The Glittering Court Read online

  “I’m fine,” I said, pushing past him. But I didn’t get very far before someone else stopped me: a ruddy-faced young boy, the kind who made his living delivering messages.

  “Need me to escort you home, m’lady?” he asked. “Three coppers, and I’ll get you out of all this.”

  “No, I . . .” I let my words drop as something occurred to me. “I don’t have any money. Not on me.” He started to leave, and I called, “Wait. Here.” I pulled off my pearl bracelet and offered it to him. “Can you take me to the Church of Glorious Vaiel?”

  His eyes widened at the sight of the pearls, but he hesitated. “That’s too much, m’lady. The church is only over on Cunningham Street.”

  I pushed the bracelet into his hand. “I have no idea where that is. Take me.”

  It turned out to be only about three blocks away. I knew all the major areas of Osfro but little about how to travel between them. There’d never been any need to know.

  There were no services today, but the main doors were propped slightly open, welcoming any souls in need of counsel. I walked past the elegant church, out to the graveyard. I moved through the common section, through the nicer section, and finally to the noble section. It had a wrought-iron gate surrounding it and was filled with monuments and mausoleums, rather than ordinary gravestones.

  I might not know my way around Osfro streets, but I knew exactly where my family’s mausoleum was in this graveyard. My guide waited near the iron gate as I walked over to the handsome stone building labeled WITMORE. It wasn’t the biggest one on the property, but I thought it was one of the most beautiful. My father had loved art of all kinds, and we’d commissioned exquisite carvings of the six glorious angels on all the exterior walls.

  I had no way to enter, not without prior arrangements with the church, and simply sat on the steps. I ran my fingers over the names carved amid those listed on the stone placard: LORD ROGER WITMORE, SIXTEENTH EARL OF ROTHFORD, AND LADY AMELIA ROTHFORD. Above them, my grandfather’s name was listed alone: LORD AUGUSTUS WITMORE, FIFTEENTH EARL OF ROTHFORD. My grandmother’s name would join his one day, and then the mausoleum would be full. “You’ll have to find your own place,” Grandmama had told me at my father’s funeral.

  My mother had died first, catching one of the many illnesses that ran rampant in the poorer parts of the city. My parents had been greatly interested in investing in charitable establishments among the less fortunate, and it had cost them their lives, my mother getting sick one summer, my father the next. Their charities fell apart. Some said my parents had been saintly. Most said they’d been foolish.

  I stared up at the great stone door, which held a carving of the glorious angel Ariniel, the gatekeeper of Uros. The work was gorgeous, but I always thought Ariniel was the least interesting of the angels. All she did was open the way for others and facilitate their journeys. Was there some place she’d rather be? Something else she’d rather do? Was she content to exist so that others could achieve their goals while she stayed at a standstill? Grandmama had said I’d always have choices made for me. Was that way of both humans and angels? The scriptures had never addressed such questions. Most likely they were blasphemous.

  “My lady!”

  I turned from that serene face and saw a flutter of color at the gate. Three of my ladies were hurrying toward me. Far beyond them, near the church’s entrance, I saw our carriage waiting. Immediately, I was swarmed.

  “Oh, my lady, what were you thinking?” cried Vanessa. “Did that boy behave inappropriately?”

  “You must be freezing!” Ada tossed a heavier cloak over my shoulders.

  “Let me brush the dirt from your hem,” said Thea.

  “No, no,” I said to that last one. “I’m fine. How did you find me?”

  They all began talking over one another, but it basically came down to their noticing my disappearance and questioning the boy at our town house’s gate and pretty much every person I’d passed in my outing. I’d apparently made an impression.

  “Your grandmother doesn’t know yet,” said Vanessa, urging me forward. She was the cleverest of them. “Let’s get back quickly.”

  Before I stepped away, I looked back at the angel, back at my parents’ names. “Bad things are always going to happen,” my father had told me in his last year. “There’s no way to avoid that. Our control comes in how we face them. Do we let them crush us, making us despondent? Do we face them unflinchingly and endure the pain? Do we outsmart them?” I’d asked him what it meant to outsmart a bad thing. “You’ll know when the time comes. And when it does, you need to act quickly.”

  The maids couldn’t stop fussing over me, even on the carriage ride home. “My lady, if you’d wanted to go, you should have just let us arrange a proper visit with a priest,” Thea said.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I murmured. I wasn’t about to elaborate on how the letter from Lady Dorothy had nearly given me a nervous breakdown. “I wanted the air. I decided I’d just walk over on my own.”

  They stared at me incredulously. “You can’t do that,” said Ada. “You can’t do that on your own. You . . . you can’t do anything on your own.”

  “Why not?” I snapped, feeling only a little bad when she flinched. “I’m a peeress of the realm. My family name commands respect everywhere. So why shouldn’t I be free to move everywhere? To choose to do whatever I want?”

  None of them spoke right away, and I wasn’t surprised that it was Vanessa who finally did: “Because you’re the Countess of Rothford. Someone with a name like that can’t move among the nameless. And when it comes to who you are, my lady . . . well, that’s something we never have a choice in.”

