Page 16 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

My mouth twists. “You’re concerned about me? That is very sweet of you, Lord Oliver.”

He blushes and doesn’t seem to know what to say as the dance finishes. He escorts me off the dance floor, and we barely make it to the edge before the next gentleman comes to claim his dance with me.

Not once do I feel relief from Agatha’s gaze searing into my back the entire rest of the night.

Chapter 5

Kat

Marydragsmeoutof bed the next morning at the ungodly hour of eleven o’clock.

“My eyes don’t work anymore,” I protest. “And neither do my legs. I’m stiff as a hairbrush after all that running and dancing andughmy shoes were a torment! I still cannot believe the man proposed to me during a dance by casually suggesting we marry in afortnight. Just in time to steal my fortune! Thenerveof some men. At least pretend you’re in love with me!”

“You’d better get downstairs,” says Mary in a tone that shuts up my groaning immediately.

I sit upright, suddenly wide awake. “What’s the matter?”

Mary helps me dress and pulls my dark hair back into a tight bun matching her own. “It’s not good. I tried to stop it. The mistress is not pleased by your refusal of Lord Boreham.”

Dread sinks into my stomach. “She’s come up with another punishment, hasn’t she? I don’t see why she should care who I marry! It’s not as thoughsheis going to get any of the money.”

Mary gives me a sharp look, and my stomach sinks even more. I shut my mouth, straighten my skirts, and pretend I’m oblivious as I march out of my bedroom, down the stairs, and to the dining room.

No one is seated at the long table spread with a fine, laced runner, a bowl of fruit, and steaming plates of biscuits, eggs, sausages, and porridge. My stepmother and two stepsisters are, instead, circled around the end of the table that isn’t set for breakfast, exclaiming over something in a box. A box that looks . . .familiar.

“What’s all the excitement for?” I ask uneasily, trying to sound natural.

“Kat! There you are!” cries Bridget. She is bright and golden and lovely—her hair coiffed and curled, her cosmetics perfectly applied, her gown fresh as though she wasn’t up all night. “Look what one of the maids found!”

Edith traces the faded velvet of the box and the scalloped edges of its lid on the table. Eyebags hang from beneath her lower lashes, her hair slightly frizzed and her dress a simple mud brown frock. “I want the box.”

Bridget slaps her hand with a laugh. “You selfish creature! I think it’s Kat’s.”

I finally get close enough so I can see inside the box. A pair of perfect, gleaming slippers of cut glass rests in a bed of tissue and cloth. My heart drops all the way to the floor and pounds there like a drum. “Those are my mother’s! They were her wedding slippers! Where did you find these?”

Every instinct in me demands to grab the box and run. So few pieces remain of my mother by now, and nothing like this. Nothing that carries the memory of both my parents in its shining, crystalline cut.

“A few servants were cleaning through the attic for things that might be sold. The upkeep of the house is expensive and the allowance your father left us is hardly enough,” says Agatha, who holds the edge of the box as though prepared to wrench it away should I try to grab it.

“Things that might be sold?” I cry, fury rising like a tumultuous wave in my chest. “You soldeverythingof my mother’s the moment you married Father! And now you would sell this too?”

“Would you have asked me to stand by and watch my newly married husband sigh over all the remnants of his first wife? Truly, Katherine, you would have had no such patience if you stood in my shoes. You act as though I did it to spite you! I have given no orders to sell the slippers.”

I pause, suddenly wondering if I jumped to a wrongful accusation too quickly.

“Considering that you’re not twenty-one yet,” continues Agatha, “and the estate does not belong to you, these seem like just the thing I should keep safely for you until you come of age.”

I stare—at first, dumbfounded, then a moment later, suspiciously. Is this a trick?

Bridget’s face has gone pale. She laughs nervously, glancing between Agatha and me. “But Mother, my dowry! You just said—” She cuts herself off suddenly and turns her attention to me. “Kat, I know these slippers are special to you, but you know that I have practically nothing for a dowry! Your father has given his entire fortune to you and left nothing for us—”

“Because you aren’t his daughters!” I cry back. The instant the words are out of my mouth, I can feel Mary’s exasperated insistence of,“Be a nice little stepdaughter and they won’t torment you so! Your provocation makes everything worse!”

A prickle of shame makes me wring my hands. My gaze turns back to the box. It’s like my mother is locked away, imprisoned under the firm hand of Agatha.Be nice, Kat, and maybe they will let you keep the slippers.

“Yes, we aren’t his daughters,” Bridget says coolly, the laughter gone from her voice. “He had every right to give you his fortune. But it doesn’t change the fact that Edith and I have no dowry. These shoes must be worth a small fortune and could give one of us a sizeable dowry, or the both of us a modest one. I know it’s selfish of me to ask for anything of yours, but I don’t want to be a spinster!”

Now I’m a selfish miser if I want to keep my dead mother’s shoes.

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