Chapter 11: The Locked Kit

Father's footman was waiting in the gallery before I'd finished my buttons.

"Sir Oswin wants you, miss. In his rooms. Now."

Blanche took a step after me.

"Just her, miss," said the footman.

Father had been given a suite on the river side, all gilt mirrors and a bed.

The King's silver caddy stood open on his writing table.

My tea kit stood beside it.

He'd had it carried down from my room.

He didn't turn around when I came in.

He was looking at himself in the mirror over the mantel, straightening his watch chain.

"Four mornings," he said. "Four mornings you've been in the King's tea."

"Somebody had to be."

"I know your blend, Elinor. I'd know it in the dark. I taught you."

"You didn't teach me anything. The old blender did. You put me in the back room so I'd stop being underfoot."

He turned around.

He crossed the carpet in three steps and hit me across the face with his open hand.

His rings caught my lip.

I tasted blood, copper and salt, and for one stupid second all I could think was that it tasted like his tea.

"You stupid, ungrateful girl," he said, quite softly. "I bought you a prince."

I put my fingers to my mouth. They came away red.

"You bought yourself a barony," I said. "With the King's stomach."

His face went a dark, dull color.

He picked up my tea kit, the box my mother gave me, and shut it in his traveling chest at the foot of the bed.

He locked it.

Then he slipped the key onto his watch chain, beside the seals, and patted it.

"Five days," he said. "Five days and you're the Prime Minister's wife, and he can keep you out of kitchens."

He tapped the key on his chain.

"Until then you don't blend. You don't go below stairs. If you touch one leaf, Blanche pays for it."

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