  Chapter 2

  I realized then that I was taking the first approach to this “bad thing” with Lionel: I was letting it crush me. And so, I decided then and there that I would choose the nobler, unflinching approach. I would endure the pain.

  In the following weeks, I smiled and made my quips and acted as though our household wasn’t being torn apart. While the servants worked and worried about their futures, I calmly went about tasks that were appropriate to young noblewomen, painting pictures and planning my wedding attire. When callers came to wish us well, I sat with them and feigned excitement. More than once, I heard the arrangement referred to as a “smart match.” It reminded me of when I was six, when my mother and I had watched Princess Margrete’s wedding procession go by.

  The princess had sat in a carriage, waving and stiffly smiling as she held hands with a Lorandian duke she’d only met the week before.

  “She looks a little green,” I’d said.

  “Nonsense. And if you’re lucky,” my mother had told me, “you’ll make a smart match like that.”

  Would my mother have allowed this if she were still alive? Would this have turned out differently? Probably. A lot of things would’ve turned out differently if my parents were still alive.

  “My lady?”

  I looked up from the canvas I’d been painting, a field of purple and pink poppies copied from one of the great masters in the National Gallery. A page stood in front of me. From the tone of his voice, I could tell this wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to me.

  “Yes?” I asked. The word came out a bit more harshly than I’d intended. I’d had an argument with Grandmama this morning about the dismissal of my favorite cook, and it still bothered me.

  He bowed, relieved at finally being acknowledged. “There’s a gentleman caller here. He’s, um, making Ada cry.”

  I blinked, wondering if I’d misheard. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Thea and Vanessa sat beside me, busy with sewing. They looked up from their work, equally perplexed.

  The page shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t really understand it myself, my lady. It’s some sort of meeting arranged by Lady Branson. I think she was supposed to be here to supervise but was delayed by busine
ss. I settled them into the west drawing room, and when I returned to check on them, Ada was quite hysterical. I thought you would want to know.”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  And here I’d thought this would be a boring day.

  The other ladies started to rise when I did, but I urged them to sit down. As I followed the page back into the house, I asked, “Do you have any idea what this so-called gentleman is here for?”

  “Another position, I believe.”

  I felt a small pang of guilt. Staff cuts had begun, and Ada was one of the ladies being dismissed from my entourage. I’d been able to keep only one. Lady Dorothy had assured me the replacements who’d been selected under her close supervision were exemplary, but I was pretty sure their chief function would be to spy on me.

  As I made my way to the drawing room, I pondered what could have caused this unexpected morning drama. Lady Branson was my grandmother’s chief lady. If she’d arranged a position for Ada, I had to imagine it would be something respectable and not worthy of a breakdown.

  “These weren’t tears of joy?” I asked the page, just to clarify.

  “No, my lady.”

  We entered the room, and sure enough, there was poor Ada, sitting on a sofa and sobbing into her hands. A man, his back to me, was bent over, trying awkwardly to comfort her by patting her shoulder. Immediately, my heart hardened as I wondered what kind of monster had brought this about.

  “Lady Witmore, Countess of Rothford,” announced the page.

  That startled both Ada and her guest. She lifted her face from her hands, still sniffling, and managed to rise for a small curtsey. The man also straightened, turning to look at me. As he did, the images I’d been building of some old, twisted scoundrel vanished.

  Well, maybe he was a scoundrel, but who was I to say? And the rest of him . . . my eyes burned at the sight of him. Deep auburn hair swept back in a short, fashionable tail revealed a face with clean lines and high cheekbones. His eyes were an intense blue-gray, contrasting with skin tanned from being outdoors. That wasn’t fashionable among nobles, but I could’ve deduced he wasn’t one of us from a mile away.

  “Your ladyship,” he said, giving a proper bow. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  I gestured the page away and sat down, a signal for the other two as well. “I’m not sure I can say the same, seeing as you’ve sent my lady-in-waiting into hysterics.”

  A chagrined expression crossed that handsome face. “Er, that wasn’t my intent. I’m just as surprised as you. I’d been under the impression that Lady Branson had settled things with her.”

  “She did,” exclaimed Ada. I could see new sobs bubbling up within her. “But now that it’s here . . . I just . . . I just don’t know if I want to go!”

  He turned on a smile for her, one so confident and so practiced that I was certain he must use it regularly to get his way. “Well, a few nerves are understandable. But once you’ve seen how the other girls live at the Glittering Court—”

  “Hold on,” I interrupted. “What is the Glittering Court?” It sounded vaguely brothelish, but that seemed unlikely if Lady Branson had arranged it.

  “I’d be happy to explain it, my lady. Assuming you don’t find the logistics boring.”

  I looked him over. “Believe me, there’s absolutely nothing about this situation I find boring.”

