect, my lady! Ah…princess…you are going a bit fast—”
“Come along, Mr. Penbrook!”
“Princess? Princess Azalea? Hello?”
Guilt reamed through Azalea as she finished searching the bedroom by herself. She knew she shouldn’t have done it. Unfortunately Mr. Penbrook was the sort of gentleman Mother had told her about. You could poison their horses, steal their pins, set their manors on fire, chop off their fingers, and they would still think you the sweetest little thing.
After dark fell, Azalea sent Mr. Pudding to fetch him. Mr. Penbrook arrived at the dining room, dazed, twigs in his hair, and smiled broadly at Azalea. Azalea groaned inwardly.
The next morning Mr. Penbrook did not show up to breakfast. Azalea discovered that the King had sent him to write a forty-two-page report on the bridge conditions in Hannover. Both relieved and shy at this, Azalea helped Mrs. Graybe make basted chicken for dinner—the King’s favorite dish—and decided that having meals with him these next few weeks wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“So far we’ve been through eight gentlemen,” said Eve, one night several weeks later, at the pavilion. They retied their dance slippers, now coming apart at the seams, and sat on the floor in a ring. It was early morning, and the youngest ones had fallen asleep, little lumps on the side sofas, and everyone was yawning, signaling to Azalea that it was time to gather up the flock and go to bed.
“Eight gentlemen,” Eve continued, “and something’s been not quite right with every single one of them.”
“Oh, they’ve been all right,” said Azalea, wiggling her toes. She could see a bit of pink through the torn seam. These past few weeks had been a flurry of activity, with dukes and counts and even a viceroy arriving in very fine carriages. Viscount Scantlebury had even helped her look—unsuccessfully—for the sugar teeth in the cellar, and Sir Dietrich had actually been interesting to talk to. Azalea thought they were all nice—though not in a heart-twisting, breath-catching way. “They’ve all been awfully polite,” she said, as though to make up for not fancying them.
“You’re only saying that,” said Bramble, “because you’re too nice. We’ve found plenty of problems with them. Eve?”
Eve brought out a folded piece of stationery with the gentlemen’s names on it, and scrawled ink comments next to each one.
“Duke Orlington.”
“Had a wince. Next.”
“Baron Rosenthal.”
“Ha! He ate more than Ivy!”
“Oh, really,” said Azalea. “That’s not a good reason to discount—”
“Marquis DeLange,” Eve continued.
“Ugh, he was shorter than all of us!”
“That’s not—” said Azalea, but then changed her mind. It, actually, was.
“Anyway, the point is,” said Bramble, waving Eve’s piece of stationery away and smoothing her skirts primly over the marble. “None of them have been good enough for you.”
“Azalea,” said Delphinium. She sat on the marble across from Azalea, and leaned in to whisper, resting her elbows on the floor. “What about…you know…”
Azalea immediately colored, thinking of a gentleman with soft brown eyes.
“Keeper,” Delphinium finished. She bit her lip and looked around, her light blue eyes flickering with fear, as though afraid Keeper might have heard, then turned back to Azalea with a devilish sort of grin.
“Keeper?” said Azalea. “No, thank you!”
But the girls all now had wicked little grins across their faces, and Azalea cringed. She recognized those looks, and they said “merciless teasing.” Azalea had put up with quite a bit of that for the past several weeks, as the gardens turned from greens and purples to golds and reds and yellows. While the younger girls fought for seats next to the gentlemen at the dinner table, Delphinium drew pictures of what Azalea’s children would look like if she married them, and Bramble kicked her under the table to make her squeak.