Entwined(30)

Lord Teddie peered at the portrait through squinted eyes.

“It sort of looks like her,” he said. “But it hasn’t got zing. The light. In her eyes.”

Azalea tilted her head, nonplussed. The girls cast one another glances.

“You knew her?” said Eve.

“Oh, great muffins,” he said, bouncing up and down again. “Everyone knew your mother. I knew her before she boffed off to Eathesbury! Met her at one of Mother’s balls. She taught me a bit of the Entwine, you know. I was five.”

“You were five?” cried Hollyhock, tugging at his hand. “You weren’t of age and they let you go to a ball?”

“Crumbs, yes! Best way to learn how to dance, I say!”

The younger girls crowded about Lord Teddie, hopping with eagerness. Azalea groaned inwardly, thinking of the headache she would have explaining to the girls that they still wouldn’t be allowed at balls until they were fifteen.

Lord Teddie took the attention, the tugs on the suitcoat, and the pestering questions with a great bashful grin.

“Well,” he said, ducking his head a bit shyly before plucking the picture from the wall. “I suppose I ought to go, then. Before the cab leaves without me, anyway. Unless, you know, you wanted to…invite me to dinner, or something.”

“Oh, stay for dinner!” the younger ones peeped.

“What are you doing with Mother’s portrait?” said Bramble.

Lord Teddie’s face turned a bright shade of red, looking at the portrait tucked beneath his arm, then to Bramble, then back to the portrait.

“Um,” he said. “Nothing.”

“You’re taking it!” Bramble’s eyes flared a bright yellow. Azalea knew that look. She grabbed at Bramble’s hand, hoping to pull her back before Bramble’s mouth whipped like a viper.

“No—no—no—” Lord Teddie backed away, using the portrait as a shield. “I mean—well, yes, I am, but—well, look, I have permission!”

Still holding up the portrait, he fished in his suitcoat and brought out a folded note. Bramble snatched it from his hand and read it. Her thin red eyebrows arched above her forehead.

“No,” she said. “He wouldn’t—”

Azalea took the crumpled note from her and read the King’s stiff, formal penmanship. It was addressed to Mr. Pudding. Short, concise. It dictated that the gentleman would be taking Mother’s portrait.

That was all.

It occurred to Azalea, through the mist of shock and disappointment, that she should have expected this. With everything else of Mother’s out of sight, it was only a matter of time before the portrait was gone, too. Perhaps they were even lucky, in that someone rich was willing to buy it.

“You’re really going to take it!” Bramble’s eyes blazed. She clenched her fists and bore in on the gentleman. “Everything else of Mother’s is locked away; we don’t have anything left! How could you come in here—and—and do such a thing? You have no soul!”

Lord Teddie cowered.

“Toodle pip,” he said, and bounded off.

Bramble charged after him in a flurry of black skirts and crinolines. The girls followed at a bound, hoping to catch up. Lord Teddie’s long legs sent him flying out the entrance hall door before they even reached the mezzanine. He barreled into the waiting cab’s door, losing his hat, and the carriage was off in a spatter of gravel.

His head peeked above the back window in time to see Bramble throw his silk hat to the ground, and grind it into the gravel with the heel of her boot.



That night at the pavilion the girls didn’t dance. Instead they sat in a circle and spoke in low voices. It didn’t hurt so much, somehow, when they whispered. Above them, the invisible orchestra played soft, soothing gavottes.

“I know it didn’t look like her,” said Bramble, in a hollow voice. Her venom had dwindled to weariness. “I can’t believe he would just take it. I can’t believe the King would let anyone take it.”

“I can,” said Delphinium, tucking a torn ribbon into her patched slipper. “Honestly, nothing the King does surprises me anymore.”

“What will happen?” said Eve. “With the King?”

There was a pause, so quiet the mist could almost be heard outside.

“Nothing,” said Azalea. “He’ll go back to the library. Things will be the same.”

“Like when Mother was here?” Flora and Goldenrod looked at Azalea with bright eyes.

“No,” said Azalea, feeling a tight, hot sensation rising in her throat. “Look, we promised not to talk about the King.”

“We can’t…just pretend—like—like he’s dead,” said Clover.

“Why not?” said Bramble. “I mean, things would have been different, wouldn’t they? If it was him instead of Mother who—”

She abruptly stopped, her face flaming.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I didn’t.”

“It’s true, though,” said Delphinium. “Don’t you remember, how much it hurt, when he never came to dinner? How much it hurt, when he said—”

“Stop!” said Azalea, on her feet. “Stop, stop, stop! We don’t talk about this!”