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At one point, she and Donovan had stood at the railing above the entry, watching things being carted in from outdoors. Donovan said this was the most highly anticipated social event Devonshire had seen in years.
“Really,” she said, because she was surprised by this. If she lived here, she’d have balls every other month.
“Really,” Donovan confirmed. “There are country dances and the like, but formal balls? Best you head to London for that, and even there, you’d not find more than one or two as grand as this. Beck has spared no expense.”
She supposed she better enjoy it, then.
They watched floor candelabras being carried in by a procession of workmen, all turning left, marching down the long hall to the ballroom. There was an abundance of oil lamps throughout Iddesleigh House, but Blythe had said she wanted the ambiance of a formal ball, which meant elaborate gold-plated candelabras.
All the preparation made Amelia slightly anxious. That it did surprised her—she loved to attend balls and soirees. In Wesloria, she would be greeted with the smiling faces of people who had watched her grow up in the public eye, or people who had been aligned with her family for generations. She had the attention of throngs of people who had everything to gain by knowing her.
But in the month she’d been in England, the reception had been decidedly cooler.
The other difference was that in St. Edys, the extravagance of the balls she attended was a matter of course. Here, it was all just for her. She felt a little squeamish about that.
Lila had told her not to think of it, that Beck and Blythe were happy to entertain in this fashion. And that her sister the queen had seen to it that funds were approved for this sort of thing.
This sort of thing.Meaning, the marriage mart of a royal princess who had failed to make an appropriate match in her own country.
Nevertheless, despite her rare case of nerves, there was nothing Amelia liked more than the attention of gentlemen at a ball.
When it came time to dress, Mathilda, Maren, and Maisie snuck into her suite of rooms and marveled at her gown, which hung on a dress form near the window. On the dresser, Lordonna had placed all the jewelry and accoutrements befitting a royal princess.
Amelia would wear a dark green riband diagonally across her chest. It had long been the custom of Weslorians to wear a patch of green somewhere on their person as a symbol of national pride. A collar tip, a ribbon on a sleeve, or even sewn into a hem. For the royal family, the symbol of national pride was often worn in ribands. It would be anchored at her waist with the blue silk royal family order badge, the center of which was a portrait of her father, King Maksim. She would wear another royal order badge at her shoulder with Justine’s likeness, and on her sleeve, the gold and diamond star with the slender green ribbon that represented the Order of the Lion, which her sister had bestowed on her shortly after assuming the throne.
The gold ruby-encrusted tiara she would wear had belonged to her great-great-grandmother and had been worn by Amelia’s mother on the occasion of her engagement to Amelia’s father.
The girls took turns placing the tiara on their heads and parading before the full-length mirror. Amelia could feel tension radiating from Lordonna as they did—she treated the jewels as if they were her children. Even the young maid in the room who had been sent to help Lordonna kept lurching toward the girls, as if she expected them to break it.
The jewels were thankfully rescued with a knock on her door. It was Donovan, come to fetch the girls.
“But where are we going?” Mathilda pouted. “I want to stay here.” She had the riband wrapped around her neck like a neck cloth.
“I should think you are to be dressed for the ball, lass,” Donovan said.
Mathilda perked up. “Mama said we weren’t allowed to attend.”
“Did she? Then I suppose it was a lucky thing that I spoke with her and convinced her you should be able to attend for the first hour so that you might see Her Royal Highness’s entrance before you were carted off to bed.”
Mathilda gasped. She turned a wide-eyed look to her sisters. It wasn’t apparent that either Maren or Maisie understood what Donovan had just said, but they gasped, too. Donovan pushed the door open. “Mrs. Hughes is waiting for you.”
Mathilda yanked the riband from her neck and let it flutter from her fingers onto the chaise as she dashed out of the room. Her sisters were close behind. Amelia could hear Mathilda loudly inform Maisie that she must wear the white dress and not the blue, that white was for formal occasions and blue was for picnics.
Donovan shut the door behind them and smiled at the ladies in the room. “The lassies, they are a handful, aye?”
Lordonna visibly relaxed. And the maid went back to ironing Amelia’s pink petticoat.
Donovan pushed away from the door and walked to the vanity where Lordonna was putting up Amelia’s hair. Amelia was no longer shocked by Donovan’s free rein of Iddesleigh House. He was welcomed in all corners, from the kitchens to the attic. The man didn’t know a stranger.
He paused beside Amelia and gestured at the streak of white in her hair. “I was acquainted with a man once who had a patch of white much like yours.”
“Were you? I’ve only known the Ivanosen family to carry this trait. My sister, my father, his father...all of us with a patch of hair that won’t take color. On my sister, it was noticeable because her hair is dark. And on my father, there was a circle of white, just here,” she said, pointing to her temple. “When I was young, it always looked to me as if someone had hit the king with a snowball.”
Donovan chuckled. “It’s hardly noticeable in hair as fair as yours, is it? But it ought to be—it is clearly the mark of royalty.” He leaned over and peered down at her vanity where Lordonna had arranged diamond-encrusted pins and pink satin ribbons. There was a bit of thin gold filigree wire that she would use to hold up some of the curls at the back of Amelia’s head. “May I?” Donovan asked, pointing to the wire.
“Please.”
He picked up the bit of filigree and examined it. “Madam, if you will allow,” he said to Lordonna, and put out his hand for the comb. Lordonna handed it to him.
