Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [41]
Clearly startled, Lord Richard studied his normally cheerful daughter and then glanced at Roger and Poppy before turning back to Marianne. “All the gentlemen? My dear, I hardly think it possible for one young girl to commandeer all your dance partners at once.”
Before Marianne could reply, Poppy took Roger by the arm and led him across the room. “Cousin Richard, if we might have a word with you in your study?”
Lord Richard nodded. “As you seem more yourself today than the rest of the household, I am quite agreeable,” he said.
“What’s this all about?” The earl hardly waited until the study door was shut to ask the question.
First Roger, then Poppy poured out everything they knew: how Eleanora the penniless orphan had become Ellen the maid, then gone to the ball in a gown copied from Poppy’s and entranced everyone who saw her there. How no one, not even Lady Margaret, had recognized her, and how this morning Christian and Dickon were both muzzy-headed and obsessed with this Lady Ella, while Marianne and her mother both reviled the mystery woman for being so spectacular and desired.
“I can’t find any sign of the gown, the slippers, none of it,” Poppy said. “I’ve asked her over and over again about last night, but she denies everything.”
Seated behind his grand desk, Lord Richard toyed with a letter opener. “I see.” He pursed his lips. “Poppy, if I may ask a rather sensitive question: does this in any way recall the … unpleasantness you and your sisters suffered from?”
“Not at all,” Poppy said promptly. “Oh, it feels like some kind of spell, but that’s just my intuition. Ellen seems pleased. I believe that she could talk about it if she wanted to. I’ve seen her walking around the manor at all hours of the night, and always covered in soot with an expression like the cat who stole the cream. You didn’t see her last night, but I …”
She trailed off, finally noticing the expression on Lord Richard’s face. He was quite gray, and his eyes were bleak.
“Did you say covered in soot?” His voice was hardly more than a whisper.
Poppy had to clear her throat twice before she answered. “Yes. Why?”
Lord Richard merely stared over their shoulders for a long time, then he looked down at his desk, still pale. “This is something to think about, indeed. How did you avoid falling under the enchantment?”
Poppy opened her mouth to counter his question with one of her own, but thought better and meekly said, “I have garters knit especially to protect me.”
“And Thwaite? What about you?”
“I happened to be wearing a charm given to me by a magician, sir,” Roger said quietly. He, too, had become silent in the face of Lord Richard’s terrible expression.
“Good. Keep them with you at all times. Now if you’ll both excuse me. I would like to speak to Ellen. Alone.” He reached for the bell pull, and Poppy and Roger retreated to the parlor.
Now Poppy didn’t know what to think. Lord Richard knew something, Ellen was quite possibly a willing participant in the spell and didn’t want to talk about it, and Christian was alarmingly obsessed with “Lady Ella.” The comfortable little world she had known here in Breton just days before was all coming down around her ears.
“At least it wasn’t my fault,” she murmured. “Of course, it wasn’t before, either, but that didn’t help.”
She wanted to write another letter to Galen and Rose—she had already sent one that morning—but it was futile. They wouldn’t receive the letter for nearly two weeks, and it would be yet another two weeks before she had a reply.
She was both consoled and a little frightened, too, by Roger’s look of shock. The consolation came from not being the only one thrown by Lord Richard’s reaction. The fright, however, came from discovering that even with Roger’s knowledge of spells and magic, and Lord Richard’s steady intelligence, they hadn’t found a ready answer for what was happening.
Back in the parlor, Christian was playing chess