Page 46 of Disenchanted
“Yes, p-perfectly beautiful,” Amy added.
“No, I am not. My feet are too large and apparently my attitude requires adjusting, along with my smile.” I squinted my eyes and twisted my mouth into a horrible grimace that elicited reluctant chuckles from them. As usual, I did not have a handkerchief on me. Using the hem of my apron to dry their tears, I continued, “My friend Mal says that a woman’s true power lies not in the perfection of her features, but in her confidence, how much she believes in herself.”
“Yes, that is what he told me as well,” Netta confided shyly. “He said a real man would not be in the least troubled if his lady was a bit taller than him.”
Amy nodded. “And Mal told me that men greatly prefer women who are as buxom as me.”
“Truly?” I stared at my sisters in astonishment. “When did Mal tell you all of this?”
“Two days ago, the last time he came to call,” Amy said. “The day he brought us the chocolates and Mama said I should not have any.” Her lips tipped in a sheepish smile. “When Mama wasn’t looking, Mal swiped a chocolate out of the box and popped it into my mouth.”
Amy giggled. “Mal whispered in my ear that surreptitious chocolates are not as fattening as the regular kind.”
I laughed as well. Since the day he had brought the ball tickets, Mal had been coming to call upon my family almost every day, mostly to snatch time alone with me to further our plans for stealing the orb. One afternoon he needed to take my measurements for the ball gown. Em would simply die if she knew that. She would be even more outraged to learn Mal had been feeding Amy chocolates and complimenting her on the size of her bosom.
I was pleased to discover Mal had been kind to Amy and Netta. Indeed, when we had last parted, Mal had conceded, “Maybe the silly stepsisters are not as bad as I thought. At least the younger one appears to have some spirit.”
“You may certainly trust Mal’s opinions,” I told my sisters. “I believe he has had more than a bit of experience with women. Now we have wasted enough of the morning gawking at the prince and being lachrymose. Time to return to plying our needles. Those ball gowns are not going to sew themselves.”
Both of my sisters groaned.
“I wish they would,” Amy said. “I wish we could enchant Pookie and Pippa to do the sewing for us.”
“Or perhaps some obliging field mice,” Netta suggested. “They would be so clever at it with their little paws.”
I joined in their laughter at the picture that was created. Their spirits restored; my sisters returned to the house. I started to follow them when someone cried out, “Hey! You there! Lady!”
Looking about for the source of the sharp little voice, I spied an urchin hovering outside of the garden gate. When I regarded him with puzzlement, he beckoned to me imperiously. “Yes, you, the lady with the yaller hair. C’mere.”
I approached him cautiously. He was a grubby lad with a thatch of unruly brown hair tumbling into his eyes. His scrawny arms and legs jutted out from his coarse woolen garb. I could not gauge his age, perhaps nine or ten, judging from his size. Yet there seemed something much older about the shrewd eyes that peered at me through his thicket of hair.
A beggar, I thought with a pang. I stole an anxious glance up and down the lane, fearful of what could happen to this boy if he were caught. He and his entire family, if he had one, would be exiled, driven into the wild fenlands across the Conger River.
Leaning over the gate, I whispered, “It would be better if you sneak around back by the kitchen door. I’ll be able to slip you some bread and a little coin with no one the wiser.”
The boy reared back on his heels, glaring at me. “Eh? What you take me for? I’m no beggar. I’m a man of means with reg’lar employment.”
He puffed out his thin chest. “Just so happens, I’m the trustiest deliverer you can find in all the Misty Bottoms and the Midtown if it comes to that. My service is in great demand, and I am well paid for it.”
“I do beg your pardon,” I said, biting back a smile. “What do you deliver?”
“You have to answer my question first.” He swept back his hair to peer at me more closely. “Be you Miss Ella Upton?”
“Yes.”
“You swear to that? If you be lying, may the fairies curse you and goblins eat your liver.”
“Indeed, I am Ella Upton.”
“You have to swear.”
I sighed and held up my right hand. “I do hereby swear and affirm that I am Ella Upton. If I am lying, may the fairies cover me in boils and goblins cook my liver. Satisfied?”
He stared at me fiercely for another moment before nodding. “Then this be for you,” he said, producing a small brown paper–wrapped parcel from beneath his tunic.
I blinked in surprise as he handed it to me. “What is this?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s a package, ain’t it?”
