Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [36]
“Roger,” Poppy said quietly, putting a hand on his arm. “Do you know her?”
The older Thwaite brother looked down at her, his brows knit tightly together. “Yes,” he said simply. “Do you?”
Poppy drew him aside before saying, “She’s our maid. But Marianne and Lady Margaret don’t recognize her—I almost didn’t myself. Something is very wrong here.”
“Your maid?” Roger’s mouth turned down even farther. “Poor Eleanora!” His eyes sought out the girl whose hand had just been claimed by another partner before she could reach her clear goal: Christian. “I had no idea … after her mother’s death she just disappeared!”
“You knew her before?” Poppy stared at Roger, and watched him swallow as his eyes followed Ellen around the room.
“We were very close as children,” he said after a long pause.
Feeling awkward, Poppy clenched her fists in the edges of her stole. Clearly Roger still cared for his childhood friend. And, just as clearly, whatever glamour Ellen had placed over the rest of the assembly did not extend to him.
She wondered what resistence to magic Roger had, that he could see her clearly. Poppy had been so nervous about attending the royal gala—not that she would have ever let anyone know—that she had taken extra precautions. Rather than her usual silk garters, she had fastened her stockings with garters she had made from virgin wool. They had been knit with silver needles that had been blessed by her family’s bishop, and then she had boiled the garters with nightshade and basil. They itched terribly but she hoped they would protect her from harm and permit her to see through any enchantments. And they had.
“How is it you recognized her?” Roger had torn his eyes from Ellen.
“I’m wearing protective … garments,” Poppy said. She had been on the verge of saying “garters,” and it was a measure of how much propriety she had learned from Lady Margaret that she bit her tongue just in time.
“I was given one by a Far Eastern magician,” Roger said gravely. He patted the breast of his shirt, and Poppy could vaguely see the outline of a small lump there. “A bone from some strange beast that has been rubbed with sacred oils and hung on a raw silk cord.”
“I should like to see that sometime,” Poppy said, thinking that it sounded much more comfortable than her own protective talismans. “But we really must find out where Ellen—Eleanora, that is—got her gown.
“You know somewhat of my family’s curse,” she went on, fighting back her still fresh hurt over finding Christian, Dickon, and Roger gossiping about her over tea. “So you know how making a deal with a magical being can turn on you.”
“Indeed,” Roger said. “But perhaps here is not the place. I don’t think Eleanora will answer any of our questions, at least not tonight. She pretended not to know me, and looked most distressed when I questioned her. I do not think that she is under magical constraint not to answer, merely that she prefers to be Lady Ella here and now.”
“Let’s hope so,” Poppy said fervently. “I for one would like to ask her some questions, and get some straight responses out of her.”
Roger looked surprised, and Poppy gave a tight laugh. “Let me guess: your friend Eleanora was so sweet-natured, and would never have hidden a secret from you?” She didn’t even wait for his confirming nod. “Well, Ellen is of a different temperament.” But then Poppy did pause, remembering her own ordeal, and grimaced. She didn’t exactly feel pity toward Ellen-Eleanora, but she felt more charitable. “Or it may just be too painful for her to speak to you.”
“But why? She seems to speak to Christian freely enough.” Once more, Roger looked toward the girl who was again dancing with the prince in her gown of red roses on white silk.
Poppy, too, was looking at them. Her hands were clenched so hard in the edges of her stole that the silk squeaked. Christian was looking down at “Lady Ella” with a dazed expression.
“That, as you Bretoners say, is part and parcel of what we need to discover,” Poppy said.
Midnight
When the enormous clock at the