Simeon looked back at Otto in surprise. Calculating. Wondering if Otto knew all that I knew. “You work for me,” he sneered.
“I work for the kingdom.”
“I am the kingdom.”
Otto took another step into the room. “You don’t take an unmarried girl, no matter the circumstances. Her mother has every right to collect her.”
Something in Simeon’s demeanor changed. He became playful. Light on his feet. “Now, Otto! Do not stop me from having a little fun.”
Otto looked over at Elin, who was still trembling, and back to Simeon. “No one is having fun.” He extended a hand to us women. “Come.”
“You would defy me?” Simeon asked, eyes narrowing.
“I am protecting you. From your own inclinations.” Otto took ahold of Elin’s hand and helped her across the floor to the doorway. I followed behind, without looking away from the prince.
Simeon addressed me as I passed him. “This”—he gestured around himself at the buttery, the inn above us—“will be the stitch that unravels you. Mark my words, you are undone now. Ruin happens slowly. But you already have the stench of rot.”
“We’re done here.” Otto undid the frog on his scabbard—a version of a threat—and waved us forward. I took Elin by the arm and tugged her through the doorway.
Simeon shook his head. “Rescued by a man with a sword.”
“Sometimes,” I said, quietly enough I was not sure I was heard, “it really can be that simple.”
On the long carriage ride home, Elin required only a physical kind of comfort. Her hands, which I again clasped in my own, were soft, smooth, and occasionally wet from wiping her tears. I found that even in this act of solace, I had a little bit of resentment. That some of the calluses on my palms might have been borne by her instead. That we might have shared more burdens.
As she nosed my shoulder, I thought about all she had lost. A kingdom. A life. A story. An exit, away from me and my daughters. She had no idea what I’d given up for her. Sigrid’s threats were not idle. And yet—what do children do except take without knowledge of the sacrifice behind the giving? As I held her, proffering pats on the knee and reassuring squeezes of hands and shoulders, I was self-conscious in my offer of comfort. I had none of the bodily ease I enjoyed with Rosie and Mathilde.
When my girls were small, I would hold them similarly. So minutely aware of their skin, their pulse, the soft openings and closings of their lips. I would look over them—their nails, their hair, the thin skin stretched over the bones of their wrists, the rapid rise and fall of asobbing or sleeping chest—and think, also, of the body that had created them. My own. I had made them. They were made of me. Sitting there, holding Elin, it occurred to me that all my empathy, my pain, had been for them, but also for myself. Perhaps mothers were no different. Theyou,you,you,my darling,yous were just another way of sayingme,me,me,I,I,I.
I let go of Elin’s hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Tried to reassure her, saying inane things that came to my head. I was creating a whole new person to be with her. A new self to love her with. Each gesture, each intimacy had to be learned and earned.
She looked up at me. “I used to think, if I am good, if I am nice, then the world will be good and nice in return.”
“So it should be,” I said, looking down at the white-blond hairs on her head. The wet eyelashes. I resented her for all she had taken from me, and found I was still willing to give her so much more.
“But it isn’t.”
“No, it is not.”
And we both stared out the window, thinking of the gap betweenshould beandisand the morally vague expanse that you learn to make a home within.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Everyone rushed from the house as we pulled up the drive: Wenthelen holding up her skirts, and Rosie and Mathilde, connected by a pair of linked elbows. Alice brought up the rear. As if they had been waiting by the window, watching.
“Days you’ve kept us on our toes,” Wenthelen scolded. She looked enormously pleased.
“What has happened? Where did you find them?” Mathilde demanded.
I embraced the girls first, one in each arm, pulling them against my body. “I am so happy to see you,” I said into their hair. Kissing the tops of their dark heads.
Their upturned faces swiveled, and we all watched as Elin climbed down from the carriage behind me. There was a moment of hesitation— a half beat of breath—as everyone took her in, blood-spotted dress, lank hair, and then they rushed forward to surround her, too.
“You look older,” Rosie breathed.
“It’s been a handful of days,” Elin protested.
“You’ve had an adventure,” Wenthelen told her.
