Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses) (5 page)

“Would he?” Oliver shook his head. “Didn’t he farm the princesses out to any court who would take them? He might as well have offered to marry them to anyone who volunteered, just like the Russakan emperor!” Oliver had actually felt rather bad for the princesses when the news had come of the royal heir exchange a few years ago. To be traded around like an unlucky card at Devil’s Corner must have been truly
humiliating. “He was probably just angry that they didn’t all come home betrothed, and now he’s trying again.”

“Now, Oliver, there is no need to be disrespectful! Gregor is your king, after all.”

“We’re on Analousian soil right now,” he reminded his mother. “And I never swore fealty to him. He was too busy to bother with me, remember?”

“Oliver,” said Lady Emily firmly. “I am sorry that this is your life. But we must make the best of it that we can. Petunia wants to go to the grand duchess’s estate—” She held up one hand to stop him before he could correct her. “It
is
her estate, Oliver, no matter how it galls us. And you must take her there. But I want you to be careful. Not just to avoid capture, but I would also like you to be … sensitive to anything that seems untoward.”

Oliver gave his mother a baffled look.

“If it seems like the princess is not safe there, I want you to bring her back,” Lady Emily clarified.

“You want me to kidnap her all over again?”

Lady Emily gave a sigh of great suffering. “I want you to ask her to come with you,” she explained. “Insist, in fact.”

“What if insisting doesn’t work?” Oliver was not about to throw Princess Petunia over one shoulder and run off with her into the forest. Not that it would be all that hard, she wasn’t very big, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Just do your best, please,” his mother said.

“All right,” Oliver agreed, though he still felt like the conversation was slightly beyond his grasp.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about his mother’s believing in fairy tales, and that one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka was currently living on his estate. According to the stories, each of the Nine Daughters of Russaka had been visited in the night by the King Under Stone, had borne him a son, and then wept bitter tears when he took the children away to his invisible kingdom. What on earth would lead his mother to believe that one of the Nine Daughters would take up residence in the middle of the Westfalian Woods?

And how did his mother expect him to know if the princess was in trouble? He wasn’t going to go into the manor house with her. He was going to leave her at the gates … just within sight of the gates, actually, and then run for it. It was his very fervent hope that he would never have to see Princess Petunia again, despite her thick, dark curls and blue, blue eyes. It could only lead to discovery or death for him, and either would be a disaster for his people.

But his mother seemed satisfied that he was going to look after the princess and so she left the little chapel after giving him a warm smile. Oliver wondered why she even cared. Being friends with the late Queen Maude hadn’t helped their family one whit. Still, he gathered himself mentally and went out into the weak winter sunshine to find the princess and take her to the estate that should have been his home.

Guided

Looking at Oliver sidelong as they trudged through the woods, Petunia wondered if he was staring at her more than usual today. Was it because of her nightmares? Had he heard her? He was definitely watching her, but was that only so she wouldn’t run away? They had been walking for an hour now, and Petunia could not have been more lost. The sun, which had been shining bravely through the trees as they set off, was now hiding behind gray clouds that threatened snow. Petunia pulled her cloak closer around her, but it caught on the basket and nearly made her stumble.

“All right, there?” Oliver tried to take hold of her arm, but she shook him off. “I’m just trying to help.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture.

“I’m fine,” Petunia said, not caring that she didn’t sound fine, or very gracious, either.

“At least if it snows, no one can lose you,” Oliver said, in
what Petunia assumed was an attempt at humor. He indicated her red cloak.

She didn’t bother to reply.

Petunia could not wait for her humiliation to end. If Poppy ever found out about this, she would never let Petunia live it down. First she had been kidnapped while relieving herself—or nearly so—despite having her pistol at hand, and then she had embarrassed herself further by raving in her sleep all night. She was sure that everyone in that crumbling old hall had heard her—how could they not? The walls were riddled with holes!

In the first few years after they had defeated the King Under Stone, Petunia had suffered only the occasional nightmare. And most of the time, these nightmares were about perfectly mundane things, like tripping and chipping her front teeth or finding a spider in her shoes. So when the dreams about the Kingdom Under Stone had started to come more regularly, she thought that it was just memories combining with other fears. But by last year they had become a nightly event and not just for Petunia, but for all twelve sisters.

Jonquil suffered the most. She had to take a potion that their oldest brother-in-law, Galen, prepared for her every night, otherwise she was too frightened to even close her eyes. Although the potion was supposed to bring dreamless sleep, she still woke more often than not, screaming and drenched in sweat. Always willowy, Jonquil was becoming gaunt, picking
at her food and not paying half as much attention to her appearance as she once had, which worried them all.

Petunia heartlessly wished that Jonquil had been the one who had been kidnapped.
She
wouldn’t have slept at all. Petunia had awakened herself shouting abuse at Kestilan, the youngest son of the King Under Stone, who came to her every night and told her that she belonged to him, and only him, forever. She was fairly certain that some of the words she used were of the sort that princesses weren’t even supposed to know, let alone shout in their sleep. At least Oliver wouldn’t be speaking to anyone who knew her, like the grand duchess, and couldn’t carry tales about her behavior.

“If you would just tell me how to get to the grand duchess’s estate,” Petunia said after a long period in which their feet crunching the cold, dead leaves was the only sound, “I can get there by myself.”

“I wish I believed that,” Oliver began.

“Excuse me?” Petunia bristled. “I think I am perfectly capable of finding a large estate that is only a stone’s throw from the main road, thank you!”

