Page 7

ELINOR

With pins clenched in my teeth, I thrust a needle through six layers of silk and wince as the blunt end pierces my finger.

“Thimble,” I mutter, casting about for where I left it.

I can’t help but think of that gorgeous gown at the modiste’s atelier.

The one I’m crafting isn’t anywhere near as beautiful, but it will serve.

It’s pink on top with creamy tulle peeking out from a pale-green overskirt, draped to conceal the fact that these are two different dresses sewn together.

It takes me hours of work. Time I should have spent planting the spring garden, but that task will have to wait a few more days. I stay up well past midnight to finish my gown in secret.

While I work, I can’t stop thinking about him.

The man who nearly ran me down. He was so handsome in his crimson jacket.

I imagine he was an earl or even a duke.

My father owned fine clothes like the ones he wore.

I wonder if he will attend the ball. Don’t all the wealthy aristocrats know the prince?

If I can dance with the prince once, I will ask about the man on the white horse.

I would never dream of being chosen by the prince himself—I know better than to expect much from life—but an earl would be more than sufficient.

I am the daughter of an earl, after all.

There is a rightness to the idea that appeals to me. A balancing of the scales.

The fantasy keeps me sewing furiously until my eyes burn and my fingers ache from making tiny stitches by candlelight.

While my sisters return to Belterre City for fittings, I use the time to craft my own from their castoffs.

Two weeks wasn’t very much time, considering all of my other obligations, but I make do with what I have.

On the morning of the ball, Tom awakens me rudely by leaping onto my stomach. I scratch his chin and smile at my gown. White, elbow-length gloves lay on the chair beside the dressmaker’s dummy. I wish I had proper jewelry, but Tremaine gave my mother’s collection to Cilla and Stacia.

Tremaine and my stepsisters will hate having to endure my presence, but they cannot deny me the opportunity to attend the ball if I’m properly outfitted. There is only one last task—to get my hands on that invitation. Without it, I won’t be permitted inside the castle.

I let Chompers out and go into the study to awaken Tremaine as usual, but for once, he isn’t in his worn leather chair. The unexpected opportunity sends my heart scrambling into my throat.

Where would he keep it?

Carefully, I close the door behind me. The click of its latch sounds louder than a cannon’s blast. I tiptoe behind the desk and ease open the drawers.

They’re crammed with bills from creditors, old letters, odds and ends, and the tops of old bottles of booze.

I shuffle them, but there’s no sign of the parchment square left by the royal messenger.

“Looking for something?”

Tremaine’s rough, mocking tone startles a yelp out of me. I press my palm to my chest. I was so intent upon finding it that I didn’t hear him come in.

“My key,” I blurt out.

“You don’t need it. Your dowry is in safe hands.”

Ha. “If by ‘safe hands,’ you mean ‘spent,’ then I suppose that’s true.”

His mouth ticks up in a smirk.

“Where would you go if you didn’t have a home, Elinor?”

“I…I’d go live with Maxine.”

He scoffs.

“If you were welcome at the witch’s cottage you’d have left years ago. You have nowhere to turn, Ellie. No one wants you.”

I swallow past the lump of hurt that clogs my throat. A suppressed sniffle stings my nostrils.

“Wrong, Tremaine.” Anger flares through my body like a dry pine catching a stray spark. “I stay because Cilla and Stacia wouldn’t survive a single day without my help. I remain here out of kindness. Out of duty. Out of?—”

Not love. I can’t lie about that.

“Out of shame,” he finishes for me. “You’re ashamed of your own family. You don’t want anyone to see how low we’ve fallen. You, more than anyone, need to maintain the image of a loving family. You create this fiction, Ellie.”

His words leave me gaping like a landed fish.

How can he mistake my kindness for ambition? Is his heart so rotten? Worse—how can he be right ?

Fury and fear course through me with volcanic force.

My skin frosts, but my heart settles into a fast, steady drumbeat, prepared for flight if I can get past him or fight if I can’t.

I lunge left. Tremaine bares his teeth and lurches sideways to cut me off.

He grabs my chin, squeezing my cheeks painfully.

“Admit it. You loved the way I touched you, little whore.”

“I hated every second of it,” I snarl through clenched teeth.

“Liar.”

Blindly, I pick up a paperweight and hurl it at his head. Tremaine ducks. The missile flies past him and smashes into the bookshelf, sending loose papers and worn old tomes tumbling to the ground.

