Deidre screams and pounds her fists until the footmen haul her away.
All I can do is watch, horrified, as the weight of what we’ve all agreed to settles over me. By sunset, eighteen girls will have lost everything they ever planned for. I can’t let myself be among them.
On and on we turn while the band plays. To keep from getting dizzy, I keep my eyes trained on the gables of the palace.
Onlookers gasp and cheer as we twirl, but I can’t help but feel that they’re just waiting to watch us fall like toy soldiers.
This is blood sport.
The rest of us last for the better part of an hour, but then one girl trips, and it’s chaos before anyone can register what’s happening. The debutante behind her topples, then another and another and another. The girl in front of me does a clever little spin out of the way, her arms out for flourish. The crowd explodes in applause.
But I’m coming up right behind her, Emmy at my heels, and she’s not slowing down. The blonde who’s just fallen can’t get up off the ground fast enough, and she stumbles again in the muck, right at my feet.
I dig the sturdy heels of my boots into the mud and stop on a dime, able to sidestep, then skip over her. I sigh in relief.
Another half hour, and my back is wet with sweat, my lungs screaming for air. On my insistence Mrs. Tuttle tied my corset loosely this morning, but no matter how I try, I can’t quite catch my breath.
With six girls down, there’s still eighteen of us, and all the bodies circling around me are stifling. With few exceptions, everyone else looks as tired as I feel. Our hair, once perfectly dressed, hangs in sweaty tendrils down our faces and necks.
One of the white roses Mrs. Tuttle pinned to my chignon this morning falls and is trampled to a sticky mess of petals in the dirt.
One of the girls I don’t know faints, and another falls on top of her.
Three more go not long after.
The crowd has regrouped around us; it’s getting rowdier, with fewer girls and more champagne. They’re shouting and passing money around. Most seem to be placing their bets on Sara Middlebrook and Marion Thorne.
I finally catch sight of my parents in the crowd. They’re off to the side, alone, ignored as usual. The sight sends a stab of anger through me, and my resolve is renewed.
I offer them a smile, but in my moment of distraction, another girl falls, splattering mud all over my dress.
I only have to outlast six more.
From the other side of the maypole Sara Middlebrook shouts over the band, “He’s never going to pick you, Ivy. A girl with your reputation, a princess? Spare us all the embarrassment and give up now.”
I offer her a fake smile. “I’ll take my chances.”
“I’ll let any girl who drops out right now be my lady-in-waiting when I win,” she says to the group.
“Done.” A redhead I don’t know drops her ribbon and walks off. A cry goes up from the crowd, her parents I assume.
Bram stands at the front of the crowd, his face sketched with concern. Did he know this is what his mother was planning?
Two more girls fall, one right on top of the other. The world is spinning so terribly, my focus going in and out, and for a moment I’m terrified I might go down with them, but the footmen pick them up in the nick of time.
We’re only nine now. I’m so close.
But my legs are shaking, my feet numb, even with the boots. There’s a stitch in my side, and it’s been ages since I fully caught my breath.
A tall brunette mutters something under her breath; I catch the wordwhoreon the breeze. The girl behind her shoves her and they both go down screaming, the crowd screaming with them.
The party is a spinning blur, but in a single focused point is mymother, pale with worry. My father’s hand is protectively laid on her shoulder. I resent her sometimes for coddling Lydia and me. She was the kind of parent who could never stand to see either of us in discomfort, and although it made for a golden, happy childhood, I worry that it hasn’t prepared me for the world very well at all.
I only need to outlast one more girl, and I could save them from social alienation, from financial ruin, from all the pain I’ve borne witness to over the past three months.
I dig my heels deep into the mud as a shriek pierces through the crowd, and I look just in time to see Sara Middlebrook’s delicate slipper get caught in one of the fresh divots from my boots. She falls forward, the mud splashing all over her face.
“No!” she screams. “No! It isn’t fair!”
