Ever Alice by H.J. Ramsay

Author:H.J. Ramsay [Ramsay, H.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 29

Alice

House of Hearts, Wonderland

Periwinkle 51, Year of the Queen

The next day, Alice dawdled in the queen’s room feeling as discarded as an old toy.

The prince hadn’t asked her to dance last night, like he said he would, and she stayed in the corner, watching him twirl Marilyn Montague across the floor. Sabrina tried to cheer her up by saying Marilyn probably didn’t even know how to write her own name, but Alice doubted that would have mattered to the prince anyhow.

Alice supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything more. She didn’t even know why the prince had asked her to dance in the first place. Perhaps he was being polite. She was his mum’s lady’s maid and new to the House of Hearts. No doubt he was doing his duty by feigning interest when he didn’t a bit.

The sun shone in through the window. She could see the garden and the hedges of rose bushes. She sighed. It was a lovely day, but what she wanted was to lie in bed and nurse her hurt feelings.

“For you, traitor.” Mary Anne shoved an envelope under Alice’s nose. “Oops. I meant my lady.”

She gazed up at Mary Anne, who glowered above her.

“Mary Anne,” Alice said, breathing hard, “whatever do you mean by that? I’m not a traitor.”

“You know you are.” The chambermaid narrowed her eyes. “You think I’d forget that you had the Queen replace Mary Lou with that nasty rat? I despise you.”

Mary Anne stormed off, leaving Alice gaping after her. She supposed she couldn’t blame Mary Anne for feeling how she did, but Alice didn’t mean to hurt anyone, least of all Mary Anne; the Aboveground hadn’t given her much of a choice, and now she had an enemy for her trouble—something she didn’t need in the already treacherous House of Hearts.

Alice stepped away from Bess’s recitation of “An Oyster, a Frog, and an Ocelot” and hid in a corner. She slowly peeled back the edges of the envelope. Inside was a note that read:

Meet me in the gardens.

—Thomas

Alice held the scrap of paper. She shouldn’t go—not after he completely set her aside for Marilyn Montague without even a word. His behavior was beyond insulting. She crumbled the note into a ball and was about to throw it in the fire when she stopped, feeling the twitch of butterflies in her stomach once again. Even after what happened, the problem was she wanted to go. She flattened out the note and nicely folded it in halves. After all, what if he wanted to apologize? It would be bad manners to ignore his request. She should meet him, she decided. It would be the polite thing to do. Alice motioned to Sabrina.

Sabrina set her embroidery to the side and hurried over. “You look as if you’ve swallowed a stolen tart. What is it?”

Alice couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across her face. “The prince wants me to go to the garden.”

Sabrina squealed.

“But the Queen…”

They looked over at the Queen, who studied a pamphlet with her tongue poking against her cheek.

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