Chapter Eight
“The pine green, most certainly,” said Madam Carmela, from her throne—an armchair surrounded by fabric swatches, really, but it had become a throne by virtue of her having deposited her voluptuous, silk-swathed form thereon.
Her assistant and the tailor she’d brought with her, both sharp-eyed young women who had reduced me to mute obedience and Aldrich to fawning infatuation within minutes, nodded and made notes.
“And the gold. And that ocean blue, but not the royal blue. White shirts. Brilliant white! No natural linen. And the jackets will follow the line of his waist precisely, in a contrasting velvet. Now, Lord Remigius, strip to your drawers, if you please, and we will begin to fit you.”
Except for her greeting when she arrived, those were the first words she’d troubled to speak to me directly.
Her minions had installed me in front of a large mirror Aldrich had produced from somewhere and placed in my sitting room, and since then I’d been standing there like a life-sized doll having bits of fabric draped around my face and body while Madam Carmela evaluated their effects on my complexion and hair.
I looked around the room and found four pairs of eyes fixed on me, all of them waiting for me to remove my clothing.
Balking at the instruction would do me no good. I stripped.
But once the assistant had put me into a gossamer-thin white shirt, all lacy at the top, that barely buttoned high enough to cover my nipples, she produced a skimpy satin garment she meant to put over it. I gaped, gasped, and damn well balked.
“That’s not a waistcoat! And this is only half of a shirt!”
The assistant paused, still holding out the corset, and glanced over at Madam Carmela.
“You will wear it, Lord Remigius,” she said briskly, “because it is the fashion, and no, it is indeed not a waistcoat.” She sniffed and took up her cup of tea. “I would never put a gentleman of your delicacy into a waistcoat. Good heavens. That is not the fashion!”
“You’re going to look very well in it, my lord,” Aldrich dared to put in, and was rewarded for the risk by another sniff.
“Madam does not need you to confirm that her judgment is correct,” the assistant said quellingly.
Gods, I would look totally ridiculous. Absurd.
I raised my arms and stood as still as the mannequin they seemed to believe me to be, allowing Aldrich and Madam Carmela’s assistant to tie me into a boned black corset that pushed all that lace up into a froth and nipped in at the waist, making me look…
delicate, and damn Madam Carmela for being right.
I barely recognized the man in the mirror. My tousled red curls seemed rakish rather than merely untidy. My figure appeared to be lithe rather than merely too thin. And my bare collarbones were somehow more obscene than a fully naked torso would’ve been.
It gave me an odd, squirming sensation low in my belly to see all that exposed skin. Shameless…men would desire someone who looked like this.
The tailor got to work, marking up the black satin with a bit of chalk, and they fussed around me, fitting breeches and a coat and measuring and prodding and pinning until I could hardly bear to stand still for another moment.
But at last they were done, packing up all of their odds and ends.
Madam Carmela rose and shook out her no doubt extremely fashionable brocade skirts.
“They’ll work all night to ensure that one suit of evening dress and one for the afternoon will be delivered tomorrow morning,” she said.
“I trust that this fellow will know how to care for your lordship’s new garments? ”
Aldrich fell all over himself reassuring her of his competence, leaving me nothing to do but nod and drop into a chair, rubbing at my aching calves.
Would this have been my life if I’d been able to remain at home? If my father hadn’t been executed and my family disgraced? Maybe I’d already have owned a whole dressing room full of corsets, each more outrageous than the last, and have been accustomed to going out where everyone could gawk at me.
The thought of entering a room full of whispering strangers wearing anything like what I’d been trying on made me wish for a cold cloth for the back of my neck. And I would be, tomorrow night.
Aldrich returned from escorting my three tormentors out, shutting the door behind him. “Well!” he said, and grinned at me. “I can’t wait to dress you tomorrow, my lord! You’ll be a sensation.”
My stomach twisted painfully, a combination of nerves and gnawing hunger.
Lunchtime had come and gone in a flurry of brightly colored satin, and I’d hardly eaten a bite of my breakfast. It had arrived with a note from Lord Stefan tucked under the teapot informing me that our first public appearance as a married couple would be at Lady Vienni’s ball, tomorrow night, and I’d lost my appetite.
