Chapter 7 #2
I draw a shaky breath and loosen the bow around my middle, chewing my bottom lip. Silky fabric slithers down my shoulders, exposing the corset that’s barely containing me.
I have no idea how I’m supposed to move in this thing—or breathe properly—but this ... torturous article of clothing that shows far too much of my too-tight skin is apparently fashionable.
Dolcie scowled the entire time she was stuffing me into the awful contraption, likely because it wasted half an hour of both our lives. And now here I am, standing on a platform, feeling like a tree without leaves to smudge its shape.
Hovard rests his hands atop his swollen belly, eyeing me the same way I assess a rock before I slick paint across it. “You’ve gotten slimmer through the waist, my dear. If you’re not careful, you’ll snap in two.”
I open my mouth—
“Tut-tut! It wasn’t a question.” He flutters his hand about, retrieving a roll of lush, green fabric.
It’s held against me, swiftly replaced with one the color of my wisteria, his gaze hopping from my eyes, my damp hair, the exposed parts of my skin, finally landing on the necklace draped around my neck.
He taps the stone with the tip of a pencil previously caught behind his ear. “You will be wearing these, yes?”
My hand shields the round, inky gem and baby conch in the next heartbeat.
“Yes,” Rhordyn says, spinning, and I meet the chilling intensity of his all-pervading stare.
I don’t take this necklace off. Ever. Rhordyn gifted it to me when I first came to this castle, and I’ve worn it ever since.
Some of my earliest memories are from when I was so small that climbing Stony Stem felt like scaling a mountain, even with Baze or Cook holding my hand, easing me up each step, my necklace a comforting weight around my neck.
Though it felt heavy back then, this stone taught me to walk with a stronger stance. To keep my head up and move .
I’ll be wearing it in the ground one day.
Rhordyn rests his back against the wall beside the window, looking very much at home with his feet crossed at the ankle. I almost roll my eyes when Dolcie bends over to retrieve some pins off the floor, peeking back to check if he’s watching.
“Very well. We can work around it. Now, I like the green.” Hovard pulls a long slice of fabric close to my eyes. “This tone compliments the shade of your hair. Or there’s the rose gold; a gentler approach,” he muses, replacing the sample. “More innocent, too.”
How can he say that when my breasts are practically jumping out of this torture suit? I miss my chest wrap.
“Then there’s the red, which would look stunning , but it’s likely to draw ...” he tips his head from side to side, “ mature attention.”
He continues stuffing information in Rhordyn’s direction while holding different swatches near my face.
As he speaks, Dolcie drapes a stiff, creamy fabric across my skin.
Piece by piece, it’s pinned against my body, forming a pattern that exhibits me in a way that leaves very little to the imagination.
The garment begins to take shape, and my stomach twists a little more with each panel of fabric she fits into place, my gaze dropping every few seconds to see just how much skin she’s not hiding.
When she drops her pincushion, she again shoves her voluptuous curves in Rhordyn’s direction, and I jump on the opportunity to maneuver some of the fabric so it’s not so revealing.
She’s quick to set it back the moment she stands up again.
“Can’t you make the neckline a little higher?” I whisper, quiet enough that only she can hear.
“Oh, honey, no.” She drops her voice low, stealing a glance at my hands wrung together. “There’s nothing endearing about a woman who dresses like a little boy and constantly has dirt beneath her nails. That’s no way to become a promised lady.”
My cheeks heat. “Excuse me?”
She shrugs, tucks a twirl of hair behind her ear, and throws me a coy smile.
“ Everyone parades their breasts at fancy gatherings these days. If you don’t, you’ll have no hope in standing out amongst the masses, and you’ll be stuck in this castle until you’re an old crone.
” I grit my teeth as she threads another pin through the thick fabric. “I’m doing you a favor. Trust me.”
I’m about to tell her to shove her favor up her ass, along with her pincushion, when Rhordyn’s voice rents the air.
“Less cleavage.”
Hovard’s ramblings are severed mid-sentence, and my gaze darts to Rhordyn’s face, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Dolcie, giving her cherry cheeks and bedroom eyes his full, undivided attention.
“Master?” she asks, tone light and innocent, hands still against my breasts that are rising with every sharp pull of breath.
He pushes away from the wall and strides forward, head tilted to the side. “Do you need me to say it clearer?”
Dolcie looks up at him through her lashes. “But I thought—”
“You thought what? ” The last word snaps out of him, and Dolcie pales, her mouth falling open but failing to shape words.
“That you’d be p-pleased. That you’d want her to look appealing for any potential suitors.”
