Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [53]
Poppy had never seen anything like it before. The entrance to the Kingdom Under Stone had been magical, true, but she had known it her whole life. This was something else entirely, making a coach and horses and servants all disappear before you could blink, and Poppy’s confidence crumbled in the face of it. What did she know, really, about breaking such a spell?
Nothing.
“We need to tell Lord Richard,” she whispered.
“I agree.”
Roger pulled his buggy through the gate and gave the reins to a startled groom who came sleepily out of the stable with straw in his hair when Roger shouted. Poppy asked him about the bonfire, and he looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing in his life.
They went into the manor through the kitchen and sent a maid to fetch Lord Richard. Poppy didn’t want to get trapped among the guests once more, so they slipped along the passageway and into His Lordship’s study.
Lord Richard came in a moment later, looking elegant in his evening clothes but with a line between his brows that hadn’t left since Poppy and Roger had told him about Lady Ella the week before.
“She left at a quarter to midnight,” Poppy said without preamble. There was, of course, no need to explain who she meant. “She got into a carriage made of gold, pulled by twelve white horses and manned by mute servants in white livery. We followed in Roger’s buggy, and I don’t think they noticed us. The coachman drove through the streets at breakneck speed for ten minutes or so, then doubled back and drove into the mews behind the manor. There was a bonfire there in the courtyard, or the remains of one. The carriage drove into the ashes and vanished.” She sat down in one of the high-backed leather chairs and folded her hands in her lap, watching Lord Richard’s face.
The handsome older man merely nodded. He looked at the ornate clock over the fireplace and nodded again. He reached out and pulled the bell, and they all sat in silence until a maid came.
“Lydia, please send Ellen to me,” Lord Richard said.
“Oh no! What’s she broken now?” Lydia grimaced.
“Nothing,” Lord Richard said mildly. “I merely need to speak with her.”
“Yes, Your Lordship.” She bobbed a curtsy and went out.
“You’re still not surprised by any of this,” Poppy said.
“I’m afraid not,” her host said. “I see that you have given charms and the potion to both Christian and Marianne,” he said, changing the subject.
“Yes.” Poppy followed the transition, seeing that he was not going to explain himself further. At least until Ellen arrived. Behind her, she heard Roger stir, and he finally sat in the other seat across from the desk. “And just in time, too. They were both behaving quite foolishly.”
“I don’t think that fainting is foolish on Christian’s part,” Roger said. “I think it’s a sign that things are terribly wrong.”
“Is that what happened?” Lord Richard frowned. “I wasn’t able to see.”
“The combination of the potion and Poppy’s knitted charm appears to have done the trick,” Roger said.
“But he was still a bit taken with Ella … Ellen … whatever she wants to be called.” Poppy wrinkled her nose and tried to keep her voice steady. “What if we can’t break the spell permanently? We’ve had to give Dickon three doses of the potion so far, and he hasn’t gotten as close to her as Christian.”
“Well,” Roger huffed. “It’s not entirely out of the question that Christian has feelings for Eleanora despite the enchantment, you know. She is very beautiful, and—”
He was interrupted by a soft scratching the door.
“Come in,” Lord Richard said.
They all turned, expecting to see Ellen, back in her maid’s uniform and looking innocent as a child caught with her hand in the biscuit tin. Poppy clenched her fists, ready to hear more of Ellen’s denials, but it wasn’t Ellen who came in.
It was Lydia again, looking triumphant.
“Pardon, Your Lordship, but she won’t come,” she said with great relish.
“Oh?” Lord Richard merely raised his eyebrows. Poppy opened her mouth, but he gave her a quelling look and she sat back in her chair. “Did she say why?”
“She said that she