“Where’s your head tonight?” Tamsin strolled over to me from across the drawing room. She wore a blue dress that looked striking with her reddish hair, though she was still quick to tell us green was her best color.
“I’m worried about my exams,” I lied.
“Are you?” she asked in surprise. “You always seem to go through classes and studying as though it didn’t make any difference to you.”
“I guess the reality of it is catching up with me now.”
She studied my face closely. “I suppose so. Well, go sneak an extra glass of wine when Mistress Masterson’s not looking. Or, if you’re really worried, retake them after you get your score.”
“Retake them?” I’d suggested it to Mira but had never even considered it for myself.
“Sure,” Tamsin said. “I’m going to. I mean, I think I did pretty good, but why not make sure? I can’t leave anything up to chance.”
Her words hit me like a slap in the face. I stared at her for several long moments and then turned my gaze back to the crowded drawing room. Cedric stood near the fire, talking to a wildly gesticulating Mister Bricker, whom I suspected had had multiple glasses of wine. As though sensing me, Cedric glanced up and gave me a small smile before returning to the conversation.
“Adelaide? Are you okay?” Tamsin asked.
I glanced back at her. “Yeah . . . yeah. It’s just, something hit me I hadn’t thought of before.”
“What?” she asked.
“It’s not important.” I mustered a cheerful expression. “Tell me how you think everyone here will rank.”
It was a topic she was more than happy to expound on, seeing as she’d spent a lot of time analyzing our housemates. As she launched into an explanation, I nodded and smiled appropriately, all the while making plans for what I had to do next.
Cedric needed money to get to Westhaven and stay alive. Could my forged painting do it? Yes—if everything fell into place. And if everything didn’t fall into place? Then he needed a backup plan. I’d pondered this all evening, feeling useless. I had no power to give him money. But I realized now that I did have that power. Could I guarantee he’d be able to pay the entire fee for his stake in Westhaven? No, but I could guarantee he’d have a good start.
And the only way to do that was to make sure he did not, in fact, get a mediocre commission for me.
Chapter 9
Cedric left the morning after Midwinter, and the exam results were in a few days later. They arrived with Jasper and Miss Garrison, one of the Glittering Court’s dressmakers. She immediately wanted to start designing our themed wardrobes. Mistress Masterson strode in sedately to the library, where we all waited anxiously in neat, orderly rows. She propped up the framed list on the mantel and then stepped back. There was a moment of hesitation, and then we broke rank to crowd forward and look.
The list showed the scores for all girls across the four manors. I immediately found my name, exactly in the middle, as I’d once hoped. It was a fine score, and scores only helped in the Glittering Court’s promotion in Adoria. A prosperous man entranced by a girl’s looks might not care how she ranked in the exams—but those with the highest scores would have more opportunities to meet said gentlemen.
Mira, standing beside me, let out a small exclamation of delight. I found her name several above mine, in a very respectable seventh across all manors—and one spot higher than Clara. “Can you believe it?” Mira asked. “Maybe I won’t have to clean floors after all.” Around us, the room was buzzing with other girls’ chatter.
I hugged her. “Of course I can believe it. You’ve been so worried about the accent, but you’ve worked so hard in all the other—”
The wail of a familiar voice drew me up short. I immediately spied Tamsin standing on the opposite side of the group, her eyes wide. She turned to Mistress Masterson incredulously. “How am I ranked third? The girls above me have the same score as me!” A quick study of the list showed two girls from other manors in the first and second spots.
“Yes,” Mistress Masterson agreed. “You all tied—it was very impressive. Really, what it came down to is aesthetics.” She nodded toward Miss Garrison. “Winnifred, the first girl, would look so lovely in the diamond coloring. Ruby’s the next most precious stone, and that obviously wouldn’t suit you with your hair. So third, as a sapphire, seemed like—”
“Sapphire?” interrupted Tamsin. “Sapphire? Everyone knows green is my best color. Isn’t an emerald rarer than a sapphire?”
