Ahem, ahem, Your Highness?”
By now Christian was so used to the red-haired maid’s skittishness that he didn’t look up from the letter he was writing. Despite her years serving the Bretoner royal family, she seemed to find Christian highly intimidating.
“Put it on the table, please,” he said, and went on describing the opera he had seen the night before. He was writing to the oldest of his sisters, ten-year-old Margrete, and he knew that she would want each act described in detail.
The sound of an entire tea tray falling to the hearth was too much to ignore, however.
“What in the world?” He dropped his quill and turned to see the girl standing in the middle of a pile of broken china, tears welling from her eyes.
“Oh, Your Highness! I’m so sorry!” She pointed to the puddle of tea. “It looked green!”
“Green?” He frowned at the brown liquid.
“I thought … it glowed … just for a moment. I was so startled!”
“Glowed green? That is odd.” He shrugged. “It looks fine now, though. Here, I’ll help you gather it up.”
She turned bright red and gave a little laugh, wiping her eyes with her apron. “No, no, Your Highness! I’m not half so bad as Ellen; Mrs. Mills won’t sack me over this.”
“Ellen?”
“Oh, a maid from a few years back,” the girl chattered, now suddenly at ease with him as they squatted by the hearth and gathered up the shards of china. She mopped up the tea with a napkin and wrung it out in the remains of the pot. “She broke everything she touched; it was awful. Mrs. Mills gave her second and third chances, but Their Majesties found out and she was fired.”
“I see,” Christian said. He handed her the tray, and she bobbed a curtsy and went out.
“I’ll be right back,” she promised.
When he turned around he saw a green gleam, just like the maid had said. This one came from the oil lamp on his writing desk. He went over to tweak the wick, and the flame was yellow and orange as it always was. As he fiddled with it, it guttered and smoked and went out. He needed to finish his letter, but the lamp wouldn’t relight. The wick felt slick and cold, and the oil in the cut glass bowl was oddly discolored.
Christian rang for a footman, who brought him a new lamp and reminded him that it was almost time for his ride with the princesses. Putting aside the letter to his sister with a sigh, he changed into riding clothes.
An hour later he heard the name Ellen again, brought up this time by one of the princesses. George was busy packing for his trip to Spania, so it fell to Christian to supervise the princesses’ daily riding expedition, along with the help of two grooms. He was thinking that his own sisters were not this much trouble as Princess Hermione, age eight, tumbled off her pony into a hedge for the third time.
“Don’t be such an Ellen,” Emmeline said to her little sister with great superiority. She was eleven, but had the mannerisms of a young lady twice her age.
“An Ellen?” Christian raised his eyebrows, puzzled.
Both princesses erupted in laughter.
“She was our maid,” Emmeline explained through her giggles. “And she was so clumsy! Quite, quite ridiculous!”
Christian frowned at them. “You shouldn’t laugh at someone just because she’s clumsy,” he told them. He was supposed to be making friends with the Bretoner royal family, but since Emmeline had announced that she would marry him when she turned twelve, he had done his best to seem old and boring and stern.
“But she really was awful,” Hermione said. “She broke the pillows.”
“How do you break a pillow?”
Emmeline rolled her eyes. “She didn’t really break the pillows, she ripped the cases; there were feathers everywhere. She burned everything she ironed, and she tripped while bringing me hot chocolate and it spilled all over my nightgown four times.”
“She combed my hair once,” Hermione added, “and when she was done there were more tangles in it. I don’t know how she did it, but she did.”
“It was clearly on purpose,” Emmeline said with authority. “Then she cried so that people would feel sorry for her. Fat old Millsy said to give her more time, but Mother said no.”
Christian wondered how the girl had gotten a place at the palace to begin with. “Don’t call Mrs. Mills fat, it’s rude,” he said finally, and led them across the grounds.
His eyes were bothering him. The palace grounds, both lawns and shrubbery, seemed dull and dry even though the Tuckington Palace gardens were renowned throughout Ionia. Yet at the same time he saw green sparkles in the corners of his vision. He rubbed at his eyes, and heard someone laughing.
“What is so amusing?” He turned to frown at Emmeline. She gave him a quizzical look. “Odd,” he muttered under his breath.
“What did you say?” Emmeline had her eyebrows raised, and her expression gave Christian hope that her infatuation with him was cooling.
“Nothing,” he said, and swiped at his eyes again. “Nothing.”