Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses) Read online

  Not yet, anyway.

  “What’s she doing?” Simon’s voice was hushed.

  “What now?”

  Oliver leaned in close to his brother, peering over the edge of the platform. The girl had gotten off the coach and was saying something. Her people didn’t look pleased, but she turned her back on them and went into the woods anyway.

  “What is she doing?” Simon asked again. “Is she mad?”

  As the girl stepped behind a large clump of juniper and flipped her heavy cloak up around her shoulders, Oliver felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He knew exactly what the girl was doing. He clapped a hand over Simon’s eyes.

  “Hey!”

  “Shush, you,” Oliver hissed.

  “Get off!” Simon tried to pry off his brother’s hand.

  “You don’t need to watch her … taking a …” He suddenly couldn’t think of a polite way to say it.

  Simon went still, but he started laughing, and not quietly. “Are you serious? I guess sometimes even the high and mighty have to pee in the bushes!”

  “Simon, be quiet!”

  Oliver had been trying not to watch, but now he checked to make sure that the girl couldn’t hear them. He regretted taking Simon with them. The boy was barely fourteen and completely incapable of staying quiet for more than a pair of minutes. Oliver had started robbing coaches under the guidance of Karl and his father’s other men when he was twelve, but their mother had coddled Simon.

  The girl was looking around, but it wasn’t stopping her from doing … what it was she needed to do. Oliver quickly looked away.

  When he peeked again, she was gone. He let go of Simon’s face.

  “I’m not five; you don’t have to cover my eyes like that,” Simon griped.

  Oliver couldn’t see the girl anywhere. She hadn’t gone back to the coach. The other guards were busy splinting the injured man’s arm, but Oliver could see that the maid was watching the underbrush nervously, beginning to worry about her charge.

  “Where did she go?” Simon strained the upper half of his body over the edge of the platform. “Uh-oh,” he began, and then he fell.

  “Simon!”

  Oliver grabbed the edge of the platform and leaned over to see where his brother had fallen. Simon had landed badly and was clutching one ankle and moaning. Standing over him, holding a pistol, was the girl. The gleaming blackness of her hair and pistol made a dramatic picture with her red cloak, Oliver noted. Then he drew his own weapon and leaped lightly down to her side.

  “Give me the pistol, Your Ladyship,” he said coolly, holding out his free hand.

  “Why should I?”

  She had courage, Oliver would give her that. Her voice didn’t waver at all, and she barely flinched when he cocked his pistol in her ear.

  “Because one of us is a dangerous criminal, and one of us is not,” Oliver said, praying silently that she would give in. “And which do you think is more likely to shoot?”

  With a sigh, the girl released the hammer of her pistol and handed it to Oliver, who stuck it in his belt. He tried not to show his relief, and heartily wished that he and Simon were still wearing their masks.

  “I’ve faced worse than you,” she announced.

  “I’m sure you have,” Oliver said, startled. She certainly didn’t seem afraid of him, which he found flattering and insulting at the same time.

  “Oliver, my ankle is broken,” Simon whimpered.

  “Your name is Oliver?” The princess raised her eyebrows. “Not a very wolfish name.”

  Oliver felt ice sliding through his gut. She had seen their faces and now she knew his name. He was holding a gun to her head, Simon was starting to cry from pain, and he could hear the voice of her coachman, who was starting to wonder where she had gone. This was not how his day was supposed to go.

  “Move,” he said. He pointed with the gun toward the deer path that led back to the old hall. “Now.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  It had clearly never occurred to her that he would abduct her. That made two of them. Three, actually: Simon had stopped crying and looked equally flabbergasted.

  Oliver already regretted it, but he didn’t know what else to do. Let her go? And then what? They couldn’t move very fast, not if Simon’s ankle really was broken. She would have ample time to summon her coachman and the uninjured guards. Oliver could not afford to be captured. Too many people were relying on him.

  “Go,” he snarled.

