The Glittering Court Page 7

  I watched as Tamsin deftly chopped up the butter and put it into the flour in pieces. “Let me try,” I offered.

  “No, you’ll just mess it up. We all still remember what happened when you ‘blanched’ the asparagus.”

  “Look, ‘bleached’ and ‘blanched’ sound very similar,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Tamsin shook her head. “I just don’t want to screw up our first cooking test, especially after Clara’s group got such good marks yesterday. Go measure the currants. Mira, can you warm the cream instead?”

  Mira slid the bowl of currants over, exchanging an amused glance with me. My roommates and I had also fallen into comfortable roles, not to mention a growing closeness. Despite Tamsin’s initial proclamations, I ended up being looked to as the unofficial leader—though we still usually let her dictate our actions. It was easier than going against her. We all wanted to succeed here, but her undisguised ambition and razor-sharp focus kept Mira and me working at a pace we might otherwise have missed. It was useful having her on my side, but her scrutiny made me nervous sometimes. She rarely missed anything.

  “How did you ever survive in your lady’s home?” she asked, regarding her butter and flour with satisfaction. It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question. Along with being the unofficial leader, I suspected I also served as regular entertainment for them, thanks to both my wit and my mishaps.

  I shrugged. “I never had to cook. There were others to do that.” That wasn’t a lie. Ada might have had to cook growing up in her mother’s household, but she’d never had to in mine. “I sewed and mended. Dressed my lady. Styled her hair.”

  Both Mira and Tamsin raised an eyebrow at that. They’d seen my hair efforts.

  I successfully deflected from that when I saw Tamsin take out a ceramic platter for plating our pastry. “No, use glass,” I told her.

  “Why the hell—I mean, why would we do that?” Tamsin had made a lot of progress in her word choice this last month but still often slipped.

  “It’s how they’re serving it now. On glass, decorated with sugar and extra currants.”

  I might struggle with commonplace activities, but I knew these small, luxurious details—things our instructors often hadn’t gotten around to yet in our education. It was like the chemises. I saw Tamsin’s eyes narrow, immediately filing this away. It was why she often looked past my other inadequacies—both real and contrived. These small things gave us an edge, and it was proven later when the cooking instructor came by to survey our work.

  “This is lovely,” she said, studying the artful swirls of sugar on the glass platter that I’d made. “None of the other girls have focused much on aesthetics, but they’re just as important as the quality of the food. Visual appeal is part of taste appeal, you know.”

  We didn’t see what she wrote down on her paper, but her pleased look spoke volumes. Tamsin could barely contain her smugness.

  “There’ll be no living with her now,” Mira told me when we walked to our dance lesson afterward. She nodded to where Tamsin was animatedly telling another girl about our excellent marks. “She’s doing that for spite. She knows it’ll get back to Clara.”

  “You’re saying Clara doesn’t deserve a little spite?” Clara had continued to make life difficult for Mira, though she’d backed off a bit when she realized taking on Mira meant also taking on Tamsin and me.

  “I’m just saying that we don’t need to further petty rivalries when there’s already so much evil in the world we need to stop.”

  She might not have Tamsin’s frenetic energy, but Mira was an ally—and a friend—I’d long come to appreciate. There was a calmness and strength to her that soothed me and even neurotic Tamsin. Mira was the rock we could both lean on. She gave the impression that the politics and drama in the house were of no concern to her after witnessing the ravages of war and subsequent hardships of the Sirminican ghetto in Osfrid. Her comment about the world’s evils was a rare allusion to her past, but I didn’t push her when she didn’t elaborate.

  Instead, I linked my arm through hers as we entered the ballroom. “You should have been a nun with that kind of diplomatic attitude. Hide away in some cloister and meditate.”

  “You can’t fight evil with meditation,” she replied. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was quoting from one of her most prized possessions: an old book of heroic tales, smuggled out of Sirminica.

  A dance mistress rotated among the different manors each week, and here was an area in which I had to consciously dumb down my abilities. I’d had formal dance lessons since childhood. The other girls had never had any, and most still struggled after only a month. It was one of those areas Cedric had warned I’d stand out in, so I was overly cautious about not attracting Miss Hayworth’s attention—to the point where I almost seemed hopelessly inept.

  “Adelaide,” she said wearily. “Are you dancing the gentleman’s part?”

  We were in the middle of a complicated line progression, in which it was common for us to alternate standing in for the opposite gender. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I thought we were supposed to take turns doing that?”

  She threw up her hands. “Yes, but it’s your turn to dance the lady’s part—the part you’ll be doing in Adoria. You’re trampling all over poor Sylvia’s feet.”

  “Oh. That explains it.” I gave her a sunny smile, and she moved on. Cedric might be able to sell salvation to a priest, but I could make my instructors find me endearing despite my frustrating progress.

  We did a few more rounds and then paused for one of Miss Hayworth’s infamous pop quizzes. I promptly snapped to attention. These were not anything to slack on, as those who performed badly were often put on clean-up duty.

  “Caroline, how many passes in a Lorandian two-step loop?”

  Caroline—Clara’s chief sidekick—hesitated. “Three?”

