Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [10]
“Well, in this case they liked him,” she said, wincing.
Once the young man had been identified as the newly arrived Prince Christian, everyone had been more than willing to suggest that it had merely been an accident. Prince George claimed to have seen Christian dozing in a chair by the window, then suddenly wake and leap out that same window.
So the visiting prince was deemed overtired by his journey. He was given a cold compress and a cup of tea, and then sent back to Tuckington Palace to get some rest.
“All in all a most satisfactory evening,” Marianne announced.
Poppy had to laugh. “It ended with us standing in the garden, looking over an unconscious prince and a red-faced Jasper Antwhistle.” She paused, making sure that Lady Margaret was asleep before continuing. “Who was attacked, rather haphazardly, by Prince Christian after I slapped him for trying to kiss me and pinch my bottom at the same time.”
Marianne gasped, then giggled, and Poppy joined in.
The girls laughed all the way home to Seadown House. Lord Richard was waiting for them. He had had some out-of-town business to conduct, and was only just arriving home himself.
“Did you dance with all the handsome lads, my sweeting?” He chucked Marianne under the chin.
“A few.” She smiled. “Including the newly arrived Dane prince.”
“Who also escorted her to supper,” Poppy added.
“Is that so?” Lord Richard gave his daughter a searching look. “Don’t force yourself to fall in love with him just because he’s a prince,” he warned Marianne.
She rolled her eyes. “Please, Papa! If I had any romantic
notions about princes, Cousin George cured me of them long ago!”
“Good.” Lord Richard turned to Poppy next. “And you, my fine little cardsharp? Did you fill your purse this evening?”
Poppy made a face and held a dramatic hand to her fore-head. “Alas, the Laurences do not hold with gambling, so there was no card room,” she said. “I was forced to make small talk all night. That is, until Prince Christian fell out a window onto one of my bravos and ended the evening.”
As a result of this remark, Poppy and Marianne were up until dawn telling Marianne’s parents what had happened in the garden. Lady Margaret had been busy talking with some of the other chaperones, so she had heard the commotion but hadn’t known what it was about.
The girls omitted, by silent agreement, any mention of Antwhistle getting fresh with Poppy. Instead they merely said that Poppy and Antwhistle had gone for a walk in the garden, and that a bad dream the prince had had while dozing had led him to believe that Poppy needed rescuing. The adults gave them narrow looks, as if suspicious that certain events were being glossed over, but let it go.
Poppy found herself in her bedroom at last. She was sitting in her nightgown brushing out her hair when the oil lamp at her elbow suddenly flickered green. She looked down at it, but it was yellow again. She went back to brushing her hair and then climbed into bed.
She dreamed that she was back in the Palace Under Stone, being forced to dance until her feet bled.
As she whirled around the floor in Prince Blathen’s too-tight grip, she railed at him, using every swear word she could think of, but he just grinned down at her. She managed to free herself and looked for something to fight him with. She picked up a walking stick, the same one she had borrowed earlier, and whacked her erstwhile suitor with it. He crumbled to dust, but another prince took his place, and another and another.
“No,” she shouted. “No, no, no! You’re dead, and I will never dance again.”
The King Under Stone himself rose to face her. “Poppy, my flower,” he said. “You will dance again, and again, and again. You will never be free of us. We are your true family.”
He stretched out his arms to embrace her, and suddenly there was a crowd of strange people around him all reaching for Poppy as well. Their skin was too white and their smiles were cruel; some were old and some very young, and some grew steadily less human and more monstrous. She tried to