Chapter 2
Scarlette
The air in my chamber stank of lye soap and resignation.
Mother always insisted on a thorough scouring before any important event, which meant that by the time the seamstress arrived with her arms full of white silk, the floors were slick as river stones and the walls reeked of vinegar.
My toes, half-numb on the cold flagstones, curled involuntarily each time the seamstress circled me.
She moved with the single-mindedness of a predator, pins clamped between her lips, never making eye contact.
Her hands fluttered—soft, almost apologetic—over the silk where it met my collarbone.
Every so often, she would jerk the fabric tighter, and the sudden pressure would steal the breath out of my chest, as if the dress itself meant to choke me before Sir Aldric could have the satisfaction.
Mother drifted in and out of the room in her customary hush, pretending to busy herself with nothing while her gaze flicked like a razor across each exposed inch of my skin.
She wore her hair under a linen cap today, tight as a death shroud, and the only hint of color on her was the crescent of ink staining her thumb.
She’d been up half the night, cross-checking the household ledger, and the numbers still clung to her like a second language.
“Stand up straighter, Scarlette,” she said, not unkind but with the crispness of someone who’d forgotten how to speak otherwise. “You will not have the opportunity for poor posture once married.”
The seamstress made a thin sound—agreement or amusement, I couldn’t tell. She knelt to fuss at the hem, lifting it just high enough to expose my ankles. My skin crawled at the scrutiny, but I forced myself not to flinch. Obedience was currency here. I intended to be rich by the end of this day.
Mother’s mouth twitched. “Mind you don’t leave it dragging,” she said, “Sir Aldric finds untidiness offensive.” There was a note of calculation in her voice, as if my cleanliness could somehow tip the scales of the Ashburn fortune. “He will want you pristine. You know what that means, yes?”
“Yes, mother,” I said, careful to keep my eyes on the cracked window.
Beyond, the courtyard thawed in slow agony, brown frost breaking into slush, and somewhere a raven picked apart the remains of last winter.
The forest past the stone wall was still dead, still colorless, but in my mind I could see the first soft green of wild garlic, the hopeful prickle of nettles poking through the snowmelt.
If I could have vanished out that window and run into the trees, I would have done so naked and bloody-footed, trailing silk like molted feathers.
The seamstress pulled the bodice taut, binding my ribs in a vice. I exhaled as quietly as I could, trying not to draw attention, but the breath caught in my throat and came out as a tiny gasp.
“There,” Mother said, satisfied. “A woman is meant to be beautiful, not comfortable. Isn’t that right, Tess?”
The seamstress, Tess, made another noncommittal hum. Her hands, chapped and red, betrayed the lie of the dress: it was not meant to make me beautiful, only to make me palatable.
“Sir Aldric’s messenger will arrive by midday,” Mother went on.
“He expects a likeness sent. This will do.” She stepped close enough that I could smell the old rosewater clinging to her skin, a desperate echo of younger days.
“You will thank me for this, Scarlette. One day, you’ll see I have saved you from ruin. ”
I nodded, as if the gratitude were already blossoming in my chest.
In truth, I kept my real feelings locked behind my teeth.
I’d mastered the trick by thirteen, when Father started selling off parcels of land to cover his gaming debts.
At sixteen, I could smile at a suitor who called my hands “too clever for a lady” and imagine, with perfect clarity, the shape of his liver after three more years of drink.
Mother called it “pragmatism.” The women in my line called it “survival.”
Tess stood and began the final pinning. “If you please, my lady,” she said in her soft, northern accent.
“Arms out.” She measured the length from my shoulder to wrist, hands trembling a fraction as she worked.
There was an intimacy in the motion, and I saw, for just a flicker, something like pity cross her face before she masked it.
Mother didn’t notice. She’d moved on to the vanity, straightening combs and trinkets, anything to avoid being idle in a room with her own daughter. “You may go once she’s finished, Scarlette. I’ll not have you soiling the gown before the artist arrives.”