“My green fabric hasn’t arrived yet,” said Miss Garrison. “Isn’t likely to show until about a week before you sail.”
Mistress Masterson nodded. “And the categories are flexible—it’s more of a gemstone range we’re going for. We thought it best just to go forward with sapphire so that she could start on your wardrobe. Otherwise, she’d be working at the last minute.”
Tamsin fixed the seamstress with a sharp eye. “Well, maybe she could just sew a little damned faster.”
“Tamsin!” snapped Mistress Masterson, shifting back to the stern instructor we knew. “You are out of line. You will take sapphire and be grateful that you’re among the top three. And you will watch your language.”
I could tell Tamsin was still upset, but she took a deep breath and visibly calmed before speaking again. “Yes, Mistress Masterson. I apologize. But I can retake the exams I did poorly on, right?”
“Yes, of course. Every girl can. Though, I’ll be honest, with a ninety-nine percent rating, there’s isn’t much else to achieve.”
“Perfection,” replied Tamsin.
Most of the girls were content with their scores. Even the lowest ranked would still be dazzlingly displayed in Adoria, and enduring exams again wasn’t so appealing.
Miss Garrison and her assistants set about measuring everyone and holding fabric swatches to them as other gemstone themes were decided. I approached Mistress Masterson and asked if I could retake the exams.
“Certainly,” she said, looking surprised. As mediocre as I’d always been, this initiative had to be unexpected. She rifled through some papers and produced one that broke down my scores, detailing each area. “Which would you like to retake?”
I barely glanced at the sheet. “All of them.”
“All?” she repeated. “That almost never happens.”
I shrugged by way of answer.
She pointed to a couple of scores. “You performed very well in these areas. I doubt there’s any need.”
“I’d still like to do it.”
She hesitated and gave a curt nod. “It’ll take a bit of scheduling for you to meet with all the instructors, but it’s every girl’s right. Between you and me, in all the time I’ve done this, most girls who retake an exam only go up a few points. Miss Garrison and I currently have you placed as an amethyst, and her purple fabrics are gorgeous. It’s unlikely your score would shift enough to warrant a new theme, and would you really want one?”
“I want to retake them,” I reiterated.
“Very well. But in the meantime, we’ll still have you fitted so Miss Garrison can start on the amethyst wardrobe.”
She was right about the fabrics. Of all the ones Miss Garrison had brought, the amethyst ones were among the most beautiful. She held up swathes of lavender silk and purple velvet, clucking in approval each time.
But an amethyst girl wouldn’t give Cedric the commission he needed.
“You’ve got the coloring to pull off anything,” she remarked. “For some of the other girls, the originally planned palettes aren’t going to work.”
Mira was one such case. They’d decided her theme would be topaz, but after having her try some of the fabrics, it was clear the yellow-brown fabrics just didn’t suit her. “Deep reds are the way to go,” Miss Garrison told Mistress Masterson. The dressmaker’s gaze fell on Clara. “We could switch them—give
Mira garnet.”
Jasper, observing the conversation, nodded in agreement. “It’s a little more of a common stone, so it might be fitting.”
I didn’t have a chance to be affronted by the insult to my friend because Clara’s scowl told me how much the change upset her. That made up for a lot. Afterward, I heard her mutter to Caroline, “I hate yellow. It always makes me look sickly.”
Tamsin was one of the last to complete her fittings, largely because she kept pointing out how unacceptable the blue fabric was. When she finally finished and walked up to our room with us, she muttered, “I can’t wait until the retakes put me at the top. Then they’ll see what a bad choice they made. I’d look just as good in white as green.”
I stumbled on the stairs and had to catch the railing for support. In my plan to retake the exams, I somehow hadn’t considered Tamsin. If I managed to vault myself to the top of the list, where would that put her? Her words rang in my ears: You don’t know what I have on the line.