  “Correct.”

  Miss Hayworth turned to the next girl, going down the line. When my turn came, I answered promptly and perfectly, earning a puzzled look from Miss Hayworth—seeing as the question had been about the dance I just botched. She walked past me.

  “Mira, at what round is the twirl performed on the allegro circuit?”

  I saw Mira’s face go blank. She had a natural instinct for the movements and did well in the actual steps—but these quizzes stumped her. Mira always worked so much harder than the rest of us, having to catch up on things many of us already knew as Osfridians—particularly with the language. She spent so much time working on her speech that technical dance facts just weren’t a priority.

  Miss Hayworth’s back was to me, and I caught Mira’s eye with a small gesture, holding up four fingers.

  “The fourth, Miss Hayworth.” Although her accent was still noticeable, Mira’s dedication to improving her Osfridian was already apparent.

  “Correct.”

  Miss Hayworth moved on, and Mira gave me a nod of thanks. I nodded back, happy to have helped. The lesson closed with us drilling repetitive steps on a new dance. Naturally, I pretended to fumble through it.

  “I saw what you did,” Clara hissed, sidling up beside me while Miss Hayworth’s attention was elsewhere. “You gave her the answer. You do it all the time. As soon as I get proof, I’m going to bust you and that Sirminican slut.”

  “Don’t call her that,” I snapped.

  Triumph flared in Clara’s face. I’d become pretty good at ignoring her jabs, and it had been a while since she’d gotten a rise out of me. Someone as nasty as her lived for that kind of thing.

  “Why not?” she asked. “It’s true, you know. I’m not just making it up.”

  “Of course you are,” I said. “Mira’s one of the most decent girls here—which you’d know if you weren’t such a bigot.”

  Clara shook her head. “How do you think she got here? How in the world do you think a Sirminican refugee
managed to snag a spot in an establishment like this—one whose whole point is to train elite Osfridian girls?”

  “Cedric Thorn saw potential in her.”

  Clara smirked. “Oh, he’s seen a lot more of her than that.”

  I didn’t have to fake my next stumble. “You’re such a liar. I should report you for slander.”

  “Am I? Did you see the way he dotes on her when he visits? The way he defied his father to get her and risk his commission? They made a deal. She went to bed with him in exchange for a spot here. I’ve heard other people talking about it.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Your toady friends?”

  “Say whatever you want, but there’s no getting around the truth. Your Sirminican friend is a dirty, shameless—”

  I did what I did next without a second thought. Clara had moved close to me in order to keep her voice down, and I used that proximity to snake my foot out and strike her in the ankle. The results were spectacular, throwing both of us off-balance. Mishaps weren’t uncommon for me, but she was one of the better dancers. I was thrown off by my move, falling backward and striking a bureau rather painfully. It was worth it to see Clara go sprawling on the floor, causing the whole class to come to a standstill.

  “Girls!” exclaimed Miss Hayworth. “What is the meaning of this?”

  I straightened up, smoothing my dress from where it had snagged on the bureau’s elaborate handles. “I’m sorry, Miss Hayworth. It was my fault—my clumsiness.”

  She looked understandably exasperated. “How can you understand the principles so well and not execute them? And oh, look—you’ve torn your dress. We’ll both get in trouble with Mistress Masterson for that.”

  I looked down and woefully saw that she was right. These dresses might not be the silks and velvets I’d once worn, but they were a substantial investment by the Glittering Court. Respect for them had been drilled into us. Clara’s embarrassment might have come at a greater cost than I’d expected.

  “Well,” said Miss Hayworth, leaning close, “it looks like it should be an easy enough fix, thankfully. You may go early to take care of it.”

  I stared up at her in confusion. “Take care of it?”

  “Yes, yes. It’s a quick mend. Go now, and you probably won’t be late for Mister Bricker’s lesson.”

  I didn’t move right away as I let the impact of her words sink into me. “A quick mend,” I repeated.

  Annoyance filled her features. “Yes, now go!”

  Spurred by her command, I hurried out of the classroom, taking only small satisfaction from Clara’s outrage. When I was alone in the great hall, I surveyed my skirt’s tear and felt despair sink in. For anyone else, this probably was an easy mend—unless you’d never mended anything. I’d occasionally done fancy, very fine needlework, and if she’d wanted me to embroider flowers on the dress, I could’ve managed that. I had no idea how to mend something like this, but dutifully borrowed one of the manor’s sewing kits and went to my room.

  There, I found a housemaid cleaning. I retreated, not wanting her to see my ineptitude, and instead chose to work in the conservatory. It was unoccupied; the music teacher wouldn’t be here for two days. I unlaced my overdress and settled down on a small sofa. I wriggled out of the voluminous garment and spread the fabric over my knees. It was a light, rose-colored wool, suitable for our late spring weather. It was thicker than the fine silks I’d embroidered, so I randomly chose a larger needle and set to work.

