Page 27 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

The days with Grandmother Ethel are tedious and gruelling.

Each morning, I am up before the sun. I am sent to the kitchen to peel potatoes, a lot of them, then carry out buckets of scraps for the chickens when the sun is kissing the sky.

I shovel the mess out of the barn, hose down the walkway, then hose myself off before I am back inside for a quick bath of ice-cold water.

Then I meet Grandmother outside.

We tend to the garden.

I pull the weeds, and all I have to show for the labour are red, torn hands, because I’m denied gloves, just as I’m denied warm bathwater.

Privileges , she calls them.

Grandmother sits on her wrought iron chair, and she watches me.

Sometimes, the servants bring tea for her.

Not me. Never me.

Other times, she has simple sandwiches. She tosses the crust to the moss of the garden, for the birds.

I am not given breakfast.

By the time the sun is directly above me, through murky clouds and the mist of winter rain, and I am frozen to the bone, I am allowed a few moments to change into fresh clothes.

Noon means a walk to the village.

Might sound charming, a stroll through quiet winding streets, narrow and green with vines and moss, but it would only be lovely if Grandmother fell down a drain.

She’s forced me into boots with needle-thin heels as long as the distance between my thumb and index finger. On cobblestone roads.

Chin high, I don’t look down. If I do, I will be caned. So I stare ahead, smile when she speaks, incline my head when she remarks on the buildings and tells me their histories.

We are passing the brook when my stomach rumbles under the layers of a sweater and a coat.

I am caned for it.

The strike comes hard, right on the spine.

“A lady doesn’t growl,” Grandmother says, and I wonder how much trouble I’ll get in if I knock her out and bury her under the rosebushes.

I fight the urge to tense my jaw or snarl my lips. My face is perfectly schooled as I drone, monotonous, “Yes, Grandmother.”

This is my training and my punishment.

This is Father’s ultimate weapon against me.

Mother hates it.

Bet she put up a fight when Father ordered me away. Convenient that Mother was in Versailles with Amelia the morning he sent me off to Craven Cottage.

My reward for not wobbling on these killer heels, these torture devices, for not falling or stumbling, is lunch at the little cake shop. The thatched-roof cottage deflates in on itself, and maybe there’s a magic to it, a magic that stops it from collapsing.

The scent of cakes lures me into step with Grandmother—until she says, “You will have a black coffee, and a salad, no dressing.”

So much for a reward.

I wish Dray was here—

I almost lose my balance.

The thought rattles me.

Invasive, ugly, uncontrollable.

I only mean that he would order me a cake or let me have his. Even in the face of this enforced diet, he would get me the sweets I want in his quest to maintain his gentlemanly mask.

Still, the invasive thought leaves an unsavoury taste in my mouth, and that isn’t soothed by the tasteless bowl of lettuce, spinach, unseasoned chicken, and bland tomatoes.

After lunch, we walk back to Craven Cottage where I am made to stand in the corner of the reading room, a stack of thick, old books balanced on my head.

Grandmother has her back to me. She’s perched on the couch, the servants tending to her afternoon tea and sandwiches, and she has a servant standing beside me.

The servant holds the cane.

One wobble of the book means a knock to the arms or the thighs. But if the book falls, well that’s a strike to the bone. Shins, spine, ribs, wrist.

It is hours before I am released from the corner, and we have dinner in the sunroom.

The meal is nothing to rave about.

Broth. No meat. No bread. Just brown water.

So my diet continues—every day and night that I am here, until it is the last night, the final one before the Debutante Ball.

In her final moments with me as her captive, Grandmother squeezes every ounce of blood from me that she can.

I am not dismissed after dinner. Instead, she has me in the library, sorting through the books, reorganising them; then she forces me to rehearse my entrance to the Debutante Ball over and over in the foyer before practicing the dances.

It's midnight when I am dismissed.

I drag myself back to my room, where the hearth is tended to already, crackling with the low flames.

I drop onto the armchair. Dust clouds up around me and I cough on it.

I tug off my shoes, one by one, then peel off my socks. Whether sweat or rain residue, I don’t know—and I don’t want to.

I run myself a bath in the copper tub. The water comes out hot.

Relief sags me.

The enchantment has been lifted from my bathroom, and finally, I get warm water.

Makes sense, because in the bathroom, I find the balms that will massage away the aches of my bones and muscles. Beside them, little jars of salves are set out. I need those to vanish the bruises from my time at Grandmother’s.

Can’t go into the ball black and blue, and stiff and sore.

So I spend the better part of an hour in the bath before balming my body, head-to-toe.

I suffer that gentle bliss, the kind that comes after a deep tissue massage, as I drag myself to bed.

I sleep a solid four hours before I am woken by a servant—and it’s time to leave.

But I won’t be going back to Elcott Abbey.

Grandmother and I will take the car to the airport, where the others will meet us at the jet.

Tomorrow, we travel to Versailles.