Entwined (25 page)

Dizzy weakness flooded her head. Speckled dots filled her vision and turned to blotches.

“Azalea—” The King's voice sounded distant.

Everything fell black.

When Azalea came to, her head throbbed and she had to blink for her vision to clear. She lay on the sofa by the piano, and stared up at the underside of the mezzanine. The King knelt next to her. His eyebrows were furrowed.

Another face, equally concerned, solemn, and gentle stood over her. It had cinnamon-bread eyes.

“Oh,” Azalea moaned, reliving her last memory. “I didn't faint?”

“You did,” said the King.

Azalea groaned.

“Mr. Pudding is fetching a bit of bread. You've been skipping too many meals of late; it's very out of order, young lady.” The King pulled a blanket close to her chin, and the smell of fresh linen and pine encased her. She realized the blanket was actually Mr. Bradford's dark, thick-weaved coat.

Humiliation tangled in her stomach, and Azalea tried to sit up. The King pushed her back down with a firm hand.

“Don't get up, young lady.”

“Mr. Bradford,” said Azalea. “What are you doing here?”

“Captain Bradford wished to try his hand at the riddle,” said the King. “I told him no, of course. It is the holiday, after all.”

“Some other time, naturally,” Mr. Bradford said.

Hearing his mellow voice sent ripples through Azalea's chest. Mr. Bradford's face was etched with worry.

“You fell just before I came in,” he said. “I'll leave straightaway, as soon as you have a little more color.”

Azalea pressed her cheek into the brocade of the sofa arm and wanted to curl into a ball. Betrayal, delight, and despair all passed in turn at seeing Mr. Bradford's warm, solemn eyes. She didn't know why he even wanted to see her, but she did know he hadn't close family to spend Christmas with. Sympathy took over.

“Why not?” she said to the King, as he adjusted the coat at her feet. “Why can't he stay? He lent me his coat—and—his watch—and…please. He hasn't any family to stay with for Christmas.”

Possibly the King thought she was rambling. He folded up the collar of the coat so it covered her chin.

“Well, Captain,” he said finally. “It seems Princess Azalea should have you as our Christmas guest. Are you still willing?”

Mr. Bradford bowed.

“Hmm,” said the King. “You are lucky we are both in a generous humor today.”

 

Azalea slept through dinner on the hard library sofa, and awoke to eleven eager sisters flocking about her, pushing and poking her awake. They pulled her up to the room while shoving pieces of dinner roll at her mouth. Azalea felt groggy, but better. Slippers were tied, hair brushed and pinned in preparation for dancing that night. In spite of Azalea staring listlessly at her slippers, the girls were a chatter of excitement.

“You'll never guess who's here, Az,” said Bramble as Clover brushed through Azalea's auburn tresses.

“Mr. Bradford.”

Bramble dropped the pins she held.

“He's come to try the riddle,” said Azalea, getting it over with. “I asked the King to let him; he hasn't any family to go to for Christmas. I couldn't turn him out.”

“You invited him to stay?” Bramble's eyes narrowed, and her grin became terribly devious, like a fox among chickens. “For Christmas? Well, well, we-ee-elll!”

Azalea braced herself for the Merciless Teasing.

“Mmm,” said Delphinium as the girls took poufs around Azalea. “Sturdy and tall. Such a long nose. But those eyes—
pow
!”

“Aye, you'll have childlets with brown eyes. The brown usually wins out, you know.”

“Oh, honestly!” said Azalea.

A soft knock sounded on the door, interrupting them. It wasn't the pointed knock of Mrs. Graybe or the King's firm, hard knock. Azalea couldn't place it. Goldenrod, nearest the door, opened it a crack and peered out.

“No one's there,” she said. She pulled the door open wide, letting in gust of air, to show the girls.

Tiny shivers crawled up Azalea's arms.

“I feel so odd,” said Jessamine. Her glass-spun voice resonated with all of them. Azalea stood.

“Let's get this over with,” she said.

The unsettling feeling followed them through the magic passage and into the silver forest. They huddled together, jittery. Azalea clutched at the lamp. It shook as she led them through the silver, and shook harder when Keeper bowed them in. His eyes met Azalea's before he backed away into the mist, and Azalea had to set the lamp down before she dropped it.