“What was that, Daddy?” Stacia’s girlish voice floats from the doorway. Her eyes widen. I rush past her to make my escape, all but pushing her into the hallway. She gasps petulantly, but I’m too eager to get away to care about offending her. Their conversation chases me as I run.

“Your sister and I were having a little talk, that’s all.”

“She isn’t coming to the ball is she?” Stacia pouts.

“No, dear. That little slut will be staying right here at home, where she belongs. Out of sight and out of mind.”

His low chuckle burns my scant pride to ash.

* * *

As soon as I’m certain they’re not coming back, I ransack Tremaine’s bedroom.

I’m in here to clean every few days, so I know all his hiding spots.

It doesn’t take me long to find the invitation.

It’s crumpled at the back of his sock drawer.

Did he really think I wouldn’t find it here? I’m the one who puts away his clothes.

“Aha!” I seize it and hold it high. In the grand mirror, my triumphant smile falters.

“Do I really look this bad?” I ask my own reflection.

My hair is in a messy braid beneath a rag tied around my head to keep it relatively free of dust. There is always so much dust in this old house, and I am the only one who does anything about it.

Then, something else catches my eye. It’s another envelope, this one sealed with a blob of wax and my mother’s emblem. I tip my head and inspect it. My name is carefully written on the back in elegant cursive.

I take both envelopes upstairs to my room, where I break the old wax seal and hold it to the light to decipher the faded ink.

Dearest Elinor,

Your father and I love you so very much. I hope I am there to witness your wedding day. In the unhappy event that I rest with your father in the afterlife, I beg you to keep us in your heart on this special day. We both wish you many years of joy and love with a man worthy of your beautiful heart.

-Lady Scinder

Tears burn my eyes.

She loved me. She knew, deep down, that there was a chance she might not survive the birth. Looking back at events through the eyes of an adult, I know she was brokenhearted by Tremaine’s cruelty and regretted marrying him. I was only a girl, but I remember the sadness in her eyes.

I must get to that ball. I must make this night matter. I have to make myself look like I belong in that castle ballroom—because I do.

I’m busy slathering myself with various creams and lotions when I spot the carriage coming up the road.

“Drat,” I curse, scrambling into my rags.

“Elinor. See to the horses.” Tremaine barely glances at me as he stomps in.

“I can attend to my sisters or to the horses, but not both,” I inform him.

The cold glare he levels at me makes me tremble in my slippers, but I lift my chin and hold my ground. Tremaine narrows his eyes at me.

“Daddy, I need a bath,” Cilla whines. “Can’t you put away the horses just this once?”

Saved by my stepsister. He relents, slamming out into the yard to unhitch the horses. I exhale.

“Why does it smell like my rosemary mint cream?” Stacia sniffs.

“I knew you’d want to get ready, so I brought everything down ahead of time.” The lie slips out easily. Fortunately, Stacia has never had a thought in her life, and she accepts it as truth.

For the next hour, I’m pulled between the two women, fetching towels and setting their hair, laying out their new gowns, which are, I’m sorry to admit, much nicer than the one I came up with. Still, mine was made by my own hand. Surely there is a man out there who would appreciate my hard work.

The man on the horse, for example. In my mind, he has grown into a larger-than-life figure, like the Sleeping Beauty. He is my dark knight, who will see my plight and whisk me away to a better life full of love and laughter.

I know it’s a fantasy. But what is the harm if a crumb of hope helps me endure?

At last, I lace up Cilla’s gown.

“Tighter!” she pleads, despite being red-faced and breathless. “It fit a few hours ago.”

I yank on the strings with all my might.

“I need a potion. I hope you got a good one from that witch.”

“Maxine made it specially for you,” I say neutrally. It’s true. I can’t comment on the quality. I’m only the in-between who’s brave enough to step foot into Maxine’s hovel and bring back the precious brew.

I set out two bottles. The women clink vials and toss them back, coughing and sputtering as the spell takes effect.

Cilla’s figure turns subtly curvaceous, her skin as smooth as a newborn’s.

Stacia’s nose takes on a slightly straighter shape, subtly less snout-like.

Her jawline firms. Her hair gleams like sunlight reflecting off water.

Yet there is an uncanny slipperiness to the effect. The illusion slips fractionally whenever they move. I always find this disturbing, as if they are wearing masks that don’t quite fit.

