Sweet Poppy,
I was so jealous upon receiving your last letter. I still cannot believe you get to shop at some of the most fashionable boutiques in all of Welkland! Though I feel your absence every day, I remind myself that it would be selfish of me to wish for you to return from your time at school just so that we might visit the shops here together.
A pang of nostalgia and yearning cut through her. She’d been forced to go on that shopping trip all alone after one of the other college girls had purposely spilled wine on her gown. Shopping was miserable without Catherine, Welkish boutique or not, but it would have been churlish of Poppy to complain.
Since I last wrote you, much has happened. Theo is in quite the state. Richard’s men have blocked him...
Poppy read the rest of the letter, commiserating with her old friend as she detailed how her elder brother, Richard, had gotten into another tiff with her husband, Theodore, over some business of Theodore’s. Far too soon, Catherine’s missive was over. Now there was nothing left for Poppy to do but read the one from her father.Best to get it over with.She gripped her letter opener, took another breath, then dragged the blade across the envelope and pulled out its contents.
To her surprise, she found not her father’s neat script but Demetria’s lacy scrawl. Her mother was rarely a disciplinarian?—that task had been left to Poppy’s governess or, for more serious transgressions, her father. This letter, then, could not be about that tea with the headmistress. With a renewed sense of interest, she began to read.
Dearest Poppy,she had written.Please do not be alarmed.
Poppy huffed in amusement.A bit late for that, Mother.
Your father has suffered a minor stroke. I wanted to send you a telegram the moment it happened, but he forbade me from doing so. He wishes me to stress to you that this is a trifling matter and no cause for concern. If he had it his way, he would not have mentioned it at all. However, I knew you would be hurt if we did not tell you.
Dr. Bluefinch has assured us that your father will make a full recovery. I am certain that by the time you receive this letter, he will already be back on his feet, holding council meetings and fighting the epidemic of crime that has arisen in the slums. The doctor has insisted that the stroke was not caused by any underlying illness but is likely a result of overworking himself. He has been advised to plan for retirement, but in the interim, modifications to his lifestyle will be made as a preventative measure. He will use a cane...
Her fingers went numb, and the letter fell from her grasp. The only thing worse than enduring a reprimand from her father was learning that he had been too unwell to admonish her. Despite the reassurance that he was recovering, the stroke bothered her deeply.
Her fingers brushed over the wordretirementonce more. For years, she had pictured her father exactly as he’d been the day he’d bid her farewell at the Marnapur docks so long ago: sharp, indomitable, a man in his prime. The man in this letter?—planning for retirement, adjusting to a mobility aid?—was not the same man who’d clenched Poppy’s hands between his own until the last minute before her departure.
The terrifying reality hit her. Her father wasold. No longer an invincible ruler but a mere mortal. It hadn’t occurred to her that while she was here, growing, changing, her father was also undergoing a transformation of his own. Who would she be without him?
The ugly truth came easily: no one.
Without the viceroy, she would have no status, no legacy to claim as her own. She would not even have a title?—the fact that her father’s own cousin was the king of Welkland and emperor of the Founder’s territories would mean nothing, not when the Imperial Family refused to acknowledge her. Sure, she would have her mother, but she had no male next of kin. When her father passed, her family would become her husband?—and therein lay the problem.
Poppy had no husband. If her father dropped dead tomorrow, nothing would keep her secured in society. She’d be forgotten, relegated to some crumbling estate for the rest of her days.
The paper crackled in protest as Poppy’s fingers crushed the edge. Once, the idea of a life outside the nobility would have appealed to her. But now, after seven years of laboring to transform into the epitome of a Welkish lady in all but skin, Poppy would not be erased so easily. She had mastered watercolor painting, embroidery, horseback riding, and piano. She could treat minor injuries and could do sums in her head. She spoke fluent Welkish, all traces of her Virian accent purged from her tongue.
She had changed, despite whatever lies Headmistress Thornhaven tried to feed her. Her father had promised Poppy that a Welkish education would earn her a place in society, and she would be damned if she was going to lose it now.
She could write to her father and ask him to ask the headmistress to release her from Thornhaven. But that process would take time?—time he might not have. It would beat leasttwo more months, months that would occur in the scorching Virian summer, where he could easily fall prey to numerous ailments. She could not send him a telegram, for Saltcrest was a full day’s travel away from the nearest telegraph office, in Cloudcliff. She would never get permission to leave the school grounds, especially not to send a telegram. When Poppy had been in first year, one of the other girls had asked, and the Hawk had chastised her so thoroughly, Poppy had never forgotten it.
“Ladies do not send telegrams,” the Hawk had declared. “Telegrams are so... mercenary. The shorthand strips messages of character and integrity. A lady’s word means nothing if it is not written in her own hand and sealed with the stamp of her family crest. Indeed, ladies, the art of the handwritten letter is irreplaceable.”
Poppy’s gaze fell to the ducal seal stamped on the torn envelope, the crossed scepters still intact in crimson wax. The pieces of a plan began to stitch themselves together. Her fingers curled around the handle of her letter opener. She reached slowly for the discarded envelope. For a moment, she hesitated?—forgery is unladylike?—but then she pushed forward, sliding her letter opener between the wax and the paper, gently prying it free.
Then Poppy selected her cherished fountain pen and the best sheet of paper from her lettering kit. Headmistress Thornhaven was familiar with her father’s penmanship, so the letter must be delivered from Demetria. She flattened out her mother’s letter beside the blank page and put the tip of the pen to paper.
Dear Headmistress Thornhaven,she began, doing her best to imitate her mother’s thin, curling letters.His Grace, my husband, has taken ill...
When Poppy finished the letter, she folded it twice along crisp lines and put it aside. She then took up her mother’s envelope, considering the way it had been addressed:
POPPY SUTHERLAND
Thornhaven College for Fine Ladies
1 College Court, Saltcrest, Welkland
There was nothing she could do about her name on the envelope; however, she had to use this one if she wanted to retain the authentic postmarks. In the same forged script, she made her own additions to the envelope:
HEADMISTRESS N. THORNHAVEN
RE: POPPY SUTHERLAND