He stares at her, unblinking, the tense moment lasting long enough that Dolcie withers. Beads of sweat collect on Hovard’s temples, and his eyes dart between the two.
“It’s fi—”
Rhordyn cuts me off. “Orlaith told you exactly what she wants, and you blatantly ignored her request. Unless you want to find yourself out of a job and lose your residence within this castle, I suggest you fix the pattern. Now.”
Dolcie drops into a curtsey so fast you’d think her knees had given way. “Yes, Master. S-sorry, Master.”
She gets back to work, rearranging the fabric across my bust with trembling hands, and I hiss when a sharp sting has me staggering back, shielding my left breast. “ Ouch! ”
“Out!”
Rhordyn’s destructive tone causes a riot of movement, and Hovard ushers a pale-faced Dolcie through the exit—hand to her lips, pincushion discarded on the floor.
Rhordyn holds my gaze until the door snicks shut behind them both, and I’m acutely aware of his chest rising and falling to the same rhythm as my own.
He makes a small clicking sound with his tongue before charging toward a table stacked with a jug and crystal glasses.
He pours one half full, then peers at it, silent and still while my heart sits in my throat.
I know what this moment could grow into. Can feel the weight of potential pushing on my chest, stifling my breaths.
That inner voice, again, is screaming for me to run.
He clears his throat and spins, stalking toward me.
Perhaps I’m a fool ... but I’m a curious fool. And this has never been done in person. There’s always a door separating us, slapping a mask over the act.
He stops only when we’re sharing breath, eye to eye, on the verge of something transcending.
For the very first time, there is no door separating us. Nothing but thin air that’s a blend of both our scents.
“May I?”
Please do.
I nod, refusing to blink as he pinches the edge of the mock-up dress, peeling it down like the corner of a book page.
Every inhale brings my breasts closer to his chill, every exhale pulls them away again, much like the internal tug-of-war I wage with myself daily.
Part of me wants to be closer, the rest of me knows I need to stay the hell away—that Rhordyn’s an ocean that would plunge into my lungs and drown me if I fell into him.
He looks down, his icy trail of scrutiny landing on the freckle of pain on the swell of my breast that’s acute enough to draw a bead of blood.
I should know.
My chin tips, nipples pebbling, flesh anticipating his touch so much it’s almost uncomfortable.
His ragged exhale agitates my skin.
I blink, and the air shifts.
Suddenly his back is turned, and I’m listening to him stir the water ...
Looking down, I see nothing but a red prickle of damaged skin.
No blood. No smear.
Gone.
And I felt nothing . Not a single brush of contact. As if he did everything he could to make sure his touch didn’t linger.
This heavy rock in my stomach feels a lot like disappointment.
He walks toward the door, not giving me a single look at his face. Is there pleasure in his eyes? Dissatisfaction?
Disgust?
Would it be so bad to let me see?
“I won’t be needing your offering tonight.”
My heart is thrown like a snowball, the swelling lump in my throat hard to draw a steady breath past.
Those words ...
They’re acid to my bones.
He’s stealing that sadistic thrill from my nightly ritual, replacing it with this —something equally refined, as if the door were still separating us as he took my offering.
He pauses with his hand wrapped around the handle. “Lilac.”
I shake my head, glazed attention lifting to the back of his head. “What?”
“To match your eyes,” he murmurs before tugging the door open, and then he’s gone.
My lids flutter closed, shuttering me away.
I was bleeding at the breakfast table this morning, and he certainly didn’t demand I dip my leg in a bucket of water.
Is this some sort of punishment? His way of forcing me to break my routine? Because that’s what it feels like.
He dealt his blow and left.
There’s a soft knock, and I look up to see Hovard bowed around the doorframe, assessing the space with his marble eyes. “He’s gone?”
“He is.” I clear my throat, watching him inch back in like the ground is littered with hot coals. “And he liked the red.”
Hovard pushes his glasses further down his nose and studies me over the rim of them. “Oh?”
I nod. “And I want the dress cut low in the back and more fitting around the hips.”
His brow pinches, eyes going wide, cheeks sponged red. “But ... but Orlaith, my dear ... you wouldn’t be able to wear your underbones. That would be considered very informal for such an occasion!”
“That’s the point,” I bite, unpinning the rest of Dolcie’s monstrosity from my frame.
If I must attend this ball, I refuse to be stuffed into something impossible to breathe in.
“So long as the neckline sits around my throat, I’m giving you artistic license, Hovard. You’ve always said you’d love to dress me like a doll. Well ... have at it.”
He stares at me for a long moment before he bursts into a foray of movement and chatter and expressive hand gestures that make me smile.
Rhordyn wants to punish me? Well.
Two can play that game.