  The girl went, stumbling a little over a tree root before she reached the path. When she was a few paces ahead, Oliver stooped down and grabbed Simon’s elbow with his free hand, pulling his brother upright. He got Simon’s arm around his shoulders, and they hobbled after the girl.

  They were safely concealed by trees before the maid and the coachman started to look for their charge in earnest, much to Oliver’s relief. Oliver could hear them crashing around in the bushes behind them, but he had Simon and the girl well on their way. Once they got across the stream their tracks would be lost as well.

  It was slowgoing with Simon injured and having to keep the pistol in one hand, threatening the girl. And with every step Oliver knew that he had done something terribly wrong. Robbing coaches that looked like they could spare the gold was vastly different from kidnapping. And how old was she? She seemed very confident, and he had to admit she was quick with her pistol, but the top of her head probably wouldn’t reach to his collarbone.

  “I’m going to hang,” Oliver muttered under his breath.

  “What?” Simon gasped. His face was gray and sweaty.

  When they came to the stream, Oliver stepped down into the water so that Simon could use the bank to climb onto his brother’s back. Now Oliver had both hands free, but Simon had his arms wrapped around Oliver’s neck strangle-tight. Standing on the bank next to them, the girl gave Simon a concerned look.

  “He doesn’t look very good,” she said.

  “I know,” Oliver snapped.

  “Well, why don’t you let me go so that you can find help for him faster?”

  “No,” Oliver said. He waved the gun at her. “Wade across. Go on.”

  “No, thank you,” she said primly. “I don’t want to get my shoes wet.”

  Oliver was about to argue with her, but she crossed the stream in one fantastic leap. On the far side, she adjusted her cloak and waited for him with arched brows as he trudged across through the water and up the other bank, panting already from Simon’s weight on his back.

  “That was amazing,” Simon mumbled. “Not you, Oliver. Her.”

  “It wasn’t that far,” she said, dismissive. “Listen, I could still find my own way back to the road. I won’t tell anyone your names.”

  “Don’t know my name,” Simon said. “It’s Simon, though.” He sounded like he was becoming feverish.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Simon,” the girl said. “I’m Petunia.”

  “Petunia?” Oliver snorted. “Like the flower?”

  The look she gave him made him wish he’d kept better control of his face, but really: Petunia? He’d thought she was going to say something simple, but pretty, like Anna or Emilia. Of course, Queen Maude and King Gregor had long ago set the fashion for flower names by giving all twelve of the princesses awful names like Campanula and Tulip.

  He was starting to feel uneasy about how close her connections at court might be. If her father had the ear of the king, no matter how lowly an earl he was, Oliver was in very grave trouble. And that meant that his family and everyone under his care was in trouble as well.

  “It’s not much farther,” Oliver grunted.

  There was a birdcall, and then another, and Oliver knew that sentries had spotted them. He’d taken only a few more paces when Karl came striding along the path. The big man gave Petunia only a cursory look before lifting Simon off Oliver’s back. He pushed past Oliver and Petunia to hurry off with the injured boy.

  The path twisted, and they were at the walls of the old
hall. The gate was to the right, but it seemed like too much effort to Oliver, though he usually set an example by using it. Instead, he took the girl’s elbow and steered her through one of the many large breaks in the wall, over the broken stones that had been purposefully left scattered about, half-covered by grass.

  “Where are we?” Petunia asked. “Is this your … oh.”

  To their left was the hall, artfully propped up from the inside to preserve its derelict appearance. All around them were cooking fires and women carrying baskets of laundry or bread. The bellows were going in the smithy, and near the hall doors was a group of children reciting their lessons with a smiling teacher.

  “What is this place?” Petunia’s voice was hushed.

  Oliver didn’t answer. The less she knew, the safer his people would be … or was it naive to assume that they could go on living here, now that she had seen them? Part of him, however, wanted to boast, or make a sarcastic remark, welcoming her to his fine country estate.