Even though they had missed the last two days, no one felt much like dancing. Azalea held Jessamine, who was still frightened, on her lap. Bramble pushed a smile or
two, but remained on one of the pavilion sofas, pensive. Delphinium didn't want to bother teaching the younger girls, and Eve wasn't bossy enough to do it, either. The twins didn't know enough to teach. Clover was left to teach Hollyhock, Ivy, and Kale while everyone looked on.

“Try it again,” she said in her honey-sweet voice as they gave awkward curtsys. “Mother—Mother used to say, it takes a thousand steps to make the perfect curtsy.”

Kale's tiny eyebrows knit.

“Mother?” she said.

“Oh, come now, Kabbage,” said Bramble, a length away. “You remember Mother.”

Kale's dark blue eyes remained blank.

“She's dead,” Jessamine whispered.

Azalea adjusted Jessamine on her lap so she could see her tiny white face. Funny, how four-year-old Jessamine could seem so old sometimes. Did she remember Mother, who had drawn her fingers through Jessamine's black curls and let her feel the baby kick? How could one forget something like that?

Clover pushed a strand of dark blond hair from Kale's eyes.

“She's just in heaven,” she said, in a honey voice.

“Just in heafen!” Kale squeaked.

Azalea suddenly felt stifled, as though she had been overlaced in a stuffy room. She nudged the girls to go.
Keeper's dark form appeared through the mist of the entrance, and instinctively, Azalea stood, upsetting Jessamine on her lap. She ran to the front of the girls, putting herself between them and Keeper, who strode in silky strides to the middle of the dance floor.

“Is everything all right?” he said in his chocolate voice. “Only you seem in poor spirits tonight.”

The girls, smiling shyly, assured him that everything was all right. Azalea said nothing. Her eyes locked with his in an intense glare. So intense the room pulsed with her heartbeat. Keeper broke it first.

“I thought to give you all a treat,” he said, nodding to the girls. A roguish strand hung in his eyes. “A waltz. None of you have seen a closed dance for nearly a year. Miss Azalea?”

He held his outstretched gloved hand to her. Azalea stared at it. It seemed to grow bigger in her vision. His words from the dark pavilion reverberated in her mind.
Never to refuse me another dance again…

After a lengthy pause, Azalea took his hand.

“Oh, goodies,” said Delphinium, perking up along with the younger girls. Clover and Bramble, on the other hand, had confusion on their faces.

“But we haven't been properly introduced,” said Clover, on her feet. “Mr. Keeper—”

“No,” said Azalea, putting a halt to it. “It's all right.
You've got to see the gentleman's part sometime.”

Keeper brought Azalea into dance position in the middle of the floor. He closed his eyes and inhaled, and his long fingers traced up and down the edge of her shoulder blade, just above her corset. Azalea held as still as she possibly could, trying not to breathe.

“You have such excellent form,” he whispered. “If only you would stop shaking.”

The music began; an Ungolian waltz. Keeper guided her smoothly in a traveling circle around the dance floor, into a hesitation step, an under-arm turn, and gently brought her back into dance position. Everything he did was exaggeratedly gentle. Somehow this made it worse. They brushed past the seated girls, Azalea's skirts sweeping over their faces. They giggled.

“Ah, you follow like an angel.” Keeper's voice was a murmur. “You are the best I have ever danced with, and I have danced with many. I knew you would be the best. From the first time I saw you, gliding across the marble—”

Azalea misstepped. Keeper tenderly brought her into the rhythm again.

“You glide,” he murmured. “Just as your mother.”

Azalea stumbled, and this time it took several beats to ease into the flow of the music again. Azalea's hand shook in Keeper's flawless grip.

“Please, Keeper,” said Azalea as the silvers whirled around her. “Please. I need more time.”

“You have had a disgustingly
plentiful
amount of time, my lady,” he said. He swept her about the girls again, and Azalea caught a flash of black—their dresses—as she spun.

“More time was not a part of the agreement. I suggest you look harder.”

“Please—Mr. Keeper. The King is extending mourning. If I had more time—”

“You are a flurry of clever words, my lady,” said Keeper. “Too many words, I think. Your mother sports that same malady. Or, she did.”

Azalea tried to kick Keeper, but her knees couldn't support her. Keeper caught her with lightning rapidity. With a snap of his long-gloved fingers, the music stopped.

