Page 14 of Wickedly Ever After
“But, my lady—”
“Ida. It’s always been Ida. Now excuse me, I have a witch to burn.” Hector’s letter galled her. How dare he write and accuseher of deliberately trying to get him killed? If she’d wanted him dead, she wouldn’t send something like a laughing charm. It was a joke!
Hari brought her a bowl of watercress soup and a beef sandwich for dinner at ten. But he wasn’t his usual self—he tiptoed around the room, hanging up the dress and putting away the gloves that had been set out in the hopes she’d change her mind.
“Are you sure you won’t go down?” he asked, picking up her shoes. “You wouldn’t need to stay long—just make a showing?”
“No! I’m tired, and it’s almost over anyway. I hope they are all leaving right away. I’ve no desire to watch people weep into their tea at breakfast.”
Hari snorted. “Oh, yeah? After this afternoon, I rather thought you enjoyed watching people weep.”
Ida set her sandwich down. “All right. Out with it, Hari.”
He squared up to her, shoulders back. “Out with what? Do you need anything else, my lady?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you don’t say it now, I’ll have to hear it later, won’t I? You might as well speak—I’m not going to bite your head off.”
“I don’t know that you wouldn’t,” he said. “It’s not like you to snap at the cook, and my mother is downstairs crying. You did it in front of the whole kitchen too.”
Unwelcome remorse bubbled up. “I suppose…I suppose I was a bit sharp.”
“I’m not saying you weren’t right—at least about the frosted heart attack—but you’ve never told the man you didn’t like his cake. Instead, you tell me to feed it to the pigs so you won’t hurt his feelings. And my mother was only trying to make sure things went right—the girl you chose, Amber? She wouldn’t wear thedress they brought for her. Told the hairdresser to ‘get lost’ and given how dutiful our sprite is, she might be wandering around the castle crying because she can’t find her room. Just what was in that letter?”
She huffed. “Mostly Hector’s raw ass crack. He’s mad about the laughing charm.”
“That’s not what I meant. When you opened it, your whole face changed, like a spell had come over you. You looked…devastated.” He sat on the footstool next to her and took her hand in both of his tiny ones. “What’s wrong, Ida?”
She burst into tears. “I don’t…I don’t know! When you’ve known a man for so many years, even someone as awful as Hector, you expect to keep on knowing them. When he said he didn’t want to even hear from me anymore, I felt like someone died. I know that sounds stupid.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” Hari said, stroking her hand.
“I don’t like the man. I’ve never liked the man. But I respected the witch, and it was nice to know he’d always be there, at least until he retired, and maybe I’d hex his cabbages to glow pink so he’d remember me. I guess I thought he…”
She stopped. Hari was right. Something was wrong. She shouldn’t be this open with anyone, even Hari, even after two glasses of wine. She always concealed her emotions from her staff, the way a witch should.
Hector.Her lips tightened. “Did the trolls take out the trash yet?”
Hari pulled the letter out of his pocket, still wadded up like a snowball, carefully wrapped in a protective layer of wax paper.
“You didn’t touch it?”
“Picked it up with a fork,” he said.
She dumped it out on her dressing table with care. The paper had been plain and gray. Now it had turned dark and smoky, inked with blood.
Ida donned a white kid glove and flattened out the paper.
One ill turn deserves another.
“Hari,” she asked hesitantly, “did I tell you exactly how I felt about you too?”
He smiled. “Nothing I don’t already know. You think I’m artistic, funny, and very gay. You consider me a friend as much as a manservant. You’re thinking about promoting me to steward, but you haven’t done it yet because you worry you wouldn’t get to be friends with me anymore. You think I have a green thumb with the roses, but it’s the chicken shit, not me. And you wish I’d settle down with a nice man and have a family, but I only know that because my mother said you told her.”
Ida palmed her face. A candor curse! That irresponsible, foolish, deplorable, ancient, old…witch! He knew the princesses were coming today. He knew how much she detested the event. He’d heard her go on about it during Council meetings . Oh, Gods. She’d elected the wrong girl! Mildred was probably halfway home by now, she’d sob to her daddy, he’d go to the board, and they’d go to the Witches’ Council…
Of course, she could possibly get around that by telling Hector what had happened, how she’d simply gotten tired of the whole thing and decided to throw caution to the wind and let the magic choose, but that would involve telling him and the other witches that for years the committee had made the choice. Then they’d want to know why she’d done something so reckless as asking the magic itself to choose without telling the Council first, her letter to Hector would come up, and then…
She bit her lip.
