Entwined Read online

  Entwined

  Heather Dixon

  FOR LISA HALE

  Contents

  Ladies’ Dance Pocketbook: Entwine

  Chapter 1

  An hour before Azalea’s first ball began, she paced the…

  Chapter 2

  Nearly an hour later, when the tower chimed eight and…

  Chapter 3

  Azalea smacked Fairweller. So hard her hand stung. She ran…

  Chapter 4

  Azalea dreamed that night of drowning in torrents of hair,…

  Chapter 5

  The funeral was the next day. The princesses huddled together…

  Chapter 6

  “Masterful!” Mother laughed. “You’re better than me! Up, up, up.

  Chapter 7

  Azalea stared at the wall. Her heart beat in her…

  Chapter 8

  The reflections of the rippling water danced over them, casting…

  Chapter 9

  The next day, the girls brought the worn slippers to…

  Chapter 10

  The end of summer brought warm rains that pattered against…

  Chapter 11

  Azalea had an odd dream, not many days later. Not…

  Chapter 12

  That night, the girls put a chair up against the…

  Chapter 13

  Dancing in slippers after two nights of boots was heaven;…

  Chapter 14

  That week, Azalea taught her sisters the Entwine. It was…

  Chapter 15

  Three days later, just as lessons finished up and the…

  Chapter 16

  Mr. Hyette set sail that evening, with his limbs still intact.

  Chapter 17

  Can I not trust you for five minutes with a…

  Chapter 18

  Snow came a week before Christmas, turning the gardens into…

  Chapter 19

  Azalea did not know how she got back to her…

  Chapter 20

  The gallery was so cold that Azalea could see her…

  Chapter 21

  In the library, among the warm golds and browns of…

  Chapter 22

  “Oh—oh!” Azalea stormed to the entrance of the gazebo. On…

  Chapter 23

  Azalea slept poorly that night, awaking from dozes with nightmarish…

  Chapter 24

  Azalea’s wrists throbbed as she helped the girls undress and…

  Chapter 25

  Shivering violently, Azalea sludged through the icy water for any…

  Chapter 26

  The palace wasn’t the palace anymore.

  Chapter 27

  Immediately Keeper sprang to his feet, massaging his cheek. His…

  Chapter 28

  Invisible, Azalea brushed past a forlorn-looking Fairweller at the library…

  Chapter 29

  Azalea awoke to a strange thing: sunlight.

  Chapter 30

  “What’s kissing like?” said Delphinium, one morning in early February.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  LADIES’ DANCE POCKETBOOK: ENTWINE

  The Entwine, also known as the Gentleman’s Catch, is an amusing and challenging redowa suitable for accomplished partners. Of Eathesburian origin, it dates to circa 1635, when Chevalier De Eathe (also known as the High King D’Eathe) reigned. As magic was common in this time period, the High King would catch and “entwine” people’s souls after they had died, and subject them to the darkest of magics.

  Over the years, the Entwine has evolved to a simple charade of this concept. Similar to a trois-temps waltz, it is danced in open position with a long sash. The lady and gentleman each take ends of the sash, which their hands must not leave. In a series of quick steps (see below) the gentleman either twists the sash around the lady’s wrists, pinning them (also known as the Catch), or the lady eludes capture within three minutes’ time.

  STEPS. Twist (35), Needle’s Eye (35), Dip and Turn (36), Lady’s Feint (36), Bridge Arc (36), Under-Arm Swoop (37), Thread (37), Beading the Sash (38), the Catch (38).

  CHAPTER 1

  An hour before Azalea’s first ball began, she paced the ballroom floor, tracing her toes in a waltz. She had the opening dance with the King…who danced like a brick.

  But that was all right. She could add flourishes and turns that would mask the King’s stiff, flat steps. If there was anything she was good at, it was dancing. And this year, she was in charge of the ball, as Mother was too ill to host. Azalea was determined it would be perfect.