She hated being condescended to. Her older sisters still treated her like a child because she was the youngest, and her father was little better. In his eyes, she was perpetually six and needed to be led by the hand all the time. Yet he trusted her to work in his hothouses. Perhaps he didn’t think flowers required much maturity, just intuition. Reiner Orm, the gardener, certainly didn’t think that she belonged there, now or
ever. But then, Herr Orm would never forgive her for once using a rosebush as kindling for a campfire nearly eight years before.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, surprised at her reaction. “I didn’t mean anything like that. I just meant that it’s easy to get lost in the forest. We’re cutting straight across the thickest part, using the deer paths. We won’t reach the road until we’re nearly there, and then you can go it alone if you like. But there’s wolves in the forest—”

“I’m well aware of that,” Petunia said. He had his gray leather wolf mask dangling from the hood of the cloak he wore over his more practical coat, in case he needed to disguise himself, she supposed.

“I meant real wolves,” he said, his cheeks red. He brandished the rifle he was carrying.

Petunia didn’t answer that, either. He was right, though. When her father had first heard the reports about the wolves in the woods a few years ago, he had sent out hunters to find them, assuming that the first garbled report of a coach being attacked had meant that four-legged wolves were growing bolder with the coming winter. The clarification that it was men in wolf masks attacking the coaches had meant only that a different kind of hunter was sent out. Their lack of success, Petunia realized, was probably in part due to Oliver and his men making their home in what was now Analousia.

She supposed she should be grateful that he was willing to guard her all the way to the grand duchess’s. He could have
simply turned her loose in the forest to make her own way. But she was too tired to be grateful, or gracious, and merely trudged alongside him.

She didn’t remember being tired all the time as a child, though her sisters spoke with horror of the long days and even longer nights that they had endured at the Midnight Balls. Petunia did remember being sick toward the end, so sick that it hurt to move, but having to dance with Kestilan all the same. Jonquil, in particular, grew hysterical at any mention of the balls, and she, Hyacinth, and Iris still refused to dance no matter the occasion.

Petunia, however, had been delighted when Poppy had come home from Breton three years before with a renewed fondness for dancing. Petunia had missed dancing, and she had been hopeful that her time at the Russakan court would allow her plenty of opportunities to do so. But the letter of introduction that her father had sent with her to the Emperor of Russaka had excused her from dancing, saying that she was incapable of such strenuous activity.

She knew that her father had meant well, had been trying to save her from something that he assumed she held in disgust, but it had made Petunia’s stay in Russaka dreadfully awkward. Not only was she forced to spend every ball sitting with the chaperones, but the letter gave the impression that she was an invalid. The Russakan people were very vigorous, enjoying all sorts of outdoor events as well as dances and parlor games that involved running through the sprawling Imperial palace, hiding in wardrobes and under beds.

Petunia, just twelve at the time and only allowed to put her hair up and wear ball gowns because she was on a “state visit,” had been anxious to join in, but it was not to be. Instead she sat beside great ladies like the Grand Duchess Volenskaya and judged the games, trying to smile bravely as she handed out boxes of sweets or bottles of scent to other girls who had ridden their ponies over elaborate steeplechase courses or hidden longer than any other guest or danced particularly well.

Her hero had been the grand duchess’s grandson, Prince Grigori. Though older than she, he had gone out of his way to make Petunia feel welcome, sitting beside her through many of the games and dances so that she wasn’t lonely, with all the chaperones’ talk of “grandchildren and poor health” as he had put it. He also spoke impeccable Westfalian, thanks to his Westfalian grandfather, and was able to teach her a great deal of Russakan during her year at the court.

Which led to her being here, in the middle of the forest with a cold nose and dead leaves catching at the hem of her beautiful new cloak. When the grand duchess had invited Petunia to keep her company at her Westfalian estate, she had mentioned specifically that her favorite grandson would be there.

“I must have all my favorites about me,” the elderly lady’s letter had said. “And that includes my most dashing grandson as well as my most beautiful flower princess.”

“We’re almost there,” Oliver said.

Once again Petunia was so startled that she tripped and
would have fallen if Oliver hadn’t caught her around the waist and pulled her upright.

“You must have been far away,” he said, laughing. He was so close that his breath stirred her hair.

“I’m right here,” she said, shrugging him off.

“I meant in your head,” he said.

Petunia straightened her cloak with as much dignity as she could manage. “I suppose I was,” she conceded. “Not that
your
conversation isn’t riveting.”

She was pleased to see him turn red again, but then she felt ashamed. It was the kind of comment that Jonquil could carry off but Petunia never could. Jonquil would say such things to her suitors, and they would fall over themselves trying to please her. Oliver just looked hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you say that we’re almost there?”

“Yes. The road is just through those trees. Once we reach it, we’ll only be a few minutes from the estate.”

“Oh,” she said, hardly showing a sparkling wit herself.

They walked in silence until they were standing atop a low bank that looked down on the road. Petunia hopped down the bank, glad for the hard-packed dirt of the road to walk on. Struggling over hidden rocks and tree roots had mostly ruined her low boots, which were for riding in a comfortable coach and not foot travel.

“It’s to the right,” Oliver instructed, sliding down the bank to stand beside her on the road. He started to lead the way.

“Is it far?” She did a little skip to catch up to his longer legs.

“Not far,” he said. He pointed at the other side of the road, which was just as dark with forest. “If you go just past the first line of trees, there’s a wall that surrounds the estate’s grounds.”