House of Salt and Sorrows(63)

Morella played with the end of her braid, weaving it through her fingers. “I think so. Everything has been so out of sorts since Eulalie…Ortun hasn’t exactly been himself. He has outbursts…says things he doesn’t mean. It’s his way of grieving, I suppose. That’s all.” She smiled and repeated her last sentence quietly, reassuring herself.

“If you ever wanted to talk about it…” I picked up the other leg, beginning tender ministrations on her foot.

“You’re very kind, Annaleigh. So very different from your sisters.”

“They’re not—”

“I didn’t mean they’re not nice. They are—mostly—but you’ve got a softer heart than any of them. I know we’re not particularly close, you and I, and I’m sure there are times you don’t even like me…but you’ve stepped up so many times for me…the kelp lotion, the massages, planning out this week when it should have been me doing it.”

“You needed your rest.”

She placed her hand on the top of my head, stroking my hair. For the briefest moment, I remembered Mama doing that, and my heart grew tight. “Thank you.”

“I knew it was important to you. I’m sorry tonight was such a disaster.”

Morella shook her head. “I imagine it will be one of those stories we laugh about many years from now.”

“Many, many years from now.”

She closed her eyes, settling further into the pillows as I worked on her foot.

“I wish things could be different,” she admitted softly.

“What do you mean?”

“I know I’ll probably only ever be a stepmother to you, but I wish…You’re the kind of person I wish I could be friends with.”

I stopped the massage. I’d never considered what a lonely life Morella led. She married Papa and moved so far away from all the friends and family she’d ever had. The only people to keep company with now were her servants or stepdaughters. We were too isolated to go into town every day for teas or dinners, but even if we weren’t, who would she visit? Eulalie died so shortly after her arrival, Morella had no time to make friends in Astrea.

“We’re friends,” I tried, but knew we weren’t, not really. Not the kind of friend she obviously yearned for.

She offered me a small, tight smile. “Good.”

I rubbed small drops of the lavender oil into her wrists, then her temples, then her feet. Finally, I brought my hands to her nose, cupping them as the midwife had shown me. “Breathe in,” I instructed.

She took three long breaths, her eyes soft and sleepy. “I will rest very well tonight. I might even be up for going to Astrea tomorrow with the group.”

I was surprised Morella would want to make the trip over. She’d not left the house since the triplets’ ball, and I would have thought all the festival’s activities would have been too much for her.

“Do you want me to help you over to the bed?”

“No, I think I’ll stay here awhile longer. Ortun may still come up.”

I arranged the balms back on the tray and carried it to the vanity. It bumped into a little glass bauble, and I scrambled to catch it before it shattered. It was a nearly perfect sphere of glass, with one side filed down so it wouldn’t roll. Encased within it, suspended in ageless perfection, was a little red flower, a puff of tiny frilled petals.

I twisted it around. “Pretty.”

“My father gave that to me for my fifth birthday. I’ve always kept it with me wherever I’ve gone.”

It was a wonder the little ornament was still intact. Suseally—Morella’s birthplace—was hundreds of miles inland. She had given up all she knew to follow Papa to Salann, trading in fields of flowers and wooded brambles for our unending waves and rocky shores. I couldn’t imagine ever moving so far from my sisters, no matter how besotted I might be.

I set the sphere back on the vanity and spotted Morella’s wedding bands sitting in a ring dish. Her fingers had grown too swollen to wear them. I tapped my finger against the engagement ring. “How did you know that Papa was the one for you?”

Morella looked uneasy.

“When you first…before you were courting. How did you know if he was interested in you?”

She smiled. “Has one of the gentlemen from tonight caught your eye?”

I pushed aside thoughts of Cassius’s smile with a shrug. “Maybe. I don’t know. I thought…I’d hoped he might be interested in me. Romantically, you know. But now I’m not sure at all.”

She shifted her legs, patting a spot on the chaise for me to join her. “Tell me all about it.”

My face fell. “I’m not really sure how much there is to tell. He…he paid me a few compliments, but when Papa announced that contest—”

She shook her head, smirking. “That stupid, stupid contest.”

“Camille is far prettier than me, and she’ll inherit the estate someday. And I’m just…me.”

Morella rubbed my hand in hers. “Then he’s a fool.”

I was strangely pleased she thought well of me. “What was your courtship with Papa like?”

Her smile froze for a moment, and I feared I’d pried too deeply, too fast.

“Well, our courtship was a bit unconventional. He was in Suseally for such a short period of time. It happened very fast.”