“Oh,” she said. Then, to the guests, “Th-thank you all for coming. Next year we’ll…be certain to have a ball that ends normally.”
This brought chuckles and a smattering of applause. While Fairweller continued to drape the windows along the wall, Azalea saw each guest to the door, helped the musicians pack up their instruments, and wished everyone a good holiday as they left.
When they were all gone, the ballroom felt hollow.
“You didn’t have to end it like that,” said Azalea. “It was almost over.”
Fairweller finished draping the last window.
“Your sisters, Miss Azalea.”
Azalea sighed. Another debacle. The King would be cross again this year, which meant meals in their bedroom and no dance lessons for at least a week. Worn out, Azalea led Fairweller to the trees. He pushed a tree aside, the stand scraping the marble, and revealed the girls.
They slept, snuggled together like a nest of swans, empty pudding bowls and spoons strewn about them. They used tree skirts as blankets, and looked angelic. Nothing like they normally did.
Fairweller stared down at them, unmoving. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He closed his eyes, then opened them. He turned sharply around—and strode across the dance floor. He cast aside the fire poker. It clanged across the marble. He left, slamming the ballroom doors behind him.
The chandelier lamps flickered.
“That,” said Azalea, blinking at the ballroom doors, “was odd.”
She turned to the mass of sleeping girls, a jumble of brightly colored cottons and shawls among the silk tree skirts, and smiled, suddenly feeling very, very drowsy.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup!”
Azalea groaned as ten pairs of hands poked her awake. She had been so tired last night, she hadn’t even bothered going to bed. Instead she fell asleep right there with her sisters, using a tree skirt as a pillow.
“Stop, stop, stop,” she moaned. “The buttons of this dress dig into the spine, you have no idea.”
“Poor ickle Azalea,” said Bramble, deep red hair tangled to her knees. “Poor wee ickle wee tiny baby.”
“It’s Christmas, Lea,” said Flora. “Christmas!”
“We’re to have oranges!”
“And sausages!”
“And, and, and a book from the King, even!”
“Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!”
“I know!” said Azalea as the girls pulled her to her feet. She clawed at an ornament snagged in her hair. Her ballgown made her drag. “Slow down!” she said, stumbling over her crinolines. “I can hardly walk!”
Screaming with unholy delight, the girls ran with neck-breaking speed to the nook, where all their oranges and presents would be set up in piles on the table. Azalea stumbled after them, down the hall and through the folding glass doors, only to see them crowded around the table, gawking at it with wide eyes.
There was nothing on it.
Fairweller stood at the end of the nook, his back to them, staring at the drapes covering the glass walls.
“Our oranges,” said Ivy, gaping at the table.
“Our books,” said Eve.
“Oh, hang,” said Bramble. “Our scandal.”
The girls began to cry. Azalea, now fully awake, crossed her arms.
“Where is the King?” she said, her voice a hard Princess Royale tone. “Minister?”
“He’s out,” said Fairweller. “Riding.”
“On Christmas morning?”
Fairweller said nothing.
Azalea smiled and turned to the girls. “I’ll bet Mother has them up with her. You know how much she loves Christmas.”
The girls sniffed and rubbed their eyes. Fairweller muttered something.
“I’m sorry, Minister?” said Azalea.
Fairweller turned away from the curtain.
“I said, your mother is dead.” He looked back to the drapes. “She died last night.”
CHAPTER 3
Azalea smacked Fairweller. So hard her hand stung. She ran from the nook, her hand throbbing, through the old kitchen door and out into the snowy gardens, the ice cold of dawn stinging her cheeks.
How dare he! How dare Fairweller say such a thing! When he knew how ill Mother was! Azalea had to find the King. Through the garden paths, snow-topped hedges, and frozen topiaries, out of the screeching iron gate, through the meadow, into the frozen wood, Azalea stumbled, following Dickens’s hoofprints of upturned dirt and snow. The King would set things right. He would tell her it wasn’t true, and—
But you didn’t go to Mother’s room, a tiny voice whispered through Azalea’s angry, burning thoughts. You didn’t dare….
“Sir!” Azalea yelled, tripping through the overgrown woodland path, the cold seeping through her worn dance slippers. “Sir!”
The wood replied with frozen silence.
The trees towered above her, deep blue in the morning light, and Azalea swallowed and coughed as the air stung her throat. Her gloves were streaked with mud, and her heavy ballgown had torn on the snagging, leafless bushes. She leaned against a frozen tree and shivered uncontrollably.
Her lips had been white—