  He opened his mouth to do so, when his mother came out of the hall and headed toward them with an expression on her face that made Oliver feel all of six years old. He stepped a little behind Petunia and almost dropped his pistol trying to holster it.

  His mother was brought up short when she got a good look at the girl. Her face went deadly white, and she swayed a little where she stood.

  “Mother?” Oliver let go of Petunia’s arm and hurried toward her.

  “Maude?” His mother’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “No,” the girl said. Her voice was quiet and her face looked strained. “I’m Petunia. But I understand that I look a great deal like my mother.”

  “Your mother’s name is Maude?” Oliver felt like the ground had just dropped out from under his feet.

  “Yes,” Petunia said, throwing back her hood. “Queen Maude of Westfalin.”

  “Your Highness,” Oliver’s mother said respectfully, giving a small curtsy. “Welcome to our humble home. I am the Dowager Countess Emily Ellsworth-Saxony. I came from Breton with your mother when we were just girls.” She gave Petunia a faint smile, but then her eyes hardened and she turned to Oliver.

  “Now please explain what the princess is doing here, Oliver.”

  “She’s here to visit our lowly earldom, Mother,” Oliver said, and he knew with great certainty that if his mother didn’t kill him, King Gregor would. His fate was sealed.

  He started to laugh.

  Kidnapped

  Petunia promised herself that she would not panic. She would behave at all times in a manner befitting a princess. No matter how difficult it became.

  At least she’d been left alone for a bit. Admittedly, it was in a room that belonged to that young man … who, it seemed, was an earl … who had kidnapped her. While the earl’s mother scolded him for the kidnapping, a smiling woman in a patched but clean gown had taken Petunia into the hall to rest. As though she would curl up on a strange man’s bed!

  Instead she paced. The ornate bed filled most of the little room, but it still felt good to move. She had been frightened, when Oliver had first abducted her, that he was going to … er, ruin her, as Maria would say. She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she knew it was a terrible thing that was only talked about in whispers. But with his mother here, she thought she was fairly safe. Now she just had to convince them to let her go.

  She checked the little watch pinned to her bodice and sighed. She should have arrived at the Volenskaya estate by now. The grand duchess would be concerned, and her grandson, the handsome Prince Grigori … Petunia suppressed a delicious little shiver. Prince Grigori would be beside himself with worry, she was sure. He had probably waited at the gates for her, and when she hadn’t arrived … would he dare search for her in the darkness? He was a fearless huntsman—she was sure that he would.

  She decided that she was in no real danger, now that she was under the protection of one of her mother’s oldest friends. Not that she remembered Lady Emily. Maude had brought several ladies-in-waiting with her from Breton, most of whom had returned to Breton when Maude died. Petunia had been just two years old at the time. A few of the ladies had married Westfalian nobles and stayed behind, like this countess, and one had become the princesses’ governess. Trapped in the bandit earl’s bedchamber for the time being, Petunia had ample time to wonder just what had happened to this particular lady-in-waiting.

  This hall, of a design that had not been in fashion for a good five hundred years, looked like a strong wind would blow it over from the outside, but within, the masonry was freshly repaired. The stairs to the upper gallery were only a few years old at most. The main doors were hanging askew, but from the inside she had seen that they were actually propped in place with thick beams. There was an entire village’s worth of people outside, going about their business as if this was just an ordinary day. She supposed that it was, for them. But if Oliver was an earl, why was he robbing coaches as one of the notorious Wolves of the Westfalian Woods? And why were all his people hiding here in this carefully maintained squalor?

  The room was a bit stuffy, so Petunia took off her cloak. She carefully smoothed its folds across the foot of the bed. Jonquil had been jealous when she’d seen it, especially after Petunia had embroidered the hood with silver bullion her godfather had given her. But the one perk of being the shortest was that Petunia never had to share her clothes. That was also how she had gotten a whole cloak out of Rose’s old gown. Of course, that was also the drawback of being both the shortest and the youngest: she rarely got anything new. It was much more economical to just cut off the frayed hems of someone else’s gowns.