“Enough,” he said, once again obnoxiously gentle. “I am sure your sisters want you back now. Do get some rest. I should very much like the next dance I have with you to be flawless.”

A
zalea slept poorly that night, awaking from dozes with nightmarish jolts. Even so, she had the presence of mind that morning to dress well, mending a torn bit of her favorite dress, pinning her hair to perfection, and smoothing herself in front of the mirror. Mr. Bradford had seen her at her worst; she wouldn't let that happen again.

She arrived at the nook late, the girls halfway through their porridge, and everyone looked up as she quietly folded the doors behind her.

“
Well
,” said Bramble. “Don't
you
look nice!”

A chorus of giggles rippled down the table. Delphinium whispered something to Eve, who in turn whispered it to the twins. The twins whispered something back. They scrunched their noses, grinning at Azalea. Mr. Bradford, on the other hand, just stared at her in a stunned sort of
way, his spoonful of porridge halfway to his mouth.

“Good morning,” said Azalea.

Mr. Bradford started.

“Good morning,” he said, and he stood quickly, something he hadn't done when she arrived. Now late, the gesture made Delphinium and Eve giggle even harder. Azalea flushed.

“Oh,
do
sit by me,” said Delphinium. The chair next to her was the empty seat by Mr. Bradford.

Azalea cast Delphinium a withering look and declined, sitting next to a porridge-covered Lily. Delphinium, Eve, the twins, and Hollyhock burst into another round of giggles.

“That will do.” The King, at the head of the table, looked up from a letter stamped with a green seal. His eyebrows knit when he saw her. “Azalea, you should be in bed.”

“I'm doing better,” said Azalea. “Really.”

The girls broke into another chorus of giggles.

“Much, much,
much
better,” said Bramble.

Azalea closed her eyes, wishing for death.

“Now, Lord Bradford,” said Flora, bringing her bowl to sit next to him. Goldenrod, on the other side, brought out a folded piece of paper. “We've made up a whole schedule for you—”

“There's no lessons today, you know—”

“It's Christmas Eve eve!”

“Holiday!”

“Let's see—nine o'clock, we'll show you the tree, and you can help us put the ornaments on the top branches. We need someone tall for that.”

“And then at ten, we'll play a bit of spillikins—”

“And then we'll show you the great pine in the gardens—”

“If it stops snowing, of course.”

Azalea stared at her porridge, nudging the mushy grains with her spoon before she decided she wasn't hungry. She pushed her bowl to Ivy's spot and slipped out the folding doors, the last scene meeting her eyes being all the girls, flanking Mr. Bradford, chattering and waving spoons, Kale tugging on his suitcoat and trying to get a spoonful of porridge in his mouth, Ivy sneaking a bit of porridge from his bowl, Lily climbing on him and grabbing his nose, and the King staring at the green-seal letter, deep in thought.

The gallery was breath-puffingly cold, but Azalea did not stir up a fire. She ignored the mourning rules and pulled open the drapes of one window, letting in bright snow light. Flakes fluttered past the glass in swirls. The shadows of the flakes danced over Azalea and the sword on the pedestal.

Azalea stared at it for a long time.

It was already on its last leg. Cracked and nicked and dented. It would snap in half without much trouble. Did she possibly dare destroy it?

It would free Keeper. Azalea's mind twisted at the possibilities of that. Keeper magicking the palace all over again. Trying to take over the kingdom, and there would be another reign of terror. And…the blood oath. Azalea's feet curled in her boots, along with her stomach. He would go after the King, surely.

Azalea stepped away from the pedestal. She refused to put more of her family in harm's way.

Although…if she
did
free Keeper, the King would finally know about everything. He could get rid of Keeper before he did anything, couldn't he?

Except…the blood oath. Keeper couldn't die until…

Azalea pulled sharply away, leaning up against the frosted window, curling her fingers. She still felt Mother's cold hands on hers. She felt awake in a nightmare.

At the end of the hall, the doors burst open in a melee of delighted voices. The girls shaded their eyes against the light and flocked to the window, pressing their hands and noses on the cold pane to watch the blizzard.

“I thought you were going to play spillikins?” said Azalea, backing away so the window had more room.

“Changed our minds,” said Bramble. “We're taking
Mr. Bradford on a tour of the palace.”

