Chapter 5: Poppy's Red Ribbon On The Marble Floor
The service corridor smelled of wet wool, bleach, and the sharp metal tang of the broken plates still clinging to my memory. I sat on the narrow bench outside the laundry room with Poppy pressed against my side, her damp hair cold against my arm. Water had soaked through my uniform and gathered beneath us in a dark line. Every time I shifted, the fabric pulled against my skin.
Poppy's red ribbon had come loose during the move from the foyer. It lay on the marble near the threshold, one end flattened beneath a shoe mark, the bright color startling against the pale stone.
I reached for it before anyone else could step on it.
The knot had been torn open. One ribbon tail was frayed, and a small smear of gray water darkened the middle. I rubbed it between my fingers, then retied it around the hair at Poppy's temple. My hands were unsteady, but the knot held.
Poppy watched me without speaking. Her stained white apron had a jagged tear near the pocket. One of the little things she kept there—a wooden button she carried for luck—was gone.
I searched the floor beneath the bench, moving broken threads and dust aside with two fingers. The laundry room door stood open behind us, and beyond it the service rooms seemed smaller than they had that morning. They were still part of the manor, but nothing in them felt secure now. Not the bench. Not the dry blanket someone had left around Poppy's shoulders. Not the room where I slept when the household allowed it.
Evander stopped at the end of the corridor.
He held the yellowed envelope in one hand. Its edges had curled from the damp, but he had kept it away from the water. His black suit looked untouched by the scene in the foyer, though his open collar and rigid shoulders told me he had not recovered from it. His eyes moved first to Poppy, then to the ribbon in my hand.
When Poppy looked up, the corridor light caught her gray-green eyes.
Evander went still.
It was not recognition. I would not give that word to the moment. It was only a pause, brief enough for him to hide, but not brief enough for me to miss. His gaze stayed on her face, on the angle of her eyes, on something that belonged to him or might have belonged to anyone.
I tucked the ribbon beneath the fold of her hair and kept my body between them.
Evander lifted the envelope slightly, as if its presence explained why he had come. It did not explain why he had followed us, or why he had not handed it to someone else. He looked at Poppy again.
I put one hand over her shoulder.
Poppy leaned into me.
The silence tightened until footsteps sounded from the far passage. Cambria appeared without hurry, champagne-gold satin bright against the service corridor's dull walls. Her hair remained perfectly arranged. A faint bead of water rested on one sleeve, the only visible trace of what she had done.
She did not come close. She did not need to. Her presence traveled ahead of her, carrying the authority of every locked door and polished room in the manor.
Her gaze settled on Poppy's torn apron, then on the red ribbon I had just repaired. The corner of her mouth moved, not quite a smile.
A folded cloth rested over her arm. It was dry, white, and useless.
Evander turned toward her. His hand closed around the envelope.
Cambria looked past him to the corridor leading toward the rear entrance, where servants could be sent out without crossing the foyer. Poppy followed her glance. Her fingers caught in the fabric of my soaked uniform.
I pulled her closer.
Evander stepped between Cambria and the passage.
He did not touch Poppy. He did not touch me. He only occupied the space that would have allowed someone to take us away.
Cambria's expression sharpened. The household could treat Poppy as an inconvenience, a stray child, a witness to be removed before the party resumed. She could make that decision without raising her voice. The manor had enough doors for quiet orders.
Poppy's missing button turned up beneath the bench at last. I found it beside a thin shard of white plate and closed my fist around it.
Evander looked down at my hand, then back at Poppy.
I waited for him to ask where she came from, who her father was, why her eyes matched his. I waited for the envelope to become a weapon against us.
Instead, he moved the envelope inside his jacket and faced the corridor.
May you like
Poppy would not be sent away immediately.
The choice gave us minutes, perhaps less. It did not give me trust. As Evander stood guard over the passage, I kept one hand on Poppy's shoulder and the other closed around the broken button, wondering what price he expected us to pay for remaining where he could see us.
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