Page 17 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

Edith pops a grape into her mouth and says dryly, “You know no one will marry me without a dowry.”

“Why do you keep saying you don’t have dowries?” I demand instead of giving an answer to their requests of my generosity. “Your father left you each dowries! Unless Agatha spent them all—”

“I did not!” cries Agatha, indignant. “They are trite sums that would hardly tempt a man of consequence!”

“Why must they marry men of consequence? Why not marry a good man with a modest wage? You act as if it is some great trial to not be rich!”

“That is easy for you to say,” says Bridget. “You are the wealthiest person at the court except Queen Vivienne herself! Why are you so desperate to not share an ounce of it? You could hardly spend it all in your lifetime!”

Because I have plans for it.There are hundreds—thousands—of human slaves in Faerieland I’ve yet to rescue. I need that money to help them build new lives for themselves. I’m sick of giving them a scant loaf or two of bread and just enough pence for a coach.

But . . . itisn’tfair that my stepsisters have so little when I have so much.

I look at that box, the gray velvet only barely tinged the pink it once was. I open my mouth to make an offer: the price of the shoes contributed to their dowries in exchange for me getting to keep them.

“Girls, girls,” chides Agatha, cutting me off before I can speak. “Bridget, it is not your place to ask such things of Katherine. Her dowry is hers and hers alone.”

My shoulders sink in relief. Maybe Agatha doesn’t intend to punish me after all.

“But.”

That single word slices through my thoughts. My gaze shoots up to find Agatha staring grimly down at the slipper box. She picks it up and tucks it carefully under her arm. My mouth drops open.

“Since Katherine is not yet of age, I am still mistress of this estate, and I decide what is done with its properties.”

A rock lands in my stomach. “Agatha, please, I—”

She fixes a look of such finality upon me, I know there is no fighting her. “I will make a deal with you. I will give you the slippers—ifyou accept Lord Boreham’s proposal and marry him before you turn twenty-one. If you do not, I will sell them.”

I grind my teeth together, trying to quell the rising panic inside me. It feels like the moment I watched my mother’s casket slam shut. I want her back. I want those slippers back.

But Agatha summons her servant Sylva—the only one Mary and I are not friends with—and gives her the box. Likely to go lock in the depths of Agatha’s chambers where I can never find them.

I watch mutely as the servant disappears with the box, knowing I will never see that part of my mother again.

My stepsisters sit down at the table, their breakfast now cold, as I keep standing where I am. I am not hungry at all.

“By the way,” says Agatha, taking her place at the head of the table and pouring herself a cup of tea. “You will take the carriage when Lord Boreham comes to call in three days to propose to you. The manservant—I always forget his name. Anthony?”

“Charles,” I say.

“Charles, yes. He should be back any moment from the market. I told him to sell that horse of yours. It’s better if you take the carriage from now on. The horse has served its purpose, and since it’s the reason you keep being late for events, I figured it was best to move it along.”

The horror, the sheer panic that descends upon me isnothinglike what I experienced when I saw the slippers. “You sold Bartholomew? When?”

“Oh, early this morning. What? Don’t tell me you’re attached to the creature. It failed you over and over again! You told me so yourself! She had a bad shoe, she was sick, she wouldn’t take her bridle suddenly, and so forth!”

I’m already running out the door. My chest burns, my throat tingling with thickness.

I find Charles coming into the kitchen, where the rest of the servants are cleaning up their breakfast work and preparing for the next meal. He is not in his usual livery, but trousers, suspenders, and a pair of worn boots.

“Where’s Bartholomew?” I demand. “Where is she?”

He gives me a pitying look. “I’m so sorry.”

Beatrice, the cook, shakes her head in sympathy. Viola looks up from scouring a pot in the sink, sadness etched across the worn lines of her face. Matthew has set down his mending.

Thisis what Mary warned me about. Not the blasted slippers.This.

---