Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [60]
“What is the Corley?” Roger asked.
“How did you get out of the bargain?” Marianne said a beat later.
“I don’t know what the Corley is, a witch or sorceress I suppose,” Lord Richard said. “A vicious vindictive creature, whatever she is.
“I got out of the bargain by going to the Church and admitting what I had done. They sent an army of mages to help me. The rituals went on for days, but at the last I was free of the Corley’s hold.”
Poppy blew her breath out in a great puff of air. So the Corley’s grasp could be loosened. She wasn’t as dangerous as Under Stone, then. Some good news at last!
“We’ll contact these mages,” Roger said decisively. He stepped toward Ellen. “We’ll release you from your bargain, and everything will be all right,” he told her.
“I’ve already sent word to Roma,” Lord Richard said, but his voice was still bleak.
“Roma?” Poppy looked at him, and their eyes locked. “And by the time they get your letter, and decide what to do, and send aid …”
“It might be too late,” Lord Richard finished.
“It will be too late,” Ellen whispered. “Christian must propose to me before he returns to the Danelaw for the holidays. Next week.”
Eleanora
Wishing that she had confided in Lord Richard earlier, Ellen found herself being carried downstairs to one of the guest rooms by Roger Thwaite. There she was dressed in a lacetrimmed nightgown and was tucked into bed (by Mrs. Hanks, not Roger, of course), with a hot cup of chocolate at her elbow and the instruction to ring if she needed anything else.
“I blame myself for your family’s downfall, Eleanora,” Lord Richard announced. He held up a hand to stop her protesting. “Yes, your father’s affairs were already in tatters when the Corley set me against him, but I fear I dealt him his deathblow. I will not hear of you working another minute as a servant, from now on you must be our guest, and we will care for you as for our own daughter.”
“Thank you,” Ellen said, her voice coming out in a sob.
Lord Richard took both her hands and squeezed them, and Marianne gave her a handkerchief and a smile.
“First she wanted Marianne, now she’s got her claws into Ellen,” Poppy said, her hands busy knitting something small and pale that looked like a kind of sailor’s knot. “And both of them were to marry princes. Why? And would she have married Marianne to Christian? Or would George have done just as well?” She frowned, counted stitches, and then went on knitting.
“Perhaps she’s after the Dane navy,” Roger said, coming back into the room now that Ellen was decent. “If the future queen of the Danelaw were beholden to her, it would give her quite a bit of power in the mortal world.”
“Convenient that Christian is here to dance with Lady Ella, then, isn’t it?” Poppy looked at them wryly, but Ellen thought she saw a flicker of something in her eyes. Fear?
“Do you think she’s behind that as well?” Marianne’s eyes were huge. “Did she make King Rupert invite Christian? How could she get to him?”
“This does seem a bit… all-encompassing,” Lord Richard said, restlessly adjusting a picture frame. “The fact that she is able to make whole housefuls of people fall in love with Eleanora … I don’t know what to think …” He trailed away, looking pensively at a painting of a deer drinking from some idyllic stream.
Ellen squirmed a little under her pile of blankets. Poppy must have caught the motion, and looked up again from her knitting. Her gaze wasn’t fearful now, but thoughtful.
Marianne had been staring at the canopy of Ellen’s bed, in much the same way her father was now gazing at the painting of the deer. Ellen wondered if the other girl resented her: resented her birthday ending with them all fussing around a downtrodden maid who was now wearing one of Marianne’s own nightgowns.
But Marianne, as she had several times tonight, surprised Ellen.
“Has