Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [25]
Later, as they dressed for dinner, Lily wryly agreed. “Oh, yes, he has his heart set on Father’s throne all right. He’s flirting with all three of us equally.”
“Why is that?” Jonquil fussed with her hair, trying the effect of a scarlet ribbon threaded through her brunette curls. “In case one of us proves to be stupider than the others?”
“In case one of us forms a tendre for him and tells him the secret, is my guess,” Rose said. She blew her nose into a handkerchief, relieved to be alone among her sisters where she could do so without looking unladylike. “Why did I get out of bed?”
Rose’s head had been spinning by the time Prince Bastien had finished his narrative, and the effort of holding in a fit of coughing was making her breath come in gasps. One of their maids, seeing the eldest princess’s distress, showed Bastien out and then hastened to get Rose out of her tea gown and into bed.
She had hoped to be able to attend the state dinner that night but sent a maid to inform her father that Lily would once more be playing hostess. She decided that Petunia, Pansy, and Daisy should stay in bed as well.
“The bow looks better at the back,” she told Jonquil. “Now stop primping.”
“Going to lecture me on vanity, like Hya?” Jonquil arched an eyebrow at Rose in the mirror.
“I don’t care if you’re vain, but you’re bothering me with your rustling and humming.”
“I’m not humming!”
“You are, too. You always hum when you do your hair. It’s annoying.”
“She’s right, you know,” Lily said as she put on a pair of amethyst earrings. “You hum when you do your hair, and just before you fall asleep.”
Stunned by the knowledge that she had a bad habit, Jonquil finished her hair in silence and went out of the room. Rose had just closed her eyes and was starting to drift off when she heard her younger sisters squealing and chattering in the sitting room.
Iris burst in, a huge bouquet in her hands. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
She spread out the flowers, and Rose realized that there was not one large bouquet, but three small ones. One was all lilies, another all miniature irises, and the third was a cluster of deep scarlet roses.
Oddly enough, each bundle was tied with a knitted cord of black wool, but Rose thought it was quite a pretty effect as Iris handed her the scarlet roses. She held the flowers to her stuffy nose and tried to breathe in some of the scent. Only the faintest trickle of the flowers’ perfume came through, so she gently stroked her cheek with the soft petals instead, savoring the exquisite feeling. She sometimes felt guilty that her father spent so much money on the gardens, especially on heating and watering the hothouses, but right now it all seemed worth it.
“Greta told me the new under-gardener brought them,” Iris burbled. “He gave them to her in a big basket, and asked her to bring them to us as a special treat. I’m going to put a ribbon to match my gown around mine, and carry it at dinner.” She went out, still admiring the deep purple and gold flowers of her bouquet.
“The new under-gardener?” Lily looked over her own white flowers at Rose. “Isn’t he the one who made you fall in the fountain?”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Rose said staunchly. She had blamed Galen rather a lot in the first week of her illness, but she had felt more charitable toward him recently, watching him work so tirelessly in her mother’s garden. Holding the beautiful flowers to her cheek helped soothe her mood a great deal as well.
Poppy, her bouquet of bright red blooms showing up wildly against the pale pink gown she wore, stepped into the room next. “Lily, it’s time for dinner. I could only just hear the gong over the sound of them gabbling out there.” She jerked her dark head toward the sound of their other sisters, who were in the sitting room comparing bouquets.
“Just let me put a nicer ribbon on mine,” Lily