“Some things are burned into one’s memory.”
The King helped her down gently onto solid ground, and didn’t say another word. Later, in the straw-smelling stables, the King made all the girls help feed and brush the horses. The girls took turns with the brushes, and Flora and Goldenrod even found some sugar cubes in their apron pockets. They squealed with laughter when Dickens nosed their cupped hands.
“Where did you learn that, sir?” said Azalea, as the King tended to the other horses. “To snatch us up like that, while you were galloping?”
“Ah.” The King threw the blanket over Thackeray. “Regiment practice. It is an old tradition, from the revolution. They say the rebellion—the cavalry—burst through the windows, thorns, and vines, and scooped up the prisoners from the magicked palace. Romanticized, of course. It is tradition, however, so we practice it. On sacks of wheat and potatoes.”
Azalea smiled. “I hadn’t heard that, sir.”
The King smoothed the blanket on Thackeray’s back. He opened his mouth, and shut it. Then he opened it again, and after a moment, said, “You used to call me Papa, do you remember that?”
The question took Azalea back.
“No,” she said.
The King frowned. Azalea hastily revised.
“I mean,” she said. “Papa…well…it doesn’t really suit you. I’ve never felt it does. The girls, too. I only remember calling you sir. As such.”
The King sucked in his cheeks and tugged on the ends of the blanket, straightening it. He did not say anything. The smell of horse suddenly felt overwhelming.
A cry of delight broke the tension, and Azalea gratefully ducked into the main aisle. Hollyhock, who had been digging through old saddle satchels hanging from pegs, had found something hidden in an aside saddle. The girls flocked about her, oohing.
She clutched a jet brooch in her freckled hand. A tiny bit of worn silver rimmed it, and the glass caught the golden lamp highlights of the stables. Azalea bit back a gasp.
“That’s Mother’s!” she said, delighted. “All her things aren’t locked up!”
“She must have put it in the satchel,” said Eve. “Maybe she was afraid to lose it.”
“She…used to wear it all the—the time,” said Clover. “Just…here.” She touched the top button of her collar.
“It’s beautiful,” Flora breathed.
The King finished hanging the brushes on the pegs, in order, coarse to soft, and turned to see what the fuss was about. His expression turned to ice when he saw Hollyhock’s freckled hand curled around the brooch. He held out his hand.
“Give it here,” he said. “It is not yours.”
Hollyhock clutched the brooch to her chest.
“I founnit in Mum’s satchel. Can we keep it? ’S black. I’ll share. I really will.”
“It belongs with your Mother’s things. Not with you, Miss Hollyhock.”
Azalea maneuvered so she was in front of Hollyhock. “Sir,” she said. “Why not? We’ll share it among ourselves; it won’t be breaking mourning.”
“That isn’t the point, Miss Azalea.”
“What if we just borrowed it? For the next six days? Just until mourning is over?”
“We’ll be careful with it,” said Eve.
“Oh, please, sir! Please!”
The younger girls jumped up and down, hands clasped in begging, and Ivy even dared to tug on the King’s suitcoat.
“Enough!” said the King, cutting them short with a brusque wave of his hand. “Enough. Six days, that is all. Six. Is that understood? I am doing this against my better judgment. Not a scratch, young ladies!”
“Bramble,” said Azalea that night, as they danced a quadrille. They danced in lines opposite each other, crossed and turned and traded places, the music a lively jaunt. She crossed diagonal, bending down to join hands with Jessamine, and stopped across from Bramble. “Bramble, do you remember calling the King Papa?”
Bramble crossed behind Azalea and backed up to her place.
“What?” she said.
“The King. He said we used to call him Papa.” Azalea walked with Flora up the line. “He seemed sure of it. And—” Azalea paused. “And I think—I think he wants us to call him Papa.”
The music ended, but the girls forgot to curtsy.
“He said that?” said Bramble.
“No,” said Azalea. “Not as such.”
“Puh-pah?” said Hollyhock. “Him?”
“It doesn’t really fit him,” said Eve. “Papa is more a storybook thing.”
“He is—trying,” said Clover.
Delphinium sat on the marble floor, stretching her foot out, her pink toe peeking through the torn seams.
“I don’t think he can be a Papa,” she said. “Not after everything. I still get angry.”
Azalea pulled off her black glove and considered the red fingernail prints in her palm. She sighed.
A clattering across the dance floor interrupted her thoughts—the brooch. Hollyhock had been fiddling and fumbling with it all night, unpinning it to polish it on her skirt hem, pinning it again. Now she had spun about with it in her hand, and had accidentally released it.
“Oh, Holli, honestly,” said Azalea, striding to pick it up, by the lattice. “If you can’t keep it pinned to your—”
A pair of black gloves scooped it up just as Azalea leaned down to take it.