Page 10 of Prince of Masks
As if they need another way to invade on the miniscule privacy I’m afforded.
They would never read Oliver’s mail.
But then, Oliver has a cell phone—and I don’t.
I huff a sigh so harsh that it puffs my cheeks.
My mood is fresh from deep, weighted sleep, and it is too quick to sour.
Unfazed, Mother tells me, “Headmaster Braun spoke with your father this morning.”
She turns her cheek to me, so lovely and smooth that I’m sure she’s made of olive-oil, then she reaches over my buried feet to pick at the quilt. Her fingernails pinch a long strand of my hair. The arched brow look she aims at it is elegant and fleeting before she lets it fall to the rug.
“You won’t return to the academy this semester,” she goes on, but she turns a warning look on me. “You will still be expected to complete your assignments.”
I nod, silent.
“A tutor might help?” she suggests, her voice arching with her dark brow.
Again, I nod.
Mother’s small smile remains, like it’s painted on, and it turns somewhat guilty. “I will arrange for one. However,” she adds, and a familiar glint sharpens her eyes into black quill-tips, “if you are in need of some fresh air, you are most welcome to join me today.”
I rub the heels of my palms on my eyes.
Mother clicks her manicured nails. “That is one way to get wrinkles.”
I drop my hands to the pillow, then speak through a stifled yawn. “Join you where?”
“Brunch with Amelia.” The pearl clasp that pins her hair to the back of her head glitters in the sparse light creeping through the gaps in the curtains. “At Croche.”
I still. “Croche?”
I love that place.
A small, boutique bakery in Dijon, France, whose tiny square cakesmelton the tongue, with the smoothest vanilla cream whipped to perfection, and the slightest hint of strawberry, none of this too-tart glazed rubbish often found in cities. No, these cakes are the ones to taste, then understand completely how others develop such adoration and passion for cakes that they dedicate their lives to creating them.
“I’ll come,” I manage through a stifled yawn.
“Delightful,” she says it as plainly as she would mention the rain. “I mean to check on the progress of your gown for the ball,” she adds, and my heart sinks.
Already, she’s drawing up an itinerary.
I just want cake.
“After that,” she sighs and that devious smile widens just a touch more, and so I know she has arrived at the hook, the offer that will get me out of bed after the mention of the dress fitting threatens to keep me planted under the quilts, “I shall stop in to visit my mother.”
A smile wisps over my face.
Grandmother Dorotea.
Or, as Oliver and I call her, Nonna.
Beautiful, delightful Nonna.
I prop up on my elbows.
Not Grandmother Ethel, my father’s mother, a wicked witch, a grandmother who has no nickname because she hasn’t earned one and also she would cane me if I ever tried to refer to her in any other way than what she considers appropriate.
