Ell en limped to his lordship’s study, her heart thumping. Her feet were feeling better, but she had been upstairs when she was summoned and the long walk down the stairs had made them ache again. The soles felt scorched, and her toes were very stiff.
It reminded her of a holiday by the sea her family had taken when she was a child. She had pulled off her shoes and stockings and run down the shore, not realizing until she reached the edge of the water that the sand was blazingly hot beneath the midday sun.
But had been worth it to feel the waves curl up over her toes, and the pain today was worth it as well. She had danced with a prince, and he had hung on her every word. And she had danced with Roger Thwaite, who was just as handsome as she remembered from the days before her father’s ruin. She had been the shining star of the royal gala, and Marianne and Poppy could not stop talking about it.
It was rather troubling that Poppy had recognized her, though, and suspected that magic was involved. Poppy seemed to think that Eleanora was in some kind of danger, and needed to be saved. She was quite odd, Ellen thought as she knocked softly on the door of Lord Seadown’s study, momentarily distracted. Quite odd.
Her fears came rushing back as she heard Lord Seadown’s voice bidding her to enter. He was sitting in a tall leather chair behind his desk, his expression severe. She shut the door and stood with her back against it, trying not to look guilty.
Then she raised her chin and took a step farther into the room, carefully placing her feet so their stiffness was not obvious. After all, she had nothing to feel guilty about. Lady Seadown had said she might go the royal gala, and the queen’s birthday ball in two weeks. And she hadn’t broken or burned anything (other than her feet) in two days.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Please sit down, Eleanora,” Lord Richard said, and indicated one of the handsome green upholstered chairs across from his desk.
Startled that he knew her real name, Ellen sat. She clasped her hands in her lap, noticed a stain on her white apron, and moved her left arm a fraction to cover it. She resisted the urge to twiddle her thumbs, and tried to look his lordship in the eye.
She had done nothing wrong.
“My dear, it has come to my attention that you may be in some trouble,” Lord Richard said gently.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” she said meekly.
“Perhaps you do not yet realize that you are in trouble,” he said. He closed his eyes and looked pained. “My dear, making bargains with… persons of power, shall we say… is never wise. They always find ways to twist their promises.
“Princess Poppy can be rather brash, I know, and I believe that she may have confronted you today about last night’s gala—”
“But your lordship! I didn’t attend the gala,” she protested, feeling a flush crawl up her neck and cheeks at the lie. “I haven’t a gown for such things!”
She would not tell him about her godmother. He would think it was black magic, and try to stop her from going back. She had to see her godmother again. She had to have more gowns, and go to more balls, so she could marry Prince Christian and be taken far away from Seadown House and its endless piles of ironing.
Lord Richard looked at her as he would have looked at Marianne, had she disappointed him. “Does the name ‘the Corley’ mean anything to you?”
Ellen felt the flush run all the way up to her forehead, and then recede like a sudden tide, leaving her pale. How did he know her godmother’s name? She swallowed, her throat dry.
“No,” she whispered. “No, your lordship.”
Lord Richard looked even more disappointed, and shockingly haggard. He stared into her eyes for a long time. Ellen wondered what horrifying tale someone had told him about her godmother that made him so frightened of the old woman. She felt even more strongly that she must not tell him the truth. All her hopes would be dashed if she did.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, your lordship.” She smoothed her apron. “May I go, Lord Richard? I would not want to shirk my duties.”
He hesitated, his eyes boring into hers. “Very well. But please, my dear, if you wish to discuss … anything, please come to me. Or to Poppy or Roger Thwaite. We only want to help you.”
“Thank you, your lordship,” she said calmly as she rose. “But I am quite well.”
She managed to get out of the study without limping at all, and really did go downstairs to the airing room to collect the linens for ironing. That morning she had managed to make three beds without lumps or wrinkles, had carried a vase of flowers from the kitchen to the parlor without dropping the vase, crushing the flowers, or spilling any water, and had even taken a tea tray to Lady Margaret without incident.
Either dancing with Prince Christian had given her a new confidence, or her godmother was somehow watching out for her, Ellen thought as she ironed. The iron’s temperature remained constant and the wrinkles smoothed down just as they should. There was no scorching of fabric, no burning of fingers. Ellen practically sang as she worked, and the stares of the other maids as she filled a basket with neatly ironed and folded linens couldn’t dampen her spirits in the slightest. Even the soot that seemed to sift its way into the folds of her clothes and cover everything she touched was gone.