  Unlike the year before, when the Yuletide had ended in a fracas. Too young to attend the annual—and only—ball the royal family hosted, Azalea and her ten younger sisters gathered all the blankets and cloaks and shawls from the palace and hid outside the ballroom windows. Azalea remembered the frigid air, how the rosebushes scratched, and how they had to huddle together for warmth. The ballroom radiated gold through the frozen panes. The girls pressed their noses on the glass and oohed at the dancers, especially Mother, who danced like an angel.

  They had fallen asleep right there in the rosebushes, burrowing together like mice. When the girls were discovered missing, Mother had stopped the ball and made everyone—including the musicians—search for them. Prime Minister Fairweller had found them. Azalea had awoken in shivers to see him holding a lamp over them and frowning.

  The girls had pelted him with snowballs.

  They had lost two weeks of dance lessons over that Great Rosebush and Snowball Scandal. It had been worth it, they all agreed. Even so, Azalea hoped this year the Yuletide would end gracefully. Her toes curled in her dance slippers and her hands shook as she fluttered about the dessert table in the ballroom, rearranging the platters and directing the hired help as they brought in trays of lemon custards and cinnamon candies.

  Mr. Pudding found her just as snow started to swirl outside the tall arched windows and the musicians had arrived, tuning their violins in the ballroom corner. Azalea knelt on the marble floor in a poof of silks and crinolines, picking up strewn pine needles. Mr. Pudding was their Royal Steward. He was also the Royal Stableman, the Royal Boot-Blacker, and the Royal Things-on-the-High-Shelf-Getter. With difficulty, he knelt to the floor.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Pudding,” said Azalea. “I’ve got it.”

  “Right you are, miss, so you do,” he said, collecting the needles with gnarled hands. “It’s only…your mother wants to see you, miss.”

  Azalea paused, the needles pricking her palms.

  “She does?” she said. “The King is all right with it?”

  “’Course he would be, miss,” said Mr. Pudding, helping her up. “He couldn’t be averse if your mum wants it!”

  Mother hadn’t been taken with a quick, hard illness that swept a person up overnight. Her illness had come slowly and had lasted for years, robbing a bit of her each day. Some weeks she felt better, better enough to take tea in the gardens with Azalea and her sisters and give them dance lessons, and some weeks—more weeks, lately—the light in her eyes flickered with pain. Still, she always said she felt better, and she always gave a room-brightening smile. That was Mother.

  With the baby near due now, the King refused to allow Azalea or her sisters to spend tea up in Mother’s room, or even to visit longer than several minutes a day. Even so, when Azalea arrived at Mother’s room two staircases later, breathless and beaming, it had the mark of her sisters all over it. Mend-up cards with scrawled pictures graced the dresser, and vases of dried roses and pussywillows made the room smell of flowers. A warm fire glowed in the grate, casting yellows over the flowered furniture.

&
nbsp; Mother sat in the upright sofa, her auburn hair tussled as always. She wore her favorite blue dress, mended but clean, and rested a hand on her stomach.

  She was asleep. Azalea’s smile faded.

  Secretly hoping the rustle of her skirts would rouse Mother, Azalea arranged the mend-up cards on the dresser, then chastised herself for hoping such a thing. Sleep was the only peace Mother had of late. From the table next to the sofa, the old magic tea set clinked and clattered faintly, pouring a cup of tea in its pushy way.

  Azalea did not care for that old silver-mottled tea set. Several hundred years ago, before Eathesbury had streetlamps and paved roads, the palace had been magic. The reigning king, the High King D’Eathe, had gone mad with it. He magicked the drapery to twine around servants’ necks, made the lamps flicker to life as one passed, and trapped unfortunate guests in his mirrors, never to release them. Azalea’s ninth-great-grandfather, Harold the First, had overthrown him, but still pockets of magic remained in the palace. The old tea set was one of these. It even had a pair of sugar tongs that snapped at the girls’ fingers if they wanted more than one cube. The girls called them the sugar teeth, and Azalea guessed they were quite as evil as their creator had been.