“An' we're not even charging him a penny!” squeaked Hollyhock.

Mr. Bradford, who had Ivy tugging on one hand and Kale tugging on the other, managed a bow.

“My ladies are most generous,” he said.

His brown eyes caught Azalea's, and they had a mischievous sparkle in them. Though he was solemn faced, Azalea knew he was grinning inside. The girls sat in the rectangle of light beneath the window, smoothing their skirts and scrutinizing him.

“You once said you had studied at the university,” said Eve shyly. “What did you study, please?”

Azalea blushed. It was all right for the girls to interrogate normal gentlemen, but this was one she wanted to keep.

“Ah,” said Mr. Bradford, coloring as well. “Politics, actually. Some philosophy, and sciences. But…mostly politics, I'm afraid.”

“How very appropriate,” said Bramble. Her face was completely blank.

Flora raised her forefinger. “Please, sir,” she said. “Did you study dancing?”

Mr. Bradford smiled and inclined his head to Flora.

“One cannot enter a dance floor in Delchastire,” he said, “save one has a dance master.”

The girls let out a unanimous gasp of delight, and the air buzzed with excitement. Ivy actually clapped her hands.

“We learned,” said Mr. Bradford, now smiling his crooked smile in full, “how to escort a lady, how to turn her in an under-arm turn without clipping the flowers in her hair. How to bow to a lady at the end of the dance.” Mr. Bradford bowed with one arm at his waist, the other behind his back. “And how to hold a lady's hand.” He took Goldenrod's hand and folded his two gloved hands around it. “As gentle as a dove's wing.”

As Flora's shadow, Goldenrod never harbored much attention, and she blushed pink to her ears. She beamed. The girls begged Mr. Bradford to teach them the fashionable Delchastrian dances. He wavered, glancing at the draped windows.

“I'm not very good,” he said.

“That's all right!” squeaked the younger girls. “Oh,
please
!”

“You can dance with Azalea.” Clover smiled a honey-sweet smile. Mr. Bradford's face lit.

“May I?” he said. He bowed to Azalea, his eyes twinkling part hope, part nervousness, and part mischievousness. “If my lady isn't engaged?”

“Take his hand!” cried Hollyhock.

Azalea took it. It dwarfed and encased her own hand,
and she felt the large knobbliness of knuckles under his gloves. She resisted the impulse to stroke them with her thumb.

Her stomach fluttered as he led her to the middle of the hall, away from the glass displays and red velvet ropes. Leaning on his steady arm, she felt a touch dizzy. She caught the faint scent of fresh linen, and her heart began to beat in an Esperaldo jig stomp.

Azalea's skirts swished as he brought her into dance position. He was tall; she straightened into the best form she could, her eyes level to his chin. The girls leaned forward, memorizing each movement as Mr. Bradford placed his hand on her back, just beneath her shoulder, and lifted her other hand, gently. He had excellent form.

“It will probably end up with Azalea leading,” said Delphinium, across the hall. “She's so bossy.”

Azalea closed her eyes. Sisters! She could
strangle
them!

“A
trois-temps
waltz,” said Mr. Bradford, smiling crookedly. With his rumpled hair and uneven cravat, it seemed to make him symmetrical. “If that is agreeable.”

Beneath his steady form, Azalea thought she felt his fingers trembling, just a touch.

“I love the waltz,” said Azalea. She dimpled.

The girls, at the edge of the hall, held their breath as Azalea and Mr. Bradford began.

Mr. Bradford was not a perfect dancer. His steps were a bit flat, and he stumbled through the transition steps, but…

He was shockingly easy to follow. The pressure of his hand, the step of his foot, the angle of his frame…it was like reading his
mind
. When he leaned right, they turned in perfect unison. He swept her across the gallery in a quick three, a dizzying pace. Gilded frames and glass cases and the window blurred in her vision, and Azalea spun out, her skirts pulling and poofing around her, before he caught her and brought her back into dance position. She could almost
hear
music playing, swelling inside of her.

