“Dani. Danica.” She reaches out and touches my arm, and it’s all I can do not to recoil. “I know you’re fighting this, but I wish you could see what it really means. I’m not even saying you can’t have your…fling with that commoner. But wait.”
I clamp my teeth together and avert my eyes, though I don’t turn my head. Too obvious.
“Just until you’re married and the King can’t back out. Don’t you understand? You have a lifetime of grandeur and freedom in front of you. As much as you refuse to believe it, this has never been about me. It’s always been a gift for you.”
“A gift?” I say, scoffing openly. “I don’t suppose it comes with a return receipt?” Before she can answer, I spin with a flourish and stride toward the Queen’s Apartments.
My mother is forced to scurry to keep up. More scraps of vengeance—comeuppance hors d’oeuvres, whetting my appetite for the day when I disappear forever and my scheming mother is left with nothing at all for her troubles.
“What’s so important that you came to find me in person, anyway?” I say, adopting a tone of boredom.
“A team of specialized modistes is waiting for you in the Salon des Nobles. You need to be fitted for your wedding gown.”
With that, my mother scratches out any victory, any control I thought I had wrenched away from her. In the end, I’m still her prisoner, still affianced of my nightmare, still dancing on her puppet strings.
And she knows it.
EVEN THE APPRECIATIVE look on Saber’s face when he walks into the Salon des Nobles can’t erase the painful pit in my chest at being decked out for a wedding that may as well be my funeral.
I’m sure I look resplendent. His Sneakiness must have had seamstresses secretly working on the elaborate gown for weeks—months. The voluminous garment of shimmering snow-white satin is covered in silver floss embroidery that twinkles and shines in the light from the chandelier, and I can see at a glance that it’s one hundred percent hand-stitched—not a single thread or button applied with the assistance of fabricators or nanostitchers. The bodice had to be carefully pinned and basted into place, but by the time Saber enters, it hugs my form with lace edging around a décolletage that practically serves up my cleavage for offer on a scallop-edged platter.
Thanks to my corset-tightening, I know my waistline is far too extreme to be fashionable, but the modiste—or, I suppose, simply a designer, since she’s from Paris, not Versailles—makes a hum of approval as she gives the waist another tuck in, and the hips an extra tuck out.
At least someone appreciates it.
Make that two people, I think as Saber takes me in from head to toe, his eyes brimming with approval. Even the fact that it’s a white wedding dress doesn’t seem to turn him off.
When I left my parents’ apartments, I resented that I wasn’t able to fill my pannier pockets with Glitter, but it turns out to have been a blessing, as I was stripped down to nearly nothing the instant I walked into the Salon des Nobles. Besides, the bulging roundness of Saber’s messenger bag tells me he’s brought plenty to get us through the assembly tonight, before we tackle yet another public Wednesday on the morrow.
Though perhaps Saber and I can hide away from the tourists in my nonpublic rooms and make up some excuse, like planning a prewedding soirée, to get some time alone.
“Oh!” I let out a little squeak of pain as a pin pricks at my hip.
“You must stand straight, Your Highness,” the Parisian woman says as I realize I had crumpled into a languid half-slump at the thought of what I could do with—to!—Saber tomorrow. I can’t let him steal my attention and focus, no matter how delightsome a thief he is.
Saber seems to regain control of himself about the same time I do, and he taps his messenger bag and tips his head toward my bedchamber in an unspoken message. He cranes his neck to keep his eyes on me as he traverses the room and stashes the bag just inside the golden double doors, then tucks himself out of the way against the wall where I can see him clearly.
I’m glad he’s here. I was feeling desperately lonely. I’m not sure what Molli is doing today, but her Lens was set to Unavailable and I didn’t want to invite anyone else to the fitting who didn’t understand what a nightmare this prospective marriage is. It’s hard enough to maintain my own composure in front of the seamstresses; if I had to fake euphoria for an audience as well, it would be too much.