  “If you wake her,” Azalea threatened in a low voice, picking up the full teacup and setting it on its platter, “I will have you melted down into napkin rings, I swear it.”

  The teacup hopped back onto the sofa arm and nudged and prodded at Mother’s hand. Azalea grabbed it and pinned it between the dented sugar bowl and teapot. The sugar teeth hopped out of the bowl and bit her fingers.

  “Ow!” Azalea snapped. “Why, you little—”

  Mother stirred.

  “Oh, goosey,” she said. She opened her eyes and pushed a smile. “Don’t be cross. They’re only trying to help, you know.”

  “They’re bullying you,” said Azalea, whose spirits rose in spite of seeing the pain in Mother’s eyes. Mother had a plucky way of smiling that deepened her dimples and brightened the room. “I’ll take them to the kitchen. How are you feeling?”

  “Mmm. Better. Where are the girls? I wanted to see them, too.”

  “Out and about. In the gardens, I think.” In the hustle and come-and-go of preparations, Azalea had lost track of them. They hadn’t even come to see her in her ballgown. Mrs. Graybe and one of the maids had had to help her dress in the kitchen, tightening her stays while she traced her toes on the wood floor, impatient.

  “Oh,” said Mother. “Well. If they are having a jolly Christmas Eve, then…I’m glad for it. Ah, but look at you! Princess Royale! You look a picture print! The green makes your eyes pop. I knew it would.”

  Azalea caught her reflection in the glowering tea set. Auburn ringlets framed her face, and her tightly strung corset flushed her cheeks. From shoulder to waist she wore a silver sash. She looked regal, and nothing like herself.

  “Everyone says I look like you,” said Azalea shyly.

  “You lucky thing! Do a Schleswig curtsy.”

  Azalea’s feet took over and she dipped into a curtsy before her mind fully realized it. It flowed from the balls of her feet to her fingertips in one rippled movement and a rustle of skirts. She disappeared into a poof of crinolines.

  “Masterful!” Mother laughed. “You’re better than me! Up, up, up. Very good! Ladies’ cloaks, in the library, gentlemen’s hats—”

  “In the entrance hall. Yes, I remember.” Azalea stood and smoothed her skirts.

  “Brilliant. The gentlemen will be mad for you. Dance with every single one and find which one you like best. We can’t let parliament do all the choosing.”

  Azalea’s toes curled in her dance slippers.

  She hated the sick, milk-turning feeling that came when she thought of her future gentleman. She pictured it as a sort of ball, one that lasted a lifetime, in which parliament chose her dance partner. And she didn’t know if he would be a considerate dancer, one who led her through tight turns with ease, or if he would lurch through the steps. Or worse, if he was the sort of partner who would force her through the movements and scoff at her when she stumbled at his hand. Azalea tried to swallow the feeling away.

  “I wish you could come,” she said.

  “Your father will be there.”

  “That’s not the same.” Azalea leaned down and kissed Mother, inhaling the sweet smell of white cake and baby ointment. “I’ll miss you.”

  “Azalea,” said Mother, reaching out to place her hand on Azalea’s shoulder. “Before you go. Kneel down.”

  Azalea did, a little surprised. Her skirts poofed about her. Poof.

  From the end-table drawer, Mother produced her handkerchief, a folded square of silver. Silver was the color of the royal family. The embroidered letters B.E.W. glimmered in the soft light. Mother took Azalea’s hands and pressed them over it.

  Azalea gasped. Mother’s hands were ice.

  “It’s your sisters,” said Mother. “You’ve done so well to watch out for them, these months I’ve been ill. You’ll always take care of them, won’t you?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Promise me.”

  “Of…course,” said Azalea. “You know I will.”

