Her hair had been down that night. He pushed his fingers through it. It was wild, far too untamed to let it be down during her workday. But that had been perfect for making love to him.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
She truly didn’t have a choice.
“The day of the ball, I’ll help get you ready. And then I’ll position you so that you can enter the ballroom.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
“Sometimes a girl just needs a little help,” she said. “And a few granted wishes.”
Her stomach was tied up in knots. And she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to handle any of this.
But she had to try. She had to have courage.
If he would just recognize her, if he could just know, then maybe all of the feelings that he felt that night would come back up.
And he would feel the same thing that she did.
It was the only hope for her. For him.
And for their baby.
Chapter Four
If only thelead-up to the ball hadn’t been so disastrous.
But the trouble was, invitations were issued to many different families in Basilia, including Birdie’s own.
“Does that mean I’m invited?”
It would take a layer of espionage away from her current plan.
“Of course not,” her stepmother had said. “It is for my family, my daughters.”
“It’s for the household,” Birdie said.
“They won’t be needing you at the palace that day,” her stepmother said.
“Well, I don’t know if they will.”
“You must try to get it off. We’re going to need help getting ready. It’s going to take a team, and we can’t afford a team.”
“This is ridiculous,” Birdie said. “They’re not going to meet the king.”
“Birdie,” her stepmother said. “Even if this isn’t going to get one of them on the throne, that room is going to be filled with rich men. Your stepsisters marrying one of those men will benefit you.”
How? Birdie wasn’t even part of the household enough to be included in this invitation in the eyes of her stepmother. She had stayed, and she had helped take care of them because it had been her father’s dying request. That she not leave them alone. But her stepmother was just so cold and so dismissive. The hints of outright cruelty Birdie sometimes saw in her chilled her to the bone.
She didn’t want to show any difference in her behavior. But she was beginning to plan. Beginning to try to imagine a life where she wasn’t so under her stepmother’s thumb. Of course, the real issue was that she had agreed a long time ago to let her paycheck go into a family account, and then on top of that she would have to find a new place to stay, which on her income would be difficult.
Extricating herself without letting her stepmother know would be difficult. The axe would have to fall all at once, and she was wondering if it even mattered. Because if she succeeded with what she wanted to do the night of the ball…
Still, she did what her stepmother asked and got the night off.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.
“You’ll help me, right? I can’t afford for my stepmother to get wind of anything. She has an invitation to this ball, and she will make my life difficult. If she has any suspicions…”
