Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [19]
“Not bad,” Poppy said with a critical eye. “But that yew is on its last legs.”
“A gardening expert, are we?” Christian liked Poppy, but he thought she was a rather strange girl. She hated dancing but was very good at it, and meekly went riding every day despite being a terrible rider. She gambled, and could swear quite colorfully (as he had discovered one day when the more spirited horse she was trying threw her in the park). And while she claimed to be fond of the ladylike art of knitting, the “socks” he had seen her working on were bizarrely large.
And now it seemed that she was a trained gardener.
“I don’t actually care about growing anything myself,” she explained. “But Father’s gardens are considered the finest in Ionia. He had them created for my mother, who was terribly homesick, and at first it was only to remind her of this.” She made a wide gesture with one hand to indicate the sweeping green lawns before them. “But in the end he became so involved that he’s even developed a number of new roses.”
“How do you develop a new rose?” Christian could barely tell the difference between a rose and a daisy.
“I really don’t know.” She shrugged. “But they’re all named after my mother: Queen Maude, Maude’s Beauty, Beloved Maude. One of my sisters asked once why Father didn’t name a rose after any of us, and he pointed out what the rest of us were thinking: who names a flower ‘Poppy’s Rose’?”
“Daisy’s Rose,” Marianne put in.
Christian started to laugh, but a strange feeling came over him. It was happening with greater frequency now: the glimpses of green in the corners of his eyes, the faint sparkle in the air. It mostly happened when he was near large windows, but walking through the Mirror Gallery at the palace also made him uneasy.
He looked around and saw a small greenhouse half-hidden behind a hedge. The glass did have a faint greenish tint, but nothing like what he thought he’d seen.
“What is it? Do they have exotic flowers?” Marianne peered toward the little house. “It looked green for a moment, but now it looks bare.”
“Green? You saw it too?” Christian tried not to sound too eager. He’d thought his eyes were playing tricks again.
“I didn’t see anything,” Poppy said. “Except the fish in that pond there.” She looked as though she were going to spear one of them with the tip of her furled parasol. Really, she was an odd girl.
“No matter,” Christian said uneasily, steering them away from the greenhouse and the fish. With a note of forced casualness he asked if they cared to join him at a nearby tea shop for some refreshments.
“Of course we do,” Poppy said, turning her back on the pond readily. “Young ladies are always hungry, you know, because we’re not allowed to eat properly in front of potential suitors.”
“What about me?” He wasn’t sure if he was offended or not.
“You? But you’re our friend,” Poppy told him, linking her arm through his again. “Like an older brother.”
“Ooh, I love strawberry icing,” said Marianne. The green glass house seemed to be completely forgotten.
But Christian couldn’t forget. What did it mean?
And what did Poppy mean by an “older” brother?
Invited
A week after Poppy visited the Royal Gallery with Christian and Marianne, the Seadown household received a royal invitation. They were in the breakfast room and Poppy was pretending to like kippers when it came.
The butler presented his silver tray with the thick invitation on it with great reverence, and Lady Margaret looked a bit wary as she took it. Though Her Ladyship was a cousin of the king’s, royal invitations had been rather thin since Poppy arrived. The princess had been presented to King Rupert and Queen Edith, but other than that had not set foot inside the palace. Poppy hoped that her sisters were receiving warmer