  The moment the words escaped her lips, a wave of cold prickles washed over her. They tingled down her back, through her veins to her fingertips and toes, flooding her with a cold rain shower of goose prickles. The unfamiliar sensation made Azalea draw a sharp breath.

  “Mother—”

  “I want you to keep the handkerchief,” said Mother. “It’s yours now. A lady always needs a handkerchief.”

  Azalea kept Mother’s cold hands between her own, trying to warm them. Mother laughed, a tired, worn laugh that bubbled nonetheless, and she leaned forward and kissed Azalea’s fingers.

  Her lips, white from pressing against Azalea, slowly turned to red again.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  The King did not look up from his paperwork when Azalea rushed into the library. Two flights of stairs in massive silk skirts had left her breathless, and she swallowed the air in tiny gasps.

  “Miss Azalea,” he said, dipping his pen into the inkwell. “We have rules in this household, do we not?”

  “Yes, sir, I know—”

  “Rule number eight, section one, Miss Azalea.”

  “Sir—”

  The King looked up. He had a way of frowning that froze the air and made it crack like ice.

  Azalea clenched her fists and bit back a sharp retort. Two years! Nearly two years she had run the household while Mother was ill, and he still made her knock! She strode out of the library, slid the door shut with a snap, counted to two, and knocked smartly.

  “Yes, you may come in,” came the King’s voice.

  Azalea gritted her teeth.

  The King was already dressed for the ball, fine in formal reds and silvers. His military uniform had meticulously straight rows of buttons and medals, and he wore a silver sash across his chest to his waist, like Azalea. As he sorted through papers, Azalea caught words like “treaty” and “regiments” and “skirmish.” As Captain General, he would be leaving, along with the cavalry regiments, to help a neighboring country’s war in just a few short weeks. Azalea did not like to think about it.

  “That is well enough,” he said when Azalea stood before his desk. “One cannot run the country without laws; one cannot manage a household without rules. It is so.”

  “Sir,” said Azalea. “It’s Mother.”

  The King set his papers down at this.

  “I think we need to send for Sir John,” said Azalea. “I know he was here this morning, but…something’s not right.”

  The image of Mother’s lips, white, then slowly, slowly turning to red, passed through Azalea’s mind, and she rubbed her fingers. The King stood.

  “Very well,” he said. “I will fetch him myself straightaway.” He took his hat and overcoat from the stand near the fireplace. “Tend to the guests. They will be arrivin
g soon. And—” The King’s brow furrowed. “Take care that your sisters remain in their room. I’ve made them promise to stay inside, but—it is them.”

  “You made them promise to stay inside?” said Azalea, indignant. “Even Bramble?”

  “Especially Bramble.”

  “But it’s tradition to peek at the Yuletide! Even Mother—”

  “Tradition be hanged, Miss Azalea. I will not allow it, not after the complete debacle last year.”

  Azalea pursed her lips. She didn’t want the ball to end like it had last year, naturally, but caging them up in the room was unfair.

  “That will do, Miss Azalea,” said the King. “I’ve sent goodies to your room, and a dissected picture for them to piece together. They shan’t be desolate.”

  The King turned to go, and Azalea spoke after him.

  “You’ll be back within the hour?” she said. “For the opening dance?”

  “Really, Azalea,” said the King, putting on his stiff hat. “Is everything about dancing to you?”

  It was, actually, but Azalea decided now wasn’t the best time to point that out.

  “You will be back in time?” she said.

  The King waved his hand in dismissal. “As you say,” he said, and he left.

  CHAPTER 2

  Nearly an hour later, when the tower chimed eight and guests filled the ballroom like brightly colored bouquets, and perfumes and nutmeg and pine scented the air, and the Christmas trees in the corner glimmered and sparkled with glass ornaments, Azalea found herself clasped on the arm of Prime Minister Fairweller.

  “He truly can’t come?” said Azalea, worried, as Fairweller led her to the center of the ballroom floor. “Is everything all right? Or is he just trying to get out of dancing?”