Free Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses) by Jessica Day George Page A

her gaze from her grandson. Her face was hard. “Grigori can spare some time for you.”
    Petunia busied herself with her breakfast, and so did the prince. Petunia didn’t know what to say. Prince Grigori clearly did not want to argue with his grandmother, and Petunia could hardly blame him. The grand duchess was so very
sharp
, both in wits and speech, and there was an air about her as if she could not tolerate the weakness of those around her.
    If there was any truth to the legend of the Nine Daughters of Russaka, Petunia thought suddenly, this is precisely what one of them would look like now. Beautiful and hard and full of secrets.
    Once breakfast was finished, Petunia walked to the entrance hall with Prince Grigori, where they found Olga waiting with Petunia’s cloak and some white mittens. Petuniawondered if her maid had been eavesdropping on the breakfast room conversation, or if she was such a good lady’s maid that she simply knew these things through some sixth sense. Grigori’s valet appeared mere seconds later with his overcoat, hat, and gloves.
    As Petunia put on the mittens, she thought with a pang of the fingerless gloves she hadn’t finished knitting. They would not be as warm, but they would look less childish. And she was accustomed to wearing knitwear with considerably more embellishment than this.
    “Are you ready?” Grigori sounded impatient, but like he was trying to hold it in check.
    “Of course,” Petunia said, pulling away from Olga, who was attempting to retie her cloak with a more flattering bow.
    Petunia gave the bow a tweak of her own, no doubt only making it crooked, but not really caring. The cloak was so glorious that it could hardly be marred by having a crooked bow. Even Grigori’s hard eyes softened as he got a good look at Petunia with her black hair framed by the scarlet hood with its scrolls of silver embroidery. He held out his arm to her, and she took it, wishing that there were not quite such a discrepancy in their heights. He had to hold his arm down low and she had to reach up a bit more than was comfortable. Still, by the time they had gone out to the path to the gardens, they had fallen into a kind of rhythm with their steps that felt quite natural.
    But it soon became apparent that Prince Grigori knewnext to nothing about gardens. Petunia had to stifle her giggles as he waved his free arm vaguely at “Some sort of trees. The hedges. A statue.”
    Petunia finally couldn’t conceal her laughter. “That was a rosebush,” she said when he looked at her questioningly.
    “I beg your pardon?” He stopped and looked back at the rose, which had been trimmed into a small ornamental tree. “It is a very stunted tree, I believe.”
    “Forgive me, Your Highness, but I can assure you that it is a rosebush. It has been pruned into that shape.”
    She gently touched the bare branches with her mitten, wondering what color the rose was. If it was yellow, she might take a slip home, but she guessed that most of the roses in this garden would be white, pink, or red. They always were, in gardens where nobody truly cared about such matters. This garden was very clean: everything neatly pruned or wrapped for the winter, the grass short, the paths swept, but it was … well, boring. She could almost predict the hedge maze that was sure to appear on their left, just past the large fountain shaped like a nymph pouring water.
    “It’s true,” Prince Grigori admitted with a laugh. “I don’t know much about these gardens. Well, can you forgive me? They are all your Westfalian trees and flowers!”
    Petunia had to laugh too. But when she looked around to point out some of the better features of the common Westfalian garden in winter—such as they were—she realized that he was wrong. These weren’t Westfalian trees and flowers; they were Bretoner.
    Her laugh died on her lips as she realized that this was Lady Emily’s garden. Oliver’s father must have planted it for his new