My blood turns to ice. She’ll kill us all if we don’t play along.
Chapter Twenty-One
Marion jumps to her feet in protest. Greer’s face turns bright red with rage. Olive bursts into tears. Emmy just laughs, hysterical on the edge of a scream. Only Faith appears unaffected, perfectly still, her mind somewhere far from her body.
The queen bends to dig into the basket at her side. One by one she pulls out our samplers from today’s trial and passes them to us.
In various states of completion, they’re speckled with blood from our pricked fingers. In the middle of each is a number stitched neatly in crimson thread.
There’s a 6 on mine. I glance at Marion’s, a 6 as well. We’ve all tied for last place.
The queen gives Olive hers last, and I’m shocked to see it emblazoned with a bloodred 1.
I think back to earlier this afternoon when she ran back up the stairs claiming to have lost a bracelet. That little snake. I didn’t know Olive had it in her. Honestly, I’m a little proud.
“You’ll join Bram for a ball at Count Doncaster’s the day after tomorrow, before we all leave for Hampshire. There will be a hunt this weekend.” She claps her hands together and grins until eachand every one of her teeth is showing. “What fun we’ll have.”
Olive—with her sweet face and red hair and croissants. How foolish we were to discount her.
The door slams behind the queen as she leaves us alone in tense silence. The cottage is small and stifling. Olive looks as if she’d like to sink into the floor.
Chaos erupts as Greer launches herself across the room. Olive screeches as Greer snatches at her hair, pulling hard enough to wrench her head back.
Olive flails and screams, “Get her off of me!”
It takes both Faith and Emmy to restrain Greer, who is shaking, her fists full of ginger hair.
Olive gathers her skirts to make a break for the stairs, but I grab her butterfly wings and yank her back. “Don’t you dare,” I snap.
Olive bursts into crocodile tears, blubbering in the way we’ve all given her sympathy for.
“There wasn’t a bracelet, was there?” Emmy asks, more betrayed than angry.
“You don’t understand.” Olive sniffs.
“What don’t we understand?” I ask.
Olive looks to each of us, one by one, then blurts, “I love him!”
Faith bursts out laughing. “How could you possibly love him?”
Olive juts out her bottom lip. “I just do. It was love at first sight. You’re all so jaded, like it makes you clever, but it just makes you bitter.”
“So you what, lied to us about a bracelet and completed more tasks upstairs?” Greer asks.
“I only played one more song on the pianoforte,” Olive whines.
“But it was enough to put you ahead of the rest of us,” Greer shoots back.
Olive rips off her butterfly wings and stomps up the stairs. “Blame the queen, not me.”
“Get back here!” Marion shouts.
Olive pauses on the stairs, then turns around and plops down on the ground in the sitting room, a scowl on her face.
“So what do we do now?” Marion asks. “We all signed up with the knowledge that we’d never take a husband if Bram didn’t choose us, but I would never have agreed to this if I knew my family would be doomed to poverty, or worse, if I lost.”
“Agreed,” Greer says. “My mother won’t survive it.”