  Still, her height (or lack thereof) made her look more like her mother than any of the other girls did, and Iris griped that it had made her Father’s favorite, which Petunia didn’t mind at all. She was the only one of the sisters allowed to cut flowers from the special hothouses, and she was even working with her father and Reiner Orm, the head gardener, to develop a new strain of rose, which she planned on calling Maude’s Sunrise. The flowers would have a blush pink center but be true yellow at the edges of their petals.

  There was knock on the door.

  “Enter,” Petunia said, pushing at her hair to make sure all her pins were still in place.

  “Hello, my dear,” said the countess. Delicious smells wafted from a covered tray that she was carrying. “Are you hungry?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” Petunia said, trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice. She hoped that the countess wouldn’t hear her stomach growling as her nose caught the aromas of chicken soup and fresh bread.

  Petunia pulled over one of the room’s two chairs and began to eat without hesitation. The countess sat in the other chair, hands neatly folded.

  “I’m sure you’ve had quite the taxing day,” the older woman said.

  Petunia gave her a wry look rather than answering. The soup was excellent, and the little round loaf of bread was so fresh it steamed when she pulled it apart.

  “I don’t know why Oliver did what he did—” the countess began.

  “Do you mean robbing my coach or abducting me?” Petunia did not bother to keep the tartness out of her voice. “The Wolves of the Westfalian Woods have been harassing travelers for several years now, growing bolder by the season. Surely this is not a fit pastime for an earl?”

  “It isn’t some hobby that my son has taken a fancy to,” the countess replied, equally tart. “I’m afraid that we have had little choice.”

  “How do you not have a choice?” Petunia put down her spoon. “It’s not like an earl has to steal to make his living. He should have farms to provide income, and …”

  But the countess was shaking her head. “Do you know the name of this earldom?”

  “Er. No,” Petunia said after a moment’s thought.

  “Saxeborg-Rohlstein.”

  Petunia frowned. Their governess had insisted that the princesses memorize the names of all of the duchies and earldoms in
Westfalin, yet Saxeborg-Rohlstein didn’t sound at all familiar.

  “I would be surprised if you knew it,” the countess said, reading Petunia’s baffled expression correctly. “It ceased to exist when you were … five? Six at the oldest.”

  “How does an earldom cease to exist?”

  “We won the war with Analousia,” the countess said, and now Petunia was even more confused. The countess sounded almost angry about the Westfalian victory.

  The twelve-year-long war with Analousia had been one of the bloodiest episodes in Ionian history. Queen Maude had made her second pact with the King Under Stone in order to bring about the end of the war, which the sisters suspected had been engineered by the King Under Stone in order to bring Maude more securely into his power. And though the cost of the war had been awful, with great loss of life and wealth on both sides, Westfalin had prevailed in the end, which should have delighted the dowager countess.

  But clearly it did not.

  “When the boundary between Westfalin and Analousia was redrawn as part of the treaty,” the dowager countess went on, “my husband’s earldom was cut in half, and the pieces were given away. Half stayed in Westfalin, the other half is now in Analousia.” She took a piece of the bread, toying with it as she stared into the distance. “The earldom was small and almost entirely forest. And there was no one to remind Gregor that it even existed. My husband was killed in one of the final battles, when Oliver was only seven years old. We didn’t even realize that the boundary had changed until some of our men were arrested for poaching in what had just become the King of Analousia’s forest. I suppose he doesn’t mind us living here in the old hall, as long as we don’t kill any deer.”

  Petunia set down the cup of milk, slopping it over her hand. “We’re in Analousia?”

  “That’s right,” the dowager countess told her. “The highway is now the boundary of the two countries, whereas it used to be solidly in Westfalin. The estate that was my husband’s seat is still in Westfalin but was given to a duke as a reward after the war. I assume that Gregor thought our entire family had been wiped out, and by the time I was able to take Oliver to Bruch to petition for its restoration, it was too late.”