“Ah, no,” said the King. “It’s only madness if you actually do it. If you want to break all the windows in the house and drown yourself in a bucket but don’t actually do it, well, that’s love.”
Azalea was consternated. “You told him of course not, didn’t you?”
The King paused. In a long, heavy moment, everything turned upside down, and Azalea thought, Oh, no…
“Ah, Azalea.” The King put a hand on her shoulder. “I told him he could.”
“What!”
“I just sent the marriage contract with his steward,” said the King. “I certainly told him no often enough. But—ah.” The King placed both his hands on her shoulders. “He loves her. He doesn’t give a fig for her dowry; he loves her for who she is.”
Azalea mouthed wordlessly at the King until words finally pushed themselves to her mouth.
“But—but—that’s not the way it’s done,” she stammered. “You can’t just arrange Bramble’s marriage without even asking her! That’s not how it is done nowadays!”
“I am perfectly aware of how it is done nowadays,” said the King crisply. “I am not that old. You yourself said that if Lord Teddie proved himself in earnest—”
“Not like this!” said Azalea.
“And furthermore,” said the King, his tone rising in volume and crispness, “since when are any of my wishes not met with outright rebellion from you all? Do you honestly think if things were not arranged as such, Bramble would even consider it?”
We watch out for each other, Azalea had promised Bramble. The King would never arrange your marriage—and I would never let him—
Azalea’s nails dug into her palms, clenching so hard they broke the skin. She paced up and down the aisle between the stalls, scattering straw with each step. Her skirts snapped as she turned. Her cheeks blazed, hot and feverish. Dickens grew skittish at Azalea’s sudden movements.
“How dare you!” said Azalea, fists shaking. “My sisters will have a choice! Sir, you’ve got to get that contract back!”
“I will not—”
“Mother never would have allowed you to do such a thing!”
“Don’t tell me what your mother would do or would not do!” The King yanked Dickens to the mounting block. “I am already aware I am not her. You shall have to accept me and my decisions, painful as that is!”
The rage snapped.
In quick, sharp movements, Azalea yanked the reins from the King with her own stinging hands. With a sleek, almost dancelike leap, Azalea maneuvered past the King and jumped from the block onto Dickens. Her black skirts settled over his sides and tail.
“I’ll take the sword to the silversmith,” she said. “I broke it, didn’t I?”
“Come now, Azalea, don’t use that tone,” said the King, holding out his hand.
Azalea kicked it away with the flat of her boot, and dug her heels into Dickens’s flank, just as a gentleman would. Dickens leaped forward. The jolt nearly threw her off. In a moment she was galloping off through the stable door.
“You haven’t a coat!” the King yelled. “You are going to fall off!”
The King would saddle Thackeray and be after her in a heartbeat, but Azalea pushed Dickens hard through the cobblestone streets of snow and ice. Holiday market people clogged the roads, with rattling carriages, everyone bustling about before the storm came. Azalea searched fervently for the chestnut the steward had ridden away on. She would find him and make him see reason.
The crowds thinned as the cold wind began to bite, and in a moment of luck, Azalea spotted the chestnut and the steward’s emerald green overcoat. She kicked Dickens into a gallop, gripping tightly to his mane to keep from jostling off.
Snow began to whisk in the wind, and it seemed all at once the streets were deserted. By the time she reached the Courtroad bridge, snow had formed over the carriage ruts, making everything icy and slick. Dickens shied.
“Dickens, please,” said Azalea. “Just through the bridge!”
Dickens shied again. Her fingers burning, Azalea dug her boots hard into his flank. He leaped forward with a jolt.
In a heart-stopping moment, the scrabbling of hooves on ice, and a hard clang, Azalea was falling.
Her stomach realized it before she did. Dickens had lost his footing, and together—Azalea’s hand tangled in the reins, so tightly it numbed—they slid down the rock-crabbed, muddy embankment. Her hand slipped free, and she tumbled off, skirts and crinolines twisting in the air.
She slapped into the water. It enveloped her, frigid. Breaking to the surface, she wheezed for air and had to fight the current as she crawled to the bank. Her clothes clung to her skin like a heavy sheet of ice.
Dickens, dripping, had righted himself. Mud matted his fine coat. Coughing and sputtering, Azalea used the reins to pull herself up.
What was she doing? The cold water had slapped the heat from her temper. Had she run mad? Galloping off in the middle of a blizzard? She had nearly killed both of them!
Home. Azalea had to get back, or she would freeze to death. The storm whipped through her frozen wet clothes. She had to change and get to a fire. Shivering hard, Azalea tried to grasp Dickens’s saddle. She missed, her hands frozen blocks; they knocked against the leather casing of the sword.
The sword! Azalea fumbled at the top metal ring and felt as though she had fallen into the icy water again. Except this time, it drenched her inside, coating her stomach.