Mother had once told her about this perfect twining into one. She called it interweave, and said it was hard to do, for it took the perfect matching of the partners' strengths to overshadow each other's weaknesses, meshing into one glorious dance. Azalea felt the giddiness of being locked in not a pairing, but a dance. So starkly different than dancing with Keeper. Never that horrid feeling that she owed him something; no holding her breath, wishing for the dance to end. Now, spinning from Mr. Bradford's hand, her eyes closed, spinning back and feeling him catch her, she felt the thrill of the dance, of being matched, flow through her.

“Heavens, you're good!” said Azalea, breathless.

“
You're
stupendous,” said Mr. Bradford, just as breathless. “It's like dancing with a top!”

Azalea stumbled through the transition step.

“A top?” she said.

“Ah, a very graceful, delicate spinning top,” he said, coloring.

Azalea laughed. He brought her into a hesitation step, and time hiccupped to a stop. Azalea was so close she could smell the starch on his cravat.

“I didn't think I would have a moment alone with you,” he said, his voice richer now it was quiet. He hesitated and touched a strand of auburn hair, brushing it away from her cheek. “Princess Azalea.”

Everything flashed to the moment she had stood at the cab door, wrapped in a lady's old coat and shivering in the morning air, and her words, starkly painting the frosted silence with the dark, jagged letters,
I'm Princess Azalea….

The internal music faded.

“Mr. Bradford, why are you here?” said Azalea. “I mean here. At the palace.”

The spark in Mr. Bradford's eyes faded, a touch. He opened his mouth, then closed it. And kept it closed. Azalea pulled away.

“I think you ought to dance with Bramble, not me,” she said.

His dark eyebrows did not move a fraction.

“That was
it
?” called Bramble from the other side of the hall. In the rectangle of window light, the girls pouted and folded the arms. “That was just a waltz! And not a fancy one, either! We feel cheated.”

Mr. Bradford's crooked smile returned to his face, and he pulled Azalea into a sudden dance position with a rustling of skirts.

“Let us show them
my
favorite dance!” he said. “The polka!”

Azalea had only danced the polka twice in her life, and now she relearned it at neck-breaking speed as he danced her across the floor in a galloping flourish. She hadn't expected Mr. Bradford to be a polka sort of gentleman. Lord Teddie, yes, but Mr. Bradford? He was quite good! Azalea's skirts billowed and bounced. The energy caught, and all the girls leaped to their feet, dancing, clapping, and singing a bright tune. When Azalea spun away, dizzy and breathless, Mr. Bradford swept up Kale and threw her into the air. She shrieked with delight. Everyone whirled, black skirts blossoming around them over the long red rug. The snow outside twirled with them.

Hollyhock jumped about with such fervor that she paid little attention to where her leaps took her, and laughing, she
whumpfed
, hard, against the sword's case.

Everything happened slowly, as though underwater.
The entire case fell in an arc and smashed against the floor.

Glass exploded. Someone cried out. The sword skittered across the floor and came to a rest beneath one of the forbidden sofas. A sick, panicked feeling erupted throughout Azalea. Her mind shrieked. She fled to the sofa, knelt, and grasped for the sword.

Though dented, pockmarked, and mottled as always, it was unharmed. Azalea nearly fainted with relief. She placed it gently—ever so gently—on the sofa. After making certain Hollyhock wasn't cut or bruised, she sent Flora and Goldenrod for the broom, and made the youngest girls sit on the sofas before they cut themselves. Mr. Bradford was beside himself, apologizing profusely while picking up the larger pieces. Flora and Goldenrod arrived minutes later, to everyone's chagrin, with the King.

“He followed us,” said Flora in a tiny voice.

“It fell by itself,” squeaked Hollyhock. “It really did.”

The King sucked in his cheeks at the display of smashed glass, overturned pedestal, and frightened girls. Azalea didn't give him time to lecture but scooped up the sword from the chair.

“Sir,” she said, taking it to him. “It could have broken. Will you take it to the silversmith? Right now? It
must
be mended. Please.”

The King frowned at her pleading face.

“It is a blizzard out, Miss Azalea.”

“Tomorrow then. As soon as possible. Please.”

Perhaps softened by her concern, or her pale, pinched face, the King agreed, at Azalea's insistence, to take it first thing in the morning. He helped them clean up the broken glass, lecturing all the while to the younger ones about how they would have to mend their own stockings to pay for such an expensive repair, and at the same time taking care that none of them stepped near the glass. Azalea swept up the pieces, deep in her own broken, troubled thoughts.