The Rat Prince by Bridget Hodder Read Free Book Online Page B

of pearls. Mamma got me the dearest kid gloves with pearl buttons, and sweet slippers that match my dress. What will you be wear—”
    Abruptly, she stopped speaking when she saw the look of stricken realization on my face.
    This whole thing had been just a cruel game of my stepmother’s.
    My spirits plunged as deep as they had risen only moments before. “I haven’t a stitch to my name that isn’t made of burlap,” I said. Soon after Wilhemina had moved into Lancastyr Manor, all my beautiful clothing had somehow disappeared.
    â€œBut surely you may borrow one of Eustacia’s gowns?” Jessamyn said. “She has so many.”
    I shook my head. “Can you imagine what she would say to that? Besides, her frocks wouldn’t fit me. No, dear one,” I said over a sigh. “I’ll stay home. It doesn’t matter.”
    This was untrue, and we both knew it.
    Just then the curtain was pushed aside by a shaky, veined hand, and my father stepped into the nook.
    â€œHello, little ladies,” he said with a vague smile. He wore no wig today, and his gray hair was spiky, as if he’d been running his fingers through it at random. “How nice to hear such pleasant voices coming from the window seat!”
    I stood up. He seemed much like his old self. Perhaps …
    â€œYes, Papa!” I heard my own desperate eagerness and winced inside. “We’re excited about the upcoming ball at the royal palace. May I have a new dress to wear for it?”
    â€œOf course, sweet girl, of course.” He patted my head. “Anything you desire. Did I not already consent to the purchase of several ball gowns? But I suppose you must have something special to dazzle the prince, and have it you shall. Dear me! How extravagant we have become.”
    I turned quickly to Jessamyn, who was watching, wide-eyed. “Did you hear that, Sister? Papa says I may have a gown made up! Will you bear witness in front of my stepmother? Why, what is wrong? Why do you look at me so?”
    â€œRose,” Jessamyn said quietly, “perhaps you are forgetting something.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe ball is tomorrow.”
    A ball gown takes months to make up. The fittings, the assembly and stitching, the refittings, the embellishment, the nips and the tucks, the turnings and hems.
    I clutched at my stomach, glad for once that it was empty.
    â€œYoung lady, are you quite well?” my father asked with courtly politeness. He had forgotten again who I was.
    After a brief struggle, I mastered myself. I dropped a kiss on his withered cheek and smoothed his hair. “Oh, yes, yes. I am excellent, thank you, Papa. And Jessamyn, you’re quite right. Silly me, thinking to have a dress made up in one day. I apologize. Now, if you will excuse me, Papa, Sister…”
    I curtsied to them both, snatched a candle from the window ledge, and ran up to the attic. When I reached my dark room, seared by humiliation and fury and helplessness, I shoved the candle into a crude wooden holder and dropped onto the cot in a hunched position. I felt my shoulders shake, but I would not give my stepmother the victory of making me cry now. I took deep, shuddering breaths, reaching for calm.
    Some moments passed before I realized the thin blanket underneath me felt lumpier and somehow softer than usual. I squinted at it curiously in the low glow of the candle.
    Then I leapt off the cot, amazed.
    Covering the meager bedding was a magnificent gown of costly cloth-of-gold, beside an undergarment of fine white silk, all in the style of the last century. I turned my head and saw there was a fancy farthingale beside the window, and a white neck ruff arranged neatly beside my pillow, as though the long-ago Queen Lizbeth of Nance herself had emerged from the pages of history books, taken off her finery, and left it behind.
    What on earth?
    I cast a wild glance about, hoping to catch a clue as to what this