He produced from his pocket wrapped ribbon candies, which the girls squealed over and passed among themselves, unwrapping for one another and smelling the mint-and-treacle flavors. Bramble had remained behind, her jaw up and her hands clenched.
“Bramble thaid you ran away to the butterfly forest,” said Ivy, who was reaching into Lord Teddie’s suitcoat pocket for more candies. She had a lisp ever since she had lost her two front teeth.
“I was in the butterfly forest,” said Lord Teddie. “I decided to come back for tea.”
“Tea was ages ago!” said Eve. “You must be hungry!”
“Oh, I’m all right!” said Lord Teddie. “I don’t eat much! Just a bit of ham and a sweetmeat or two and I’ll be right as rain!”
There was a sticky silence. Ivy looked guiltily at the candies in her fist.
“We have bread,” said Bramble. Her voice reverberated in the silence of the hall. “And cheese. I’m sorry if that’s not good enough for you.”
Lord Teddie’s eyes caught Bramble’s mended, shabby dress. For a sliver of a second, his grin flickered. It was back immediately. The tips of his ears shone pink.
“I love bread!” he said. “I love bread and cheese, cheese and bread! I eat them all the time! I’ll probably turn into a great wheel of cheese, I like it so much!”
Bramble turned her head. Her ears were pink, too. When she lifted her yellow-green eyes, they caught Azalea, sitting at the top stair, hidden by the crinolines and skirts of the others. Bramble pushed past the rest of the girls and ran to Azalea.
“Az,” she said, falling to her knees and taking her hand. “You’re white! What happened? What did he do to you?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” said Azalea. She grabbed at Bramble’s arm, pulling her back, for Bramble looked ready to attack Lord Teddie. The yellow in her eyes flared. “Steady on,” said Azalea. “He didn’t do anything.”
Bramble cast one more angry glance at Lord Teddie, but her eyes calmed into their light green as they took in Azalea. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind Azalea’s ear.
“Is it the brooch?” she said.
Azalea wrapped a finger around the iron baluster next to her face, squeezing it hard. The corners bit. Bramble made a face.
“Clover thought Keeper wouldn’t give it back, the rotten thief,” she said. “Wonderful. The King is going to go spare when he finds out we haven’t got it.”
“Who cares about the King anymore?” said Azalea. “I’ll be the one to tell him we lost it, if I have to. But—I’ll think of something first. I will.” She glanced at Lord Teddie, who had pulled a coin from Jessamine’s black curls, making the girls squeal with laughter and Jessamine smile bashfully.
“I’ll tell you more tonight,” Azalea said. “When the gentleman isn’t here.”
That evening, after coffee in the library, where Lord Teddie taught the younger girls how to play ring-a-hoop with pen and old inkwells, the girls gathered in their bedroom, passing out the mended slippers from the basket and brushing their hair. Delphinium took the vanity chair, dreamily running her fingers through her wavy blond hair and gazing at her reflection.
“I’ve decided I’m going to marry him,” she said. “Lord Teddie, I mean.”
“Don’t be daft,” said Bramble, throwing pillows on the bed behind her. “You only like him because he’s rich.”
“Well, why not?” Delphinium turned. “I’m pretty enough. If he stops making up stupid rhymes, and learns how to dress, and perhaps stifles that silly laugh he has, then in a few years, we—”
“He’d see right through you.” Bramble sat down on one of their threadbare embroidered poufs, crossing her arms. “So don’t rally up your hopes, young peep. Gentlemen like him don’t marry penniless.”
Delphinium’s lips tightened, and she tugged the comb through her hair. Azalea, between the hearth and the round table, chose this time to produce the sugar teeth from her pocket and lay them on the table, to the initial fright of the girls, who leaped back.
When the sugar teeth only lay and shuddered with a faint clinking sound, the girls crept to the round table, forgetting that they had been the scourge of the palace before. Horrified that the teeth had been bent inside out, they spoke in hushed tones.
“Who would—do such a thing?” said Clover, stroking them gently.
“Oh, Keeper, of course!” said Azalea. “Of course it was him!”
Bramble took a dried pink rose from the vase in the middle of the table and snapped off the blossom. “Rotter,” she said, pulling the leaves from the stem. “When I see him, I’m going to tell him exactly—”
“Don’t!” Azalea yelped.
The girls stared at Azalea, hands halted about their slipper ribbons, mid-tie. Azalea rubbed her hand against her aching forehead.
“Look, just—let me handle Keeper, all right?” she said. “And the teeth—well.”
They stared sadly at the twisted piece of metal. None of them liked to see the sugar teeth as such, so forlorn and helpless, shaking. Glumly, they took Azalea’s powder box and shredded bits of dried petals in it, making a little bed for them. Azalea agreed to slip away to the kitchen and fetch some sugar cubes, and maybe a teacup to keep them company. Inside, she clung to the thin hope that if she stayed in the kitchen long enough, the younger girls would have fallen asleep and she could convince them to stay in their room tonight. It hadn’t happened before, but Azalea had seen Kale’s and Lily’s nodding heads, snuggling into the crook of Clover’s arm.