  He turned that gallant smile on me, no doubt hoping it would win me over as it did others. It kind of did. “The Glittering Court is an exciting opportunity for young women like Ada, an opportunity that will transform their lives and—”

  “Hold on one more time,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  He stood and bowed again. “Cedric Thorn, at your service.” No title, but again, that didn’t surprise me. The more I studied him, the more intrigued I was. He wore a brown coat of light wool that flared slightly at the knee, longer than current trends. A brown brocade vest under the coat caught the light. It was a respectable, subdued outfit, one a prosperous merchant might wear, but a bright amber pin in the hat he held told me he wasn’t entirely without flair.

  “My lady?” he asked.

  I realized I’d been staring and offered a grand wave of my hand. “Please continue explaining this Gleaming Court of yours.”

  “Glittering, my lady. And as I was saying, it’s an exciting opportunity for young women to move up in the world. Ada here is exactly the type of bright and promising girl we’re looking for.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that. Ada was by far my most uninteresting maidservant. She was pretty, which, I’d learned, tended to be synonymous with “bright and promising” for most men.

  He launched into what had to be a well-rehearsed speech. “The Glittering Court is a highly respected enterprise on both sides of the ocean. My father and my uncle founded it ten years ago after learning just how few women there are in Adoria.”

  Adoria? That’s what this was about? I nearly leaned forward and then remembered myself. Still, it was hard not to be taken in. Adoria. The country discovered across the Sunset Sea. Adoria. The very sound of it inspired adventure and excitement. It was a new world, a world far removed from the one in which I was required to marry my itching cousin—but also a world without galleries and theaters and luxuriously dressed nobility.

  “There are plenty of Icori women there,” I remarked, feeling the need to say something.

  Cedric’s smile broadened, warming his features. Were his eyelashes longer than mine? That certainly seemed unfair.

  “Yes, but our colonists aren’t looking for savage Icori wives in kilts and tartans. Well,” he added, “most of our colonists aren’t looking for savage wives. I suppose there’s always someone who finds that appealing.”

  I nearly asked what he found appealing and then again reminded myself I was a lady of exalted rank.

  “Most of our settlers are looking for gentle, cultured Osfridian wives—especially those men who’ve made their fortunes there. Plenty set sail for Adoria with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and now have found success as businessmen and plantation owners. They’ve become pillars in their communities, men of prestige.” Cedric held up his hands grandly, a performer on his stage. “They want suitable wives to start families with. His Majesty wants it too. He’s ordered the founding of several other colonies and the expansion of current ones—but it’s very difficult when Osfridian men outnumber women three to one. When women do go, they’re usually ordinary, working-class girls who are already married. That’s not what the new nobility is looking for.”

  “New nobility?” I asked. I was getting sucked into his pitch. It was a new experience, having someone else turn the powers of persuasion on me.

  “The new nobility. That’s what we call them—these ordinary men who’ve found extraordinary greatness in the New World.”

  “It’s very catchy. Did you come up with it?”

  He looked surprised by the question. “No, my lady. My father did. He’s a master of publicity and persuasion. Far more so than me.”

  “I find that incredible. Please—continue with your new nobility.”

  Cedric studied me for a beat, and there was something in his eyes. A calculation, or maybe a reassessment. “The new nobility. They don’t need a title or right of birth to claim power and prestige. They’ve earned it through hard work and have become a nobility—of sorts—and now need suitably ‘noble’ wives. But since women of your rank aren’t exactly lining up to sail over, the Glittering Court has taken it upon itself to create a cohort of young women willing to transform. We take lovely girls like Ada here, girls of common birth, girls with no family—or maybe too much family—and we train them up to greatness.”

  He’d smiled briefly when he made his comment about noblewomen lining up, like it was a joke between us. I felt a pang in my heart. Little did he know that just then, faced with a lifetime shackle
d to a sullen cousin and an overbearing grandmother-in-law, I would have given up my regal world and sailed to the colonies in an instant, savage conditions or no. Not that I could have ever made it to the docks without dozens of people trying to usher me back to my proper sphere of society.

  Ada sniffled, reminding me she was still here. I’d known her for years, barely giving her a second thought. Now, for the first time ever, I felt jealous of her. She had a world—a new world—of potential and adventure opening up right before her.

  “So. You’re going to take Ada to Adoria,” I said. It was difficult keeping my tone light, lest my envy show.

  “Not right away,” said Cedric. “First, we have to make sure she’s trained up to Glittering Court standards. I’m sure she’s received some education in your service—but nothing to match your own. She’ll spend a year in one of my uncle’s manor houses with other girls her age, learning all sorts of things to make up for that. She’ll—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. My grandmother would’ve been appalled at the completely haphazard way I was managing this conversation, but this whole situation was too strange for me to get caught up in formalities. “You’re saying she’ll have an education that’ll match mine. In a year?”

  “Not an exact match, no. But she’ll be able to pass herself off among upper classes—maybe even the nobility—after that time.”

  Knowing Ada as I did, I was again skeptical, but urged him on. “Continue.”

  “We’ll start by polishing up her basic education in reading and accounting, and then expand into other more genteel areas. How to run a household and manage servants. Music lessons. How to throw social engagements. What to talk about at social engagements. Art, history, philosophy. Foreign language, if there’s time.”

  “That’s very extensive,” I said, casting a curious glance at Ada.