Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [61]
“I wonder, Father, if she went after Ellen as a result of you backing out of the deal.” She wrinkled her nose.
A tingling sensation ran through Ellen’s body, from the top of her head all the way to her toenails, and she gasped aloud. Everyone looked at her, and she clutched the blankets tighter.
“The ironing ruined,” she said, her voice coming out strangled. “Laundry soiled, china broken, hair tangled, silver tarnished! No matter how I tried for years to be a good maid, everything turned out wrong.”
She looked up and met Poppy’s eyes. She had talked to the princess before about this, and wasn’t sure that Poppy had believed her at the time. Now she saw that the other girl did.
“I think she sabotaged my work, but why would my godmother—the Corley, I mean—care if I ruined the sheets?”
“If you’d enjoyed being in service you might not have been as ready to accept her deal,” Marianne offered.
The Corley was to blame. And she’d been too caught in her pride and resentment to notice it.
Ellen looked down at the humps and hillocks of the bedding. Her cheeks were burning, and she didn’t dare to meet anyone’s eyes.
“I think we should let Eleanora rest,” Roger said.
She turned his words over, searching for traces of disgust, of condemnation, but found none. She looked up cautiously, and saw him smiling at her with a line of concern between his level brows.
“We should all get some rest,” Lord Richard said. “And tomorrow, we’ll start fresh.”
They all wished each other good night, and the others filed out. Marianne turned out all the lamps but the one on the bedside table that Ellen could reach.
After they had gone, Ellen snuffed that one as well and lay in the dark, thinking. She had started the day as a maid named Ellen. Had danced at a ball as the most fascinating and yet hated woman in the room, Lady Ella. And now she was going to sleep as a guest of the Seadowns, someone to be respectfully bid good night, watched over and cared for.
Someone named Eleanora.
Prey
Now when she found herself dreaming of being in the Palace Under Stone, Poppy hardly had the energy to be frightened.
Jaded, she wandered the corridors, trailing her fingers along the cold walls and wondering what half-mad pronouncements Rionin and Blathen were going to make tonight. Whenever she encountered them, they swore that she would never leave again, or some such thing. She looked down and saw that she was wearing the violet and silver gown from Marianne’s ball, and was quite pleased. It was her new favorite, and she wanted to make sure that Blathen got a good look at what he was missing, even if it was all in her own head.
She was still smiling about this when she came into the ballroom, and saw the usual arrangement: the courtiers dancing to give their king power, while Under Stone and his remaining brothers huddled on the dais. This time, though, there was someone with them. An old woman, crouched like a toad on a velvet-cushioned chair.
“You’re the Corley, aren’t you?” Poppy went right to the foot of the dais to study the woman.
“So I have been called,” the old witch said.
“And Eleanora’s godmother, or so you call yourself,” Poppy said. “If you want her to attract a princely husband, you might want to avoid maiming her.” She wondered if this was really what the Corley looked like, if there was something prophetic in her dreams.
“What business of it is yours?” Blathen pushed his way forward to stand just in front of Poppy. He looked her over and licked his lips.
Giving him a look of deep disgust, Poppy tossed back her hair. “Well, let’s see, I keep having all these tedious dreams with you and now her in them, so I’d say it’s rather a lot of my business.” She pointed rudely at the Corley, glad that her finger didn’t shake.
“Tedious?” Again Blathen licked his lips. “Don’t you enjoy visiting your true home?”
Poppy snorted, aware that it was something Lady Margaret would never do. But it suited