I wanted to ask if the portrait would be in oils or charcoal, if the artist would let me watch, and if I could keep the failed sketches for myself. Instead, I said, “Yes, mother.”
The seamstress finished. She stepped away and let the silence stand, thick and judgmental.
I watched her reflection in the mirror. She was a small, birdlike woman with a birthmark across her left cheek and two missing fingers on her right hand.
The result of a childhood fever, she’d once told me in confidence, a fever the village priest blamed on her mother’s salt bread.
No one believed her, of course. Women’s stories always warped in the retelling.
Mother turned, and I forced my own reflection to meet hers. For a moment, we both stood perfectly still, like a pair of chess pieces waiting for someone else’s hand to move us.
She softened, just enough that I could pretend to remember the woman who used to lift me onto her lap after a nightmare. “I know it’s difficult,” she said. “But you are the only hope we have left. A good marriage will restore us all.”
I blinked, not trusting myself to answer.
With a single gesture, Mother dismissed Tess, who gathered her spools and shears and hurried out, leaving behind the faintest trace of wool and camphor.
I waited, counting to forty in my head, until I heard her soft footsteps fade down the corridor. Mother lingered longer, rearranging things in the next room, perhaps waiting to see if I would misbehave in her absence. I stood as still as I could until the cold forced me to move.
Only then did I let myself breathe slowly, shallowly, so as not to split the dress at the seams. I twisted from the mirror, unwilling to look at the finished product any longer.
Instead, I moved to the bed and knelt, lifting the woolen blanket.
The boards beneath were warped by years of chamber-pot spills and frantic midnight pacing.
I knew exactly which one would give with the right pressure.
The third from the left, a fraction thinner than its neighbors, with a dark knot at its heart like a pupil.
I slipped my fingers into the gap and pried until it came loose.
Beneath, wrapped in an old kerchief, was my one treasure.
A slim, battered volume with half the cover torn away, pages so brittle they flaked to dust if turned too quickly.
Not scripture, nor poetry fit for the parlors.
These were verses forbidden, words that spoke of passion and flame, words that dreamed of flight.
They’d been copied and recopied by a monk whose name I would never know, given to me in secret by a kitchen boy with more freckles than sense.
I sat on the floor, the silk crushing under my knees, and read:
She was never meant for hearth or home,
The wildness in her blood betrays
The shackles of her birth. She lives
For moments stolen from the blaze.
I read it three times, then pressed my thumb to the ink until the whorls on my skin tinged blue-black. I wanted to eat the words, swallow them whole, let them anchor somewhere inside me. But the footsteps outside my door reminded me this freedom was borrowed, never owned.
I tucked the book away and slid the floorboard shut.
The seam of it would never be perfect again, but I doubted anyone cared to look so closely.
I glanced at my reflection one last time.
The silk had left a faint welt across my ribs, the beginnings of a bruise where the seamstress’s hands had lingered.
I ran my hand over it, wondering how many marks I’d accumulate before the wedding night.
Somewhere down the hall, the clock struck the hour. The sound made me jump, more out of habit than fear. I stood, composed myself, and crossed to the window.
Outside, the sun was struggling up behind the trees, a pale, uncertain thing. Crows swirled above the melting snow, arguing over the carcass of some smaller beast. I envied their hunger. It was honest.
When Mother came back, she found me at the window, hands folded, the picture of compliance. But inside, I repeated the forbidden verses, over and over, like a litany that might one day split the stone around my heart.
***
It started as a sound, something high, sharp, then suddenly silenced.
I had just slipped the poetry back beneath the bed, fingers still raw from the splinters, when the noise pierced through the stone, a note of alarm that didn’t belong to spring mornings or even to ordinary misery.
At first, I thought a sheep had gotten loose in the yard, or one of the new maids had dropped a pail and shattered the peace for a moment.
Then the shouting started, and I ran to the window with my heart stuttering in my chest.