Chapter 6 The Shopping Therapy
Locking Gisella in her room all day was a disaster waiting to happen. If she had too much free time, her brain would go straight back to black market poison and assassination plots. So, at sunrise, I dragged her out.
I needed a distraction. For a twenty-two-year-old with a mountain of gold at her disposal, there's only one sedative that works: shopping.
We headed to Madame Laurent's boutique. It's the kind of place where high-society ladies burn through fortunes for imported fabric. The air inside smelled like aggressive, powdery roses. It made me want to sneeze, but Gisella? She inhaled it like oxygen.
Her sour, homicidal mood vanished the second she saw the mannequins. She was back to her spoiled self, pointing at everything.
"Ilse, look at this red velvet," she said, her fingers tracing the fabric. The "I want to kill a farm girl" vibe was gone. "If I wear this to the ball next month, do you think Didier will regret ignoring me?"
I stood two steps back, watching the store clerks hover like vultures. "Red's too aggressive, Gisella. Didier's currently leaning toward 'humble' and 'innocent.' Let's go with sky blue. It looks elegant, not desperate."
She pouted, clearly wanting the red, but she dropped it and turned to the satin. I exhaled. As long as she was listening, my neck was safe.
Then, the door chimed.
Three girls in over-the-top dresses waltzed in. Based on the cheap embroidery on their collars, they were low-tier nobles—the kind that usually just watch from the sidelines of the palace balls.
One of them, wearing a hideous mustard-yellow dress, spotted Gisella. She didn't even try to whisper.
"Oh, look who it is," the girl said, loud enough to wake the dead. "Isn't that Lady Gisella? Our poor, pathetic future Empress."
Her friend, holding a feather fan, giggled behind it but looked us dead in the eye.
"Ah, the one whose fiancé preferred kneeling in the dirt with that temple girl yesterday? Honestly, if I were her, I'd be hiding in a dungeon out of pure shame. Why be rich if your fiancé won't even look at you in public?"
"Shh, keep it down," the third one chimed in, barely suppressing a laugh. "She might start crying and run to her daddy again."
The boutique went dead silent.
I watched Gisella. Her back went rigid. The velvet fabric in her hand? She was gripping it so hard her knuckles turned white. She spun around, face flaming red, eyes blazing. She hiked up her skirt, ready to march over and start a physical brawl.
"How dare these cockroaches........!"
Before she could finish the sentence or claw someone's eyes out and wreck her reputation, I moved. I stepped in front of her and clamped my hand onto her arm. Tight.
"Ilse! Let go! I'm going to rip her mouth off!" Gisella hissed. She was stronger than she looked, fueled by pure, unadulterated rage.
"Stop it, Gisella," I whispered, leaning right into her ear.
My voice was a dead-cold blade. "Remember last night? Don't be a barbarian in public. If you attack them now, by tomorrow morning, everyone in the city will know Lady Gisella is a hot-headed thug. You want to humiliate yourself in front of Didier again?"
The name stopped her dead. She was still panting, chest heaving, but the crazy light in her eyes flickered.
I let go of her arm. I straightened my skirts. I fixed my posture. Dealing with petty, back-stabbing gossips didn't require muscle. It required mental warfare. This was my turf. My old life.
I turned around. Took one slow, steady step forward on the marble. I locked eyes with the girl in the mustard dress.
I didn't yell. I didn't point fingers.
I just pulled the corners of my lips up. I gave her the exact, dead-eyed, formal smile I used to give journalists who tried to bait me into a scandal back at the firm. It was sweet, hollow, and freezing.
The gossips' laughter died in their throats. I kept walking toward them, my smile never slipping, and opened my mouth.