“We are inside!” said Bramble. “Da-dum! Next time the King will have to rethink his wording. Are you glad we’re here?”
Delight bubbled through Azalea, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Beyond words!”
The girls burst into a chatter.
“The ball is absolutely marvelous this year!”
“I can’t wait until I’m of age!”
“The food looks corking!”
“All the gentlemen are mad after you!”
“Just remember, don’t get attached to any of them,” said Delphinium, who thought herself an expert in matters of love, now she was twelve. “They’re not dancing with you because you’re you. They’re only dancing with you because if they marry you, they get to be King.”
Azalea’s smile faded. She took a step away from the Christmas trees, feeling as though a hand wrung her stomach.
“Oh…stuff it, Delphinium,” said Bramble.
“I just think she shouldn’t fall in love, that’s all,” said Delphinium. “Since parliament will choose the next king, she—”
“Yes, thank you.” Bramble pushed Delphinium back, which made the entire mass of pine trees rustle. Ornaments tinkled. Bramble turned back to Azalea, and her wry grin reappeared.
“I hope you’re grateful,” she said. “Our Great Christmas Tree Scandal took a lot of time. We told the King we’d be in our room all day—sulking, you know—and then slipped behind here after tea.”
“You’ve been here since tea?” said Azalea. “You must be hungry!”
“Hungry?” said Bramble. “We’re starving!”
“Oh, yes!” piped the other girls. “We haven’t had a crumb to eat, not a crumb crumb crumb!”
The mass of trees shook.
Azalea pulled back, laughing.
“I can fix that!” she said, and she swept to the dessert table.
She filled her plate with every sort of sweet—candied raspberries, rosemary tarts, iced walnuts, sticky sweet rolls—things they had only once a year, since parliament funded the Yuletide ball and could afford it. Their own rather poor household lived on porridge and potatoes. Back at the trees, as the polka wound to an end and a mazurka began, Azalea leaned down, as though to inspect her worn slippers, and shoved the plate beneath the branches. Several pairs of eager hands pulled it in, and the trees burst into delighted squeals.
Every fifth dance or so, careful to fill the plate during quick, breath-stealing jigs so as not to be noticed, Azalea delivered goodies to the girls. They cheered in tiny voices each time. While couples danced the varsovienne, Azalea stacked her platter with ten dainty glass bowls of pudding, a special request from the girls. The spoons and crystal clinked against the plate, piled like a castle. Azalea picked her way carefully to the trees—
—and nearly ran into a gentleman.
Azalea overbalanced with the puddings, and the top little bowl slid off the rest. The gentleman caught it with surprising speed between his thumb and forefinger, pulling back as Azalea’s skirts settled. His eyes took her in, her auburn ringlets and silk dress, and stopped on the plate stacked with puddings. Each one had a wallop of cream on the top.
Azalea, face hot, lifted her chin at him and coldly stared him down, daring him to say anything.
He opened his mouth, then shut it. Then slowly, as though afraid she would strike, he cautiously set the pudding bowl back on the top with a crystal clink, and backed away.
“Oh!” said Azalea. “You’re bleeding!”
And now she saw why he was hiding between the trees and the drapery. He was terribly disheveled! A strand of his mussed hair, the indiscriminate color between dark blond and brown, hung in his eyes. A streak of mud smeared his cheekbone and his fine black suit, and blood and dirt colored the handkerchief he now returned to pressing against his hand.
“It’s…nothing, really,” he stammered.
But Azalea had already set the plate to the marble with a clunk and a clatter of spoons, and produced Bramble’s clean handkerchief from her sleeve.
“Hush,” she said, taking his hand and dabbing at the cut on his knuckle. “It isn’t bad. We’ll clean it right up. What were you thinking, using such a soiled handkerchief?”
The cut wasn’t deep, and the gentleman held still while Azalea tended to it. His large hand dwarfed her own, and she only just managed to wrap the handkerchief about it.
“My horse slipped on the way here,” he explained. His voice reminded Azalea of rich, thick cream, the sort one could add to any recipe to make it taste better. “The Courtroad bridge. I only just arrived.”
Azalea nodded, thinking of how the King avoided that icy bridge every winter. Expertly, she tied the ends of the handkerchief in a tight, dainty knot. The gentleman touched it.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You probably shouldn’t stay much longer,” said Azalea. “You need a proper bandage on it, or it will get infected and throb every time you turn a lady into the next step. You wouldn’t want that.”