But for now, they’re happy with the results, and I am free to make my escape. Outside in the yard, Tremaine is hitching the tired horses to the carriage. I don’t have much time to prepare.

Cilla bursts out laughing when I come downstairs in my homemade gown, clutching my invitation in one gloved hand. Stacia blinks dumbly.

“Why is she wearing that?” she asks in confusion. Cilla clutches her waist and laughs harder.

Seething, I straighten my spine and head for the carriage.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Tremaine asks, smacking the door closed with one flat palm when I try to open it.

“To the ball,” I grit out, enunciating each syllable so there can be no mistake. “It is my right and my duty to attend.”

He steps back. Gathering all my strength and determination, I open it again.

This time, he doesn’t stop me from stepping out into the night.

Relief at the sight of our carriage sitting in the drive, ready to go, is indescribable.

I just have to get to it, get inside, and then everything will be fine.

I lift my skirt and stride determinedly down the path.

“Where did you get that dress?” Cilla dogs my steps with her head tipped to one side and her eyes narrowed into menacing slits.

“I made it.”

“Is that my skirt from six years ago?” Stacia’s eyes flare wide. “What did you do to the top?”

“She cut it off,” Cilla answers flatly. “She sewed it onto my nice pink bodice. I was saving that dress for my daughter.”

A daughter she’ll never have if she doesn’t marry. There’s only so far illicit magic can take you. With no wealth to be had from the Tremaine family, only a tumbledown estate—one that isn’t even hers, by rights—she has only her looks and her temperament to recommend her.

Scinder House should belong to me. It was my father’s birthright. Then my mother’s, by marriage. Had she not wed Tremaine, I’d own it free and clear. I’d have my dowry, too.

My stepfamily took everything from me, and yet my sisters can’t spare clothes they haven’t thought about in years?

Why am I helping these people?

Stacia moves first. Anger sparks in her eyes. The glamour responds accordingly, twisting her features into piglike fury.

“That was mine ,” she screeches, fisting my skirt and yanking it. Stitches rip. I clutch the torn fabric, resulting in a tug-of-war.

I can fix this. If we get in the carriage I can sew it back together during the ride…

Cilla launches herself at me.

“That is my hair ribbon! And my top! How dare you go through my things and help yourself to my stuff!”

“Thief!” Stacia rages, her pudgy hands clawing at the delicate tulle. “Harlot!”

I stumble onto the grass, blindly dodging their blows. Losing track of where I am in relation to the carriage.

“Pretentious, stupid girl!” Cilla slaps my cheek, so stinging and startling that I forget to clutch my torn skirt. Cold air gusts over my thighs. Stacia yanks on her prize. The ground rushes up at me. I land face-down in a pile of horse manure and taste defeat.

I can’t hold back the tears any longer.

“Get in, girls.”

Tremaine steps over me. Silk wafts across my cheek as my stepsisters follow him. Hoofbeats and the squeak of carriage wheels precede a spray of dirt.

I have no fight left in me. My tears water the earth. I am ready to die right here in the mud. No hope left in my heart.

No future to live for.

“Poor child.”

I jerk my head up to find Maxine on her knees, peering at me with pity as she strokes Tom’s back. I sit back on my heels, examining my ruined gown. All that work, for nothing.

“You deserve better than your awful stepfamily.”

“I know. I just don’t know where else to go.

Can I stay with you?” I ask, pleading. She chuckles and offers me a hand up, heedless of the filth.

A tingling sensation crawls along my skin.

Glancing down, I find the dirt melting away.

The dress remains ragged, but at least I’m clean again, thanks to her magic.

Perhaps it isn’t as dangerous as I thought.

“You have better places to go than an old witch’s cottage in the woods,” she says. “The ball, for example. You have a prince to meet.”

“I don’t want to meet the prince.” Fleetingly, I think of the man who almost ran me down with his horse two weeks ago.

“There is someone else?” Maxine arches one brow. Blushing, I nod. She smiles knowingly. “Perhaps can I convince you to try this? I promise it won’t hurt you.”

She holds out the glowing slipper charm on the rhinestone-encrusted chain. I take it with a sigh. Then, I yank the stopper free and pour the contents down my throat. Sweetness floods my tongue. A tingling sensation races through my body.

Seconds later, I explode.