Chapter 3 The Dress Fitting #3
She hovered just inside the doorway of the small, informal dining room.
Heather was seated at a harp in the corner.
The harp sparkled with each stroke of her fingers as an entrancing melody filled the dining chamber.
Heather’s mana channeled through the shined instrument, illuminating the strings of the harp in a pale blue glow.
Her mana allowed Heather to loop the melody so that she could play her own accompaniment to the song.
From the hallway, it sounded as though two or three harpists