Her good mood was finally ruined, however, when she burst out of the passageway from the servants’ domain and ran straight into Prince Christian. The basket of ironed linens between them, they gazed at each other, startled, for a moment.
Ellen’s heart began to race, and the blood thrummed in her ears so loudly that it took her a moment to understand what he was saying to her. When she finally comprehended his words, she felt her cheeks burn even hotter.
“Pardon me,” Prince Christian said again, and stepped around her. He whistled as he made his way to the water closet.
The complete lack of recognition in his face shook her. Had he not known her because of her maid’s uniform? She turned it over and over in her mind as she went about the rest of her tasks that day.
Had he only looked at her clothes, and not at her face? Roger Thwaite had known her, known her the instant he had seen her at the ball. Poppy had known her as well, but Marianne and Lady Margaret hadn’t recognized her and clearly thought that Poppy was mistaken.
Ellen’s godmother had said that she would cast a “mild glamour” over her, so there would be no hue and cry over a maid attending the royal gala, but surely a mild glamour wouldn’t prevent Prince Christian from knowing the dance partner he had been smitten with just hours before! Should she tell him? She would have to, eventually, if they were to be wed.
Worrying, too, was the cavalier way the Corley had shooed her out of her palace, aching feet and all. Ellen had hoped, deep down, that her godmother would let her stay in the glass- pillared palace from now on. That she would be allowed to take on the role of Lady Ella all the time, and not return to being Ellen the maid.
But she would be attending Marianne’s birthday ball as Lady Ella. And then there was the masked ball at the palace. By the end of the masquerade she would have a proposal of marriage and she could finally quit her maid’s position for her new life.
With Prince Christian.
As she came down the stairs to the kitchen again, she caught a glimpse of a tall figure with dark hair coming out of the parlor. Her heart pounding, Ellen ducked behind a curtain and peeped out. It was Roger, and she didn’t want him to see her in her maid’s uniform. He would recognize her, she felt certain.
He would recognize her no matter what she wore.
Through her high-necked gown she fingered the little garnet ring on its chain. Roger had given it to her for her twelfth birthday and she had worn it every day since. It was too small for any of her fingers now, so she wore it around her neck on a ribbon along with the locket containing her mother’s portrait. She had had to hide both of these from her father during the final days of his ruin. Neither piece of jewelry was worth very much money, but they had needed every pound and the earl would have pawned them without a thought for the grief it would have caused his daughter.
From her hiding place, Ellen could see that Roger was with Poppy, and she felt a stab of jealousy. They moved close to the stairs just below where Ellen stood, and she strained to listen.
“He’s already spoken to her, and she’s gone,” Poppy said.
“From the house?” Roger sounded alarmed.
“No, just from his study,” Poppy said. “But he won’t tell me what she said.”
“He’s deeply disturbed by all this.”
“I’ve been wondering,” Poppy said, but then stopped.
“Yes?” Roger moved closer to her, and Ellen gritted her teeth.
“I’ve been wondering about Lord Richard’s gambling.”
“But he doesn’t gamble,” Roger pointed out.
“He doesn’t anymore ,” Poppy said. “But he used to, and he always won. And then one day he just quit. Do you think, perhaps, that he made some deal with a magician or someone like that, so that he would always win?”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Roger mused. “And it was when you said that Eleanora was always covered in soot that he turned pale. Perhaps he has an idea who Eleanora might have dealt with.”
“If that’s so, then it can’t have been someone very nice,” Poppy said. “I’ve never seen Lord Richard look so frightened.”
“But why isn’t Eleanora frightened, then?”
“Possibly because she’s too foolish to know better,” Poppy said. Ellen’s jaws were clenched so tightly together now that her teeth squeaked. “But possibly because she hasn’t seen the true face of what she’s dealing with yet. Black magic can appear harmless when it wants to.”
“Very true,” Roger said. Then he and Poppy moved toward the front door and she showed him out.
Ellen came out of her hiding place, straightened her cap where the curtain had knocked it askew, and marched down the steps as though she hadn’t just been cowering at the top of them, eavesdropping. As Poppy came back across the entrance hall, she caught Ellen’s eye but didn’t say anything. Ellen bobbed a curtsy at the princess, then went through the little door under the stairs that led to the servants’ quarters.
Perhaps her godmother was a little unfeeling about Ellen’s hurt feet, or her desire to be rid of her maid’s uniform for good. But why would she help Ellen at all if she didn’t want her goddaughter to make a brilliant marriage and live happily with a prince till the end of her days?
It wasn’t as if the Corley stood to benefit!