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

called as the door closed.
    The guard only grunted.
    He grunted, too, when Oliver thanked him for the breakfast tray. And Oliver thanked him for lunch as well.
    And that was all Oliver did. Sit in the room. Sleep. Eat. And try to get the burly guard to do more than grunt.
    In the late afternoon, he heard voices outside his room, and the door swung all the way open. The guard stood in the doorway, his rifle held crosswise, and behind him Oliver saw skirts of red-sprigged muslin.
    “Hello,” Oliver said cautiously.
    “Hello,” said a voice, and Poppy peeped around one of the guard’s large arms. “Are you well?”
    “A little bored,” Oliver said. “But otherwise unharmed.”
    A spark of amusement lit her eyes. “I’ll send up some books. You can read, can’t you?”
    “All the Wolves of the Westfalian Woods can read,” Oliver said grandly.
    “Even the ones with four legs?”
    “Poppy,” someone whispered loudly from a hiding place a little way down the passage. “What are you
doing
?”
    Oliver guessed that it was Daisy, who seemed a good deal more timid than her twin. He gave Poppy a wink over the guard’s arm and raised his voice a little. “I have endeavored to teach them myself,” he said. “And they are coming along nicely.”
    “So tell me,” Poppy said, “what is an educated young man with courtly manners, who even teaches wolves to read, doing robbing coaches in the middle of the forest?”
    “Poppppyyyy,” moaned her sister.
    “Hush, Pan,” said Poppy without taking her eyes off Oliver.
    Not Daisy then, but Pansy, who was less than a year older than Petunia. Oliver considered his answer for a long time. It was possible that Poppy and Pansy were here out of mere curiosity, without their father’s permission. But it was also possible that King Gregor wanted Oliver to reveal some dastardly intent while flirting with Gregor’s beautiful daughters.
    “Well, Your Highness,” Oliver replied at last, “I needed to feed my people. And after the depredations of the war, and with our homes and farms gone, we had no other recourse.”
    “Your people?”
    Poppy asked it at the same time Pansy asked, “What happened to the farms?”
    “When the border was redrawn, some of the farms in my earldom ended up Analousia,” Oliver explained. “They were given to Analousian families who had lost their lands in the war. Some of them were near the manor, however, and that was given to the Grand Duke Volenskaya, who became the Duke of Hrothenborg.”
    “That’s where Pet is staying,” Pansy said, and Oliver heard a rustling as she came closer.
    “That’s right,” Oliver said.
    “So you really are an earl,” Poppy mused.
    The guard snorted at this, but Oliver and Poppy ignored him.
    “Yes, I am,” Oliver said simply.
    “Then why didn’t you come to Bruch and explain to Father what had happened?” Poppy studied him for a moment. “Or, your father would have, I guess.”
    “My father died in the war,” Oliver said. “I became the earl when I was seven. My mother’s family did not approve of the marriage; I doubt anyone even knew that I existed. My mother tried to have me confirmed in my title and to petition for the return of our lands, but that was during the uproar over the worn-out slippers and the dying suitors. Since my mother is Bretoner, she was afraid to bring attention to herself.”
    “Bretoner?” Pansy had crept even closer. Oliver could see the edge of a pink muslin gown just peeping around the edge of the door. “Did she know Mother?”
    “Indeed,” Oliver said. He felt like he was holding out breadcrumbs for birds, and any sudden movement would make them take flight. Or, in Poppy’s case, peck him. “She was one of your mother’s ladies-in-waiting. But her family wanted her to return home to marry a Bretoner lord, and my father’s family had a second cousin handpicked to marry him.”
    “No wonder she didn’t dare come to the palace,” Poppy said. “Bishop Angiers