Molly looked at me, grinned with some secret amusement, and went to gather and light more hurricane lamps. Rick tossed the damp dishtowel over his shoulder, sat back in a wing chair, and crossed his legs as if for a great entertainment. His expression just missed being teasing, which set my hackles up. Rick and Molly seemed to have an idea what was about to happen.
When Madame Melisende came back in, she was trailed by a little human assistant with a clipboard, glasses, and stringy hair. Mousey would have been the simplest description of the assistant, but Madame Melisende herself defied simple words. I looked at the card she had given me, which assured me that she was Madame Melisende, Modiste du les Mithrans. She was mostly human, about five feet tall, white-haired, and steely-eyed. She looked seventy, had to be at least a hundred, had the energy of a twenty-year-old, and carried that smell of multiple vamps, like a blood-junkie. Which brought out all my curious instincts, though I couldn't think of a way to ask why she smelled as she did. Humans can't smell vamps, or at least not the way I can.
Most blood-servants carry the scent of only one vamp, the result of the bonding that takes place over time. A blood-servant and vamp stay together for decades, the servant providing a safe and constant supply of blood, emotional stability, and other services--those which might, in a human household, be fulfilled by lovers, employees, and paid servants--services that the pair mutually agree upon, in return for a living wage and tiny sips of vamp blood. The sips keep the servants younger, healthier, and assure a long and vigorous life, assuming that they survive any rages, grieving, or other mental snaps by the vamp.
A blood-slave has a similar, but more casual, arrangement and may be passed around within a clan, therefore smelling like multiple vamps, but usually only one clan. Blood-junkies were a big step below, making themselves available at parties for most anything the vamps wanted, from a quick meal to a quick lay. They were the blood addicts of the vamp world, and a growing, call girl-type business in cities that catered to vamp travelers. Only a blood-junkie smelled like multiple vamps from multiple clans. Madame Melisende smelled like a blood-junkie minus the lingering smell of sex. So, weird, but not really worth worrying about.
The woman pushed me into position in the middle of the room, looking me over. She made little humming noises as she walked around me, repositioning me as she moved, arms outstretched, then down, feet together, then apart. Satisfied, she took measurements at waist, bust, midriff, above my bust, hips, butt, shoulders, arm length, and in-seam, calling them out as the assistant took notes.
When she was done, Madame Melisende took the clipboard, studied it a moment, then looked at me as if passing judgment. She said in an outraged French accent, "Hmmph. You are Amazon. However shall I accouter you in the designated time?" she demanded.
A hot, embarrassed flush shot through me. Rick whooped. Molly tittered.
Though I was brought up in a Christian children's home and was raised to know better, I glared at Melisende when I said, "It's okay, lady. I'm pretty sure I can't afford you anyway. So you can just take a hike. Besides, I have a dress."
"Let me see this dress you claim to have," she said with an acerbic sniff.
She followed when I marched into my room and took the dress out of my hand even before I got it out of the closet. I followed her back into the light. She held it up and gaped. "Mon Dieu. This is dreadful, more dreadful than I can speak." And then she let out a stream of French and threw the dress across the room.
Beast leaped into my eyes. Molly's eyes bugged out; Rick's amusement faded to be replaced by something very still and thoughtful. My voice dropped an octave. "That's my only dress."
Unperturbed by whatever the others saw in my eyes, Madame Melisende drew herself up to her full nearly five feet in height. "Good! Du chiffon. Des dechetes!" And she spat a bunch of words to her assistant, who scurried outside.
"That. Is. My only. Dress," I said again, hearing the growl in my voice.
"No. It is not." She sniffed again. "Now you will have three proper dresses, and I will take the rag away with me, never to be seen again. And when les Mithrans ask you tonight who accouter you as a queen on the throne, you will tell them Madame Melisende. And the elders and old ones will, at last, return to me as they should."
The last statements brought me up short. The assistant came back in through the front door and piled dresses up on the couch, and went back out and came back in again with more dresses while I interpreted her comments. The woman, imperious and demanding, needed . . . help? She had lost some of her clientele? I was about to ask for clarification when Madame Melisende raised her eyes to mine and commanded, "Strip."