  My maids had always threaded my embroidery needles for me, so that alone took time. And once I started sewing, I knew it was hopeless. I didn’t know how to seamlessly mend the tear. My stitches were uneven and badly spaced, creating obvious puckers in the fabric. I paused and stared at it morosely. My regular excuse about being a lady’s maid wouldn’t get me out of this. Maybe I could make up a story about how my abysmal sewing skills had gotten me dismissed.

  The sound of the conservatory door opening broke my rumination. I feared someone had come to check on me, but to my astonishment, it was Cedric who entered. Remembering I was in my chemise, I promptly exclaimed, “Get out!”

  Startled, he jumped back and nearly obeyed me. Then, curiosity must have won him over. “Wait. Adelaide? What are you doing? Are you . . . are you . . .”

  “Half-naked?” I draped the overdress over me. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  He shut the door, looking more curious than scandalized. “Actually, I was going to ask . . . are you sewing? Like with a needle and everything?”

  I sighed, irritation overcoming my embarrassment. I wondered what he was even doing here. He’d stopped by the manor only once since my initial arrival. “Can you please go before this situation gets any worse?”

  He moved closer, daring a hesitant look at the dress I was clutching to me. The torn part of the skirt hung near my knee, and he knelt down to get a better look. “You are sewing. Or well, something sort of like sewing.”

  The dry remark was enough for me to ignore his being so close to my leg. I snatched the torn skirt away from him. “Like you could do any better.”

  He straightened up and sat on the couch beside me. “I could, actually. Let me see it.”

  I hesitated, unsure of giving up my coverage—or revealing my ineptitude—and then finally handed the dress over. The chemise I’d worn under it was deep blue but still thinner than modesty allowed. I crossed my arms over my chest, angling myself away as best I could while still managing to look over and observe him.

  “This is a quilting needle,” he said, pulling out my stitches. “You’re lucky you didn’t tear holes in this.” He replaced the needle with a smaller one and threaded it in a fraction of the time it had taken me. He then folded over the torn fabric and began sewing with neat, even stitches.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked reluctantly.

  “There are no doting maids at the university. We’ve got to learn to make our own repairs.”

  “Why aren’t you there today?”

  He paused and glanced up, carefully keeping his eyes trained above my neck. “No classes. Father sent me out to get status reports from here and Dunford Manor.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll have a lot to say about my progress.”

  His response was a smile as he returned to his work. His hair was casually unbound today, framing his face in soft auburn waves. “I’m afraid to ask how this happened.”

  “Defending Mira’s honor once again.” As I spoke, I realized with a pang what the accusation had been—and his role in it. I had to avert my eyes briefly before turning back to him. “Clara was being typically mean.”

  This caused another pause as he looked up with a frown. “Are they still harassing her?”

  “Less than they used to, but it’s still going on. She handles it well, though.”

  “I’m sure she does,” he said. “She’s got a strong spirit. Not easily broken.”

  A strange feeling settled in the pit of my stomach as he returned to his work. There’d been no missing the regard in his voice. A warmth, even. My stomach sank further when he added, “I hope you’ll keep helping her. I’ll worry a lot less if I know she’s got a strong defender. Only a fool would cross you—I certainly wouldn’t.”

  I couldn’t take in the compliment. A terrible thought had seized hold of me.

  Had Clara been right?

  Had Mira gotten here by sleeping with Cedric?

  He certainly treated her with more than the indifference one might have toward an acquisition. He admired her and was concerned for her. And Clara was right that bringing her here had been a risk for him. I didn’t want to believe such things about quiet, resilient Mira, who had such pride and strength in her every action.

  And I definitely didn’t want to believe it of Cedric.

  Studying his profile now, the fine cheekbones and gently curved lips, I felt the unease spr
ead from my stomach, tightening my chest. In my mind’s eye, I had a sudden flash of those lips on my friend, of those deft fingers running through her luxurious hair. I swallowed, trying to push down the inexplicable dismay I felt.

  He looked up again, his expression softening as he took in my face. “Hey, it’s going to be all right. This is almost done. No one will know.”

  I must have been wearing my emotions, and he’d misunderstood. I lowered my gaze, murmuring a stiff thanks, as opposed to one of the usual biting remarks we so often traded.

  “There we are,” he said a few minutes later, holding up the overdress. “As good as new.”

  Looking at it, I saw that he was correct. The stitches were barely visible unless you were right next to it. It would hopefully be enough to evade Mistress Masterson’s notice. I took the dress, turning away from him as I pulled it over my head. I was surprised that in so short a time, it had picked up the fleeting scent of the vetiver he wore.

  It took me a few minutes to get the ensemble back together, fastening all the tiny pearl buttons on the bodice and smoothing the petticoat to lie flat. Then, of course, came the tedious process of arranging the contrasting chemise so it peeked out properly. When I finally turned around, Cedric was regarding me with amusement.

  “Were you watching me get dressed?” I exclaimed.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t see a thing,” he said. “Except how much progress you’ve made in putting on your own clothes. I guess this finishing school is really paying off.”

  “Someone should send you to a finishing school,” I retorted as we moved toward the door. “You have no sense of decency.”

  “Says the girl who let me come in.”

  “I told you to leave! You were the one who ignored me and marched right in anyway, despite the state I was in.”