“I doubt it very much,” I muttered, though perhaps…
I might, if pressed, have had a sneaking, pathetic fantasy that I’d walk into the ballroom and everyone would stop and stare, overwhelmed with desire—and then possibly throw things at Lord Stefan and berate him for failing to appreciate me.
Did I think it much more likely that they’d all snicker into their fans?
Yes. “If I do, it won’t be the right kind. ”
“Oh, I think you’re wrong about that, my lord.
” His grin grew a fraction and took on a mischievous edge.
“Once I’ve dressed you, I’ve a favor to ask.
Wait up here for long enough for me to get down the back stairs before you get to the hall.
I want to have a view of Lord Stefan’s face when he sees you. ”
Apparently Aldrich, bless him, had a similar sneaking fantasy on my behalf. I appreciated the loyalty and the confidence, but I thought we’d both probably end the night in tears.
“I won’t need to delay on purpose,” I said, rather than pointing that out. “I may not be able to go down the stairs at all, let alone quickly, with pants that tight. Or the shoes Madam Carmela seems to think I ought to wear.”
“They’ll do incredible things for your legs.
” Unless I broke one of them trying to walk in the damn shoes, but Aldrich didn’t seem to care much for that.
He began going around the room and picking up stray bits of thread and debris.
“You’ll see, my lord. Every other valet in Nevaia’s going to envy me,” he added, quietly enough that I wasn’t sure he hadn’t been talking to himself.
“I’ll do my best to make you proud. If I do cause a sensation, perhaps Madam’s assistant will allow you to call on her, hmm?”
Aldrich blushed and demurred, but he was smiling when he went to find me something to eat.
His good mood proved infectious, and I managed to eat well at dinner, sleep decently, and feel mostly optimistic throughout the following day, though the shakiness of my nerves never quite left me.
I’d be in grand society for the first time…
would I spill my wine? Address someone by the wrong title, or use a familiar first name when I ought to be using a family name?
Display my ignorance of the world to everyone I met?
Go the wrong way in a dance? Would anyone want to dance with me in the first place?
Would anyone know my family or recognize me?
The clothes arrived, interrupting my fussing. Aldrich unpacked everything and hung it all up with a reverence most priests wouldn’t bother giving to relics of Holy Ennolu.
And at last the clock struck eight—time to dress, as Lord Stefan had sent word he’d be waiting with the carriage at nine.
I’d dined. I’d drunk too much tea. I’d bathed.
I’d felt very sick to my stomach. Aldrich had been nearly vibrating out of his skin with impatience, and I’d been considering jumping out the window and running away.
Tempting, to think that my husband’s choice to escort me from the house the way he ought to meant he intended to treat me with more courtesy from now on.
But I thought it much more likely he wanted the chance to make me change my clothing before I got in the carriage if I tried another bit of trickery—so at least I’d made him wary of me, if not respectful.
Honestly, I almost wanted to change my clothing before I got in the carriage, mostly because I wasn’t sure I’d be physically capable of climbing into it wearing all of my finery. What if I tripped and fell into the gutter and Lord Stefan laughed at me?
And the possibility didn’t seem so remote.
Aldrich had scurried off to the servants’ stairs to be in position at the back of the hall, but he really didn’t need to rush.
My shoes had two-inch heels—low for fashionable court shoes, I’d been given to understand, but teeteringly high for someone accustomed to simple leather boots.
My breeches might as well have been painted on, necessitating a mincing sort of walk that made me feel like a fashion caricature brought to life with strange magic—or a whore who liked to advertise.
The jacket nipped at the waist and flared at the hips, with a gathered kind of bit at the back that made my painted-over ass even more eye-catching.
And my bare upper chest topped it all off, of course, the lace of the shirt fluffing over the front of a green silk corset with so much boning that I couldn’t bend over. Just as well. The breeches would’ve split down the back if I’d tried.
Aldrich had bemoaned the fact that I didn’t have any jewelry; he’d told me at great length that there were neckpieces made specifically for men to adorn this style of clothing, and that one dangling earring had become all the rage ever since Lord Benedict, who always wore one, had married Duke Lucian earlier in the spring.