I shook my head, shaking away, too, the small amount of shame I had conjured. “It was she that taught me about lady’s maids, though I did not have one. The great art of what you do, and all it entails.”
Morwen watched me, waiting.
“I gather,” I continued, “from your position that you must know a bit about security and trust. A lady’s maid is involved so intimately in her lady’s life. I may not need help with the same sorts of things, here—the letter writing and management of my chambers and assistance with my toilette—but I do need the same things you’ve been trained to provide. Someone to trust. Security. And I can offer those things in turn, to the best of my ability.”
When Morwen was certain I was finished—she waited for a good pause, a light flush crawling up her neck—she ducked her head. “Your daughter is marrying Prince Simeon.” She sucked in air. “I am a lady’s maid as you said. I am not trained or capable of waiting on him. I am not a parlor maid. And I must,” she said, her voice wavering, “give you my leave.”
Her nervousness made me suspicious—as did her intimate knowledge of the hierarchies of royal staff. But the waver was a small opening. “You need not stay with our household long,” I agreed. “I do not know if it will serve you. But I beseech you: Please stay for a little while longer.”
Morwen looked up, warily.
“A matter of weeks,” I assured her. “It will make all the difference for us and give you time to determine what you’d like to do next. I will not ask you to do too many tasks outside of the role you prefer. You will not wait on anyone at the luncheon.”
“I will not”—she spoke so quietly I had to take a step toward her—“wait on the prince?”
“Wenthelen will need some help in the kitchens,” I agreed. “And you do not have to tell me your story, but I think you will find, after a few weeks, all the trust you need.”
She hesitated. A brief gesture, as if wanting to reach toward me. Then, she stilled. “A few weeks, then,” she asserted, without much confidence.
So it seemed all in life was narrowing toward the date of the wedding. Three weeks—three weeks to see it through or see our futures undone entirely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The house ticked like a clock, waiting. Table set and food prepared. A line of loaves down the center of the table. Pewter bowls of fruit decorating the mantels. Curtains drawn and candles lit. I walked through the rooms checking all. Fussing with cushions. Pinching bits of lint from the upholstered places it clung. Fretting, because the accumulation of these details—wiped dust, polished mahogany—did little to hide how Bramley had gone shabby around the edges. I hoped the high ceilings and ornate friezes, the oversized fireplaces, and the columned great hall—the solid leftovers of Bramley’s wealth—made up for it. A vestigial disguise.
When we heard the clamor of arrival—grinding gravel and the hollow thunking of hooves, reliable as a door knocker—I rushed down to the kitchens to gather the staff. Wenthelen, Alice, and Morwen were busy with last-minute preparations.
“They are here,” I told them. “Get outside for the receiving line.” I removed my apron and put it on one of the pegs by the back door. “No one—no one—is to be allowed into the back.”
Alice retied her apron strings, but Wenthelen remained inert. Shenodded to a copper pan in the hearth—the sucket. “Syrup’ll burn if left on by itself.”
“I’ll watch it,” Morwen offered.
“It needs to reduce.” Wenthelen peered into the pan, then nodded at the candied rinds. Fruit and root preserved in syrup of sugar. “A proper sucket should go for twelve days.”
I used my hands to smooth my hair, to check my dress. A fingertip on each button to ensure it was in place. “Everyone upstairs. The syrup can sit for a moment.”
“Do you not care about the sucket, then?” Wenthelen sniffed.
Morwen frowned at me. “You said I would not wait on anyone.”
I blinked at her. “And you will not.”
“I will stay here,” she announced.
“Morwen,” I exclaimed. “We are all—”
“No,” she said sharply. She bent over the syrup. Something in the set of her shoulders stopped me from arguing. Stubbornness, yes, but also fear.
“Come along, then.” Alice brushed past me on her way to the stairs.
When Simeon emerged from his carriage, waving away the footman and helping himself down with the handrail, he observed the lot of us women with a subtle grin. “If I had realized how few men were in your household, I would have brought more.”
He was surrounded by them. Two more footmen, riding up front, and a page holding on to the back of his coach. Men-at-arms on horseback, the horses themselves plumed and armored. An echo of Sigrid’s own retinue. Otto—the prince’s shadow—had come, too, riding atop his black-coated horse.
All of us women were lined up and waiting. The girls had arranged themselves: Mathilde and Rosie, looking so alike, and so much taller, on one side of Elin in the purple bodice that turned her eyes so blue the sky felt gray in comparison.
The prince went to Mathilde first, at the end of the row, and kissed her hand. She nodded impassively. Rosie was next. I did not envy her position. Did not envy the discomfort, the inherent awkwardness, of having been passed over. But Simeon lingered a little longer in front of her. She, who had spent extra time readying, looked becoming. Even then, committed as I was to the march we were all participating in—forward! To the wedding!—I’ll admit it brought me pleasure. A little salt to sprinkle. Whatever charms she had mustered worked their small magic, for Simeon held her eyes and did not drop her hand too quickly.
