Jeanne’s hand, when it reached for Tess’s, was as cold as ice.
“I wanted to talk to you, Sisi,” she said. Over seventeen years, they’d accumulated dozens of silly names for each other, but Sisi meant Jeanne was serious.
“What is it, Nee?” They’d be using their private twin language next. Tess wasn’t sure she remembered how to speak it.
Jeanne sighed like a butterfly might have. “I need to know that you’re all right.”
Tess was so astonished by this line of inquiry that for a moment she couldn’t speak. What had she expected? An admonishment to behave herself tomorrow, maybe. “D-do you mean all right, right now,” she asked, feeling foolish, “or in some kind of cosmic sense?”
Jeanne said, “You had a headache after dinner.”
“I didn’t really,” said Tess. “I was tired of Duke Lionel droning on, is all.”
Jeanne didn’t laugh. Maybe she was smiling; it was too dark to tell. “I feared you were upset,” she said after a pause. “You’ve been so solid this week, and I appreciate how hard you’ve worked. Richard’s family likes you. I feel certain they’ll be happy to let you stay. The wedding is going to be difficult, though—on everyone, but especially you—and I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Tess’s mind had snagged on the idea that Jeanne’s in-laws-to-be liked her. She was growing increasingly sure that she didn’t like them. She’d borne the rules and formality at court for two years, but there had been a goal: to keep Jeanne looking pretty and persuade someone rich to marry her. Tess could tolerate anything if the end was in sight.
Living here among these sourpusses was the end. She’d have to be on her best behavior for the rest of her life. Whether she wanted to wasn’t the issue; she wasn’t sure she could.
“Sisi,” said Jeanne, and Tess startled as if she had fallen back asleep.
Impossible. She knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “I wasn’t asleep,” said Tess.
Jeanne inhaled slowly through her nose, and Tess realized that her sister was sniffing her minty breath. And judging it, there could be no doubt.
“My sweet, I need to hear that you’re all right,” said Jeanne.
That wording rankled. Jeanne needed to hear the magic words to assuage her conscience, did she? Oh yes, dear sister, go right ahead and get married. I’d love to be your children’s governess. I never wanted anything for myself, truly.
Bitter and ungrateful. Tess knew she didn’t deserve all the help she got.
“I don’t envy you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Tess, not lying exactly. It wasn’t envy so much as self-pity. Did that make her “all right” or not?
Jeanne exhaled. “I wouldn’t envy me, either. Have you met my mother-in-law?”
Tess couldn’t help smiling at this. “I’ll be here to shield you,” she said, squeezing her sister’s hand. “And once you start popping out the heirs, she’ll have nothing to criticize.”
Jeanne tensed. “Sisi, does…does it hurt terribly?”
“What, having a baby?” asked Tess, lolling her head in her sister’s direction. Jeanne had never asked her about that; silence had squatted between them like a toad.
“Oh. No,” said Jeanne, clearly embarrassed. “I’m certain that must hurt. Remember how Mama screamed when Neddie was born?”
Tess had an inkling what Jeanne was really asking. Somewhat cruelly, she wanted to hear her say it aloud.
“I mean…,” Jeanne began again, meaningfully. She paused as if hoping that would be enough; Tess wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “You know what I mean,” said Jeanne.
“No, indeed,” said Tess.
Jeanne elbowed her; Tess played dumb. “I mean the wedding night,” said Jeanne at last, in a voice like a terrified gnat. “Does it hurt as much as Mama always said?”
Tess had half a mind to say, I never had a wedding night, but Jeanne squirmed pitiably, making Tess relent at last. “If you mean the ‘consummation,’ as darling old St. Vitt calls it—” Tess broke off abruptly; she’d been about to answer facetiously, but another answer had leaped into her throat and was perilously close to coming out: It hurts. Every single day.
But that wasn’t the answer to Jeanne’s question. Jeanne was asking about the act itself, not…not her heart. Not her conscience, or what it felt like to see her future shattered in front of her like a mirror. Jeanne had the official sanction and blessing of both families, Heaven, the Saints; her situation was completely different.
“That doesn’t hurt,” said Tess at last. “I promise. You’ll hardly feel it.”
“But there’s supposed to be blood,” cried Jeanne, her voice nakedly afraid now.
Tess wrapped her arms around her sister, who trembled like a baby bird. “There isn’t always, even if you’re a virgin. That part is a lie. And Richard will be gentle with you, if you ask him. He loves you, Nee. I know he does. That’s what tipped the balance in his favor; otherwise I’d have urged you to accept Lord Thorsten.”
This wrung a soggy giggle out of Jeanne; Lord Thorsten was sixty and bandy-legged like a beetle.
They lay a bit longer in silence, Tess drifting in and out of memories and dreams. The memories were of Will, mostly—the big hands, the small humiliations—but also the birth of Dozerius. The dreams…well, surely she dreamed that Jeanne muttered their old watchword, “Us against the world,” and kissed her cheek.
Tess awoke hours later to the cacophony of country birds jeering at the dawn. Jeanne was long gone, her side of the bed grown cold.
* * *
Tess had been dressing her sister all week, but on the wedding day Duchess Elga insisted upon letting Jeanne use her own dressing room and her own lady’s maid. Tess did not object; it would have been futile, and she had enough to do getting herself ready. The duchess had provided both Jeanne and Tess with gowns, which seemed generous on the surface of things, but Tess knew it wouldn’t do to let the bride’s sister look shabby. The other noble guests would talk.
Tess’s revised theory, as she maneuvered herself into her farthingale—an imported Ninysh petticoat with willow hoops sewn in—was that the duchess was trying to torture her. The architectural underthings gave dressmakers an excuse to add an extra foot of fabric to the hem and an extra twenty pounds of beads, buttons, and embroidery to everything else. All that weight converged right at the middle; she felt crushed whenever anything bumped her perimeter, and she was bumping everything. She couldn’t get used to how wide she was.
Tess wound her brown braids around her head and frowned at herself in the glass, knowing she ought to do her face but feeling exhausted by the notion. When she made up Jeanne’s face, it was a hopeful, anticipatory act, but to do her own seemed to underscore the futility of everything. She powdered her cheeks (which were unexpectedly damp) and reddened her lips and called it good enough.
She sat on the edge of her bed, a difficult trick in a farthingale, and had another crème de menthe, staring out the window at the tidy topiary hedges. She had a second glass. She might have had more than that; it was a small glass and she was very far away. Her hands and mouth had come to some kind of understanding with each other and left her out of it.
She smudged off half her lip rouge onto the edge of the glass. She didn’t care.
The service was to start at noon, Samsamese-style. Tess met Paul and Ned at their room and herded them down the curving central stair into the magnificent foyer, where a hundred or more newly arrived guests were milling around. She paused on the landing overlooking the room and let her brothers go down without her. It was a colorful crowd, mostly other landed gentry, but the magistrates of nearby Trowebridge had also been invited, along with some of the more prominent merchants.