No, I didn’t. But I knew what Cedric had on the line. His life. No matter how dire, could Tamsin really have anything comparable to that? And was it really dire? Her feelings had seemed genuine the day of the family visit, but I’d seen a lot of theatrics from her in our time together. Was her fixation to be the best just a matter of pride? A yearning for riches?
I had to choose between them. My best friend or . . . who? The man who’d helped save me? No matter where Tamsin placed, she’d have a prosperous future in Adoria. My placement could affect Cedric’s life. There was only one choice I could make.
Content with her scores and theme, Mira was able to relax in the days that followed, spending a lot of time engrossed in her beloved tome of adventures. Tamsin and I, however, endured the stress of retaking our exams as our various instructors scheduled time throughout the week among all the manors. Like Mistress Masterson, Tamsin was baffled that I’d retake all of them.
“Why would you do that?” she asked on our way to the dance exam. “You think things will change? And why would you want them to? Your clothes look great on you. Not like some of us.”
I had to look away, still feeling guilty in spite of my resolve. “I just need to see what I can do.”
Miss Hayworth met with us and Caroline, the only other girl retaking the dance exam, in the ballroom. “Same format as before. We’ll go through every single dance and see if you’ve improved.”
Tamsin had marginally improved in the step that continually gave her trouble. For some reason, the beats tripped her up. Caroline hadn’t improved at all. In fact, she did worse, but luckily, Mistress Masterson would only count the highest of her two scores.
And me? Well, I was something else altogether.
It was hard to say who among the three of them was the most astonished. I executed every dance perfectly on both technical and artistic levels, and it was a relief to finally let my true self show through. I’d spent most of the last year hiding what I could do with the façade I’d created. Now, all the years of instruction and formal parties came back to me, and I actually enjoyed myself.
The other exams had similar results. As before, the written ones allowed me to conceal my answers from my housemates. But in the public tests, all my “new” skills were on display for my peers. Since no other girl was retaking every single exam, no one else really got a full sense of how well I did in each subject.
That all changed when the results came in the following week.
There was no posted list this time, simply a meeting called by Mistress Masterson in the drawing room. We lined up in our rows. Jasper Thorn was with her again, and both of them wore expressions that weren’t grave so much as . . . perplexed. Just as she was about to speak, Cedric came hurrying in. I’d neither seen nor heard from him in the last couple of weeks, leaving me to wonder what his plans were for our painting project.
I saw him murmur what looked like an apology as he took his place beside his father. Jasper said nothing, maintaining that pleasant cover he always had in public with his son.
Mistress Masterson nodded a greeting to him and then turned to address us. “I know some of you have been waiting for your retake results, so you’ll be pleased they’re in. Most of you showed improvement—for which I’m particularly proud. But there was nothing significant enough to warrant a change in rank or theme.” She paused. “With one exception.”
Beside me, Tamsin straightened up, lifting her chin proudly. I could feel her trembling with excitement as she awaited the news that she’d trumped the two girls who’d beat her on the list.
“Adelaide,” said Mistress Masterson, her gaze falling heavily on me. “The improvement you showed is . . . remarkable, to put it mildly. I’ve never, ever seen a girl make such a leap in scores. And . . . I’ve never seen a girl get a perfect overall score.” She let those words sink in, and I felt the eyes of everyone in the room upon me. Tamsin’s were widest of all. “We rarely have theme changes based on retakes, though of course it happens. And in this case, it’s absolutely warranted.”
Jasper stepped forward, taking the lead from her. He was as ostensibly cheerful as ever, but somehow, I didn’t think he was overly thrilled about the turn of events. “Adelaide, my dear, you’ve replaced Winnifred from Dunford Manor as our diamond. Everyone else who scored above your last result will move down a notch. All girls will still keep their gemstone themes, with a few exceptions.”
