I will tell you about the lady I loved."
The girls settled together on the entrance steps, not even breathing, for fear it would rustle the rosebushes about them and mask Mr. Keeper's words. Mr. Keeper stood unmoving on the dance floor.
"Once upon a time," he said. His voice dripped in silk strands. "There was a High King, who wanted more than anything to kill the Captain General who incited a rebellion against him. It consumed him. The desire to kill the Captain General filled him to his core, and he spent every breath, every step, thinking of ways to murder the Captain General.
"But he was old, and time passed, as it always does."
Mr. Keeper paused. Bramble cast a slightly bemused glance at Azalea, her eyebrow arched.
"So," Mr. Keeper continued, "he took an oath. He filled a wine flute to the brim with blood. And he swore, on that blood, to kill the Wentworth General, and that he would not die until he did.
"And then, he drank it.
"The end."
There was a very ugly, naked silence after that. The girls' mouths gaped in perfect Os.
"Sorry?" said Delphinium. "I missed the part about the lady?"
"Ah," said Mr. Keeper. "The blood. It was hers.
It had been two weeks since they had last danced, and Azalea lay in bed, awake again. A dream hadn't roused her this time, but rather an odd tinny noise that had been clinking across the wooden floor of their room, under their beds and butting against the wainscot with a clinkety tap-tap. It sounded like ... well, quite honestly, it sounded like a spider dragging a spoon.
Azalea knew it couldn't possibly be that (or, rather, she hoped it wasn't), but even so, she heaved herself from the bed and grasped one of Hollyhock's boots, strewn across the floor. The tapping now clinked from the fireplace, and Azalea caught a glint of silver among the soot. Raising the boot, she tiptoed to the unlit hearth.
The fireplace in their room was massive - so large that Azalea could stand up in it and her skirts wouldn't brush the sides. The silver hopped. Azalea dove.
In a puff of soot, Azalea found herself sitting in the hearth, and the silver bit skittering away like mad. Azalea grabbed at it and was rewarded with a very sharp, very familiar bite.
"You!" Azalea seethed, leaping up. Now she recognized the half-hopping half-skitter motion. The sugar teeth!
Don't step on the rug. It's a bit ... peckish."
...
In a billow of skirts, Bramble leaped. It was a grand jeté worthy of the Delchastrian prima ballerina. She landed right on Lord Teddie, who had no choice but to catch her, and threw her arms around his neck. Then, to everyone's shock, she pressed her lips full on his.
"Oh ... my," said Clover.
No one seemed more surprised than Lord Teddie, who stumbled back under Bramble's assault. He staggered onto the magicked rug. In a blur of red, the rug clapped over them like a red snapdragon.
The entire package overbalanced and fell to the ground with a whumpf.
No one moved inside the rug. Everyone stared.
"Sorry," said Eve. "What just happened?"
From the rug came a muffled Mmm mmm mmfph.
"We'd better take them out," said Azalea. "Before they start to digest.
She looked at him, his soft brown eyes and tall form, and contemplated raising herself on her toes and kissing his ear, or his cheek...
Instead, impulsively before leaving, she reached up and smoothed his mussed hair.
Mr. Bradford beamed.
Tag: friends love family romance courage dating sweet moment shy
Honestly, we don't kick or bite or throw potatoes at all our guests."
A crooked smile touched Lord Bradford's lips.
"Your family has spirit," he said, taking his hat from Azalea. "I enjoyed the evening."
"Well, yes, you've just come from a war," said Azalea.
Tag: humour
Lord Teddie?" she said. "Will you stay for tea?"
"Rather!" said the carpet.
Tag: humour
They had lost two weeks of dance lessons over that Great Rosebush and Snowball Scandal.
Heather Dixon WallworkIt's just a guess," said Bramble after a moment, "but I don't think he's in the mood to see us.
Heather Dixon WallworkI'm so sorry we've kept this for such a long time," she said, pulling the watch from her skirt pocket. She unfolded Mother's handkerchief from around it, and offered it to Lord Bradford cradled in her hands. "We shouldn't have taken it in the first place."
Lord Bradford's eyebrows rose at the offering, and he opened his mouth, then closed it. He lowered his eyes to the books in his hands, then back to Azalea, and he managed a smile.
"When we first met," he said, "ages ago, you gave me a candy stick. Just like you did now, with your hands like that. Do you remember?"
Azalea raised an eyebrow.
"It happened when my father had just died," he said, quietly. "You came to the graveyard, licking a candy stick. You saw me. You put the stick in my hands, folded my fingers over it, and kissed my fingertips."
"That must have been sticky," said Azalea.
The Harold Herald, alive with news of the war, even printed an extra edition the next day, and among the news of the front page, the girls discovered that Minister Fairweller had been wounded. Clover, so tenderhearted, cried.
"Oh,he's probably all right," said Bramble. "It would take a lot to kill him. Like garlic and a stake through the heart."
Clover still cried. That was Clover for you.
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