Their Hidden Princess novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: Founders' Night

I made it down the tower stairs before my legs gave out.

I sat on the bottom step with my head on my knees.

The King has a weak heart. I doubt he'll hear much of anything by spring.

Two days.

Maudie found me there an hour later.

"You look like you've been chewed," she said. "Was he vile?"

"Very."

"Good. Then you've earned a dress."

She dragged me up to our room and pulled a green gown out of her trunk.

It had been her mother's. The hem was let down and the seams were let out and every stitch was perfect.

"Founders' Night is the one night we don't wear the tie," she said. "Arms up."

"Maudie, I can't wear your mother's dress."

"You can, because I can't. I look like a cabbage in green." She yanked it over my head. "You look like a duchess. Don't argue with the seamstress."

She pinned up my hair with her own pins.

I left my mother's moonstone in the sock.

The great hall had lanterns strung across the rafters and a fiddle band on the high table where Varrick usually sat.

Varrick wasn't there.

Everyone breathed easier for it.

Lysander was waiting by the door in a blue coat with silver buttons.

He saw me and stopped talking in the middle of a sentence.

"Well," he said. "That's not fair."

"What isn't?"

"I planned to be the best-looking person here."

He held out his hand.

He was a wonderful dancer.

I'd danced with every lord's son at court, behind a veil, and none of them had moved like this.

He led, quick and light, and he never let me miss a step.

"You've done this before," he said.

"In the Fenmarch. With frogs."

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