“As Master Thorn said, you’ll have diamond,” Mistress Masterson explained. “You and Winnifred are of similar size, and Miss Garrison should have little difficulty fitting you into her clothes. Since her score was so high, it’d hardly seem fair to assign her a semiprecious stone like the amethyst. We think she’ll show best as a sapphire, and we’ve done a couple of other last-minute switches—which means, Tamsin, you can be an emerald after all. Miss Garrison expects the green fabric to arrive next week, and she and her assistants will work around the clock to make sure you’re properly outfitted.”
Tamsin still looked dumbstruck, like Mistress Masterson was speaking a different language. “But . . . if the ranks shifted, then that means . . . I’m fourth.”
“Yes.”
It was a rare moment of Tamsin being stunned into silence, and I felt a lump in my throat. Jasper, seeing her dismay, gave her a stiff smile. “You’ll dazzle them as an emerald. Even if you aren’t invited to all the elite parties, I know you’ll be in high demand. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of all my girls—though it looks like my son managed to find the top jewel this season.” Jasper didn’t sound particularly proud of that. The top three had previously been all his acquisitions.
With the sudden dramatic turn of events, I’d nearly forgotten Cedric was here. I looked at him now and saw that he was quite possibly the most shocked person in the room. He couldn’t even fake a smile.
Jasper gave a few more encouraging words for the whole group, telling us how excited he was to take us to Adoria next week. He had significant trade to do and had chartered two ships for the journey. We’d be traveling with the girls from Guthshire Manor. Swan Ridge and Dunford would be in the other ship.
When we were dismissed, a flurry of excitement broke out, and I was immediately swarmed by girls wanting to know how I’d achieved such a feat. It was a relief when Mistress Masterson pulled me away to discuss a few logistics.
“It really is remarkable,” she told me in the privacy of the study. “Master Jasper wondered if there might be some deceit involved, but I told him if you’d found a way to cheat in playing the harp or dancing the Lorandian two-step, then that itself deserved some sort of reward. Remarkable.”
I swallowed. “I guess I just learned more than I realized. A lot of lessons from when I was a lady’s maid came back to me.”
“Well, we’ll all work hard to get these initial bumps fixed. I think it should come together fairly easily. The diamond attire is all white and silver, whi
ch will look nice on you as well. You’ll have to set aside some extra time for Miss Garrison to alter the clothes for you this week.”
“It’s no problem,” I said, still stunned at just how well my plan had worked. “Let me know what you need from me.”
Cedric appeared in the doorway, his earlier shock now covered by a jovial grin. “Mistress Masterson, do you mind if I borrow Adelaide when you’re done? I know this change must be a little daunting, and I just wanted to give her some encouragement.”
Mistress Masterson beamed. “Yes, of course. We’re all set.”
Winter still held its grip, but the sun had come out enough to make the day pleasant. Cedric suggested we go for a walk to enjoy the weather, but I suspected he just wanted to ensure we weren’t overheard. I felt small relief that he led us to a grove of hawthorn, rather than the old forest where he’d held the Midwinter ritual.
“What,” he demanded, “have you done? Are you completely out of your mind?”
“I’ve saved you, that’s what I’ve done!” I’d expected surprise but was a little taken aback by his vehemence.
He raked a hand through his hair, messing up where it had been neatly tied in the back. “You weren’t supposed to attract attention. I told you that on the first day! Didn’t you hear Mistress Masterson? No one does this. No one makes a score change that vast. No one gets a perfect score! No one.”
“I—”
“Do you think everyone’s just going to marvel about this?” he continued, pacing around. “Do you think they’ll all just chuckle and shake their heads? Someone’s going to ask questions! Someone’s going to wonder how a lady’s maid from a countess’s house performed so perfectly after months of average behavior! Someone’s going to make the connection that maybe that maid isn’t actually a maid!”
I strode up to him, hands on my hips. “So what if they do? Better I’m caught as a runaway noble than you outed as a heretic! Besides, in a couple of weeks, we’ll be on our way to Adoria. None of this will matter.”