Entwined(5)

Every fifth dance or so, careful to fill the plate during quick, breath-stealing jigs so as not to be noticed, Azalea delivered goodies to the girls. They cheered in tiny voices each time. While couples danced the varsovienne, Azalea stacked her platter with ten dainty glass bowls of pudding, a special request from the girls. The spoons and crystal clinked against the plate, piled like a castle. Azalea picked her way carefully to the trees—

—and nearly ran into a gentleman.

Azalea overbalanced with the puddings, and the top little bowl slid off the rest. The gentleman caught it with surprising speed between his thumb and forefinger, pulling back as Azalea’s skirts settled. His eyes took her in, her auburn ringlets and silk dress, and stopped on the plate stacked with puddings. Each one had a wallop of cream on the top.

Azalea, face hot, lifted her chin at him and coldly stared him down, daring him to say anything.

He opened his mouth, then shut it. Then slowly, as though afraid she would strike, he cautiously set the pudding bowl back on the top with a crystal clink, and backed away.

“Oh!” said Azalea. “You’re bleeding!”

And now she saw why he was hiding between the trees and the drapery. He was terribly disheveled! A strand of his mussed hair, the indiscriminate color between dark blond and brown, hung in his eyes. A streak of mud smeared his cheekbone and his fine black suit, and blood and dirt colored the handkerchief he now returned to pressing against his hand.

“It’s…nothing, really,” he stammered.

But Azalea had already set the plate to the marble with a clunk and a clatter of spoons, and produced Bramble’s clean handkerchief from her sleeve.

“Hush,” she said, taking his hand and dabbing at the cut on his knuckle. “It isn’t bad. We’ll clean it right up. What were you thinking, using such a soiled handkerchief?”

The cut wasn’t deep, and the gentleman held still while Azalea tended to it. His large hand dwarfed her own, and she only just managed to wrap the handkerchief about it.

“My horse slipped on the way here,” he explained. His voice reminded Azalea of rich, thick cream, the sort one could add to any recipe to make it taste better. “The Courtroad bridge. I only just arrived.”

Azalea nodded, thinking of how the King avoided that icy bridge every winter. Expertly, she tied the ends of the handkerchief in a tight, dainty knot. The gentleman touched it.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You probably shouldn’t stay much longer,” said Azalea. “You need a proper bandage on it, or it will get infected and throb every time you turn a lady into the next step. You wouldn’t want that.”

“Assuredly not.” A hint of a smile graced his lips.

Azalea looked up at him again, this time past the mud and rumpled cravat and hair. Something about him was strikingly familiar. The way he stood; his solemn, gentle temperament. He had a long nose, but it was his eyes, warm and brown, that marked his features. Everyone in her family had blue or green eyes. The brown caught her off guard and fascinated her.

“Azalea, where’s our food?” the tree behind her whispered.

“We’re sta-aa-arving!”

Azalea kicked back into the boughs behind her, silencing the susurrus with a clink of ornaments.

“Did you—” said the gentleman.

“No,” said Azalea. “Have we met before?”

The gentleman smiled again and touched the corner of his bandage handkerchief across the embroidered letters B.E.W. “Ages ago,” he said. “When we were both younger. You…don’t remember me?”

Azalea shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “What’s your name?”

He inclined his head. “Lord Bradford.”

“Bradford!” said Azalea. “Like the former prime minister?”

“Very much like,” he said. And Azalea caught the spark of light in his eyes, twinkling through his solemn expression. It made her smile. No wonder he looked so familiar! She considered him and wondered if he knew that all of Eathesbury expected him to run for P.M., like his father. With his tousled hair and mussed suit, he didn’t quite look the picture.

“You’re not…engaged for this next dance, are you?” he said. “That is, if you—”

He stopped abruptly, clamping his mouth shut. His eyes stared straight ahead. Ornaments tinkled behind them, and Azalea looked down to see a pudgy little hand reaching out from beneath the tree, grabbing at his trouser ankle. Azalea cringed.

“Not there, Ivy, you great idiot,” came a whispered voice from among the boughs. “Left—left—no, left is this way—”

The hands peeking from between the tree skirts felt around, grabbed the ends of the platter, and slowly, with clinks and clatters, dragged the plate in. Lord Bradford’s eyebrows rose as the castle of puddings inched away and disappeared beneath the boughs. Squeals echoed from the trees.

Azalea buried her face in her hands.

“Ah—” said Lord Bradford.

“Don’t,” said Azalea. “Just…don’t.”

“There you are! Oh, dear. Am I interrupting something?”

Azalea and Lord Bradford quickly stepped apart to see Lady Caversham a pace away, her eyes wide with innocence. Lady Caversham reminded Azalea of one of the dolls in the shops on Silver Street: pale and perfect and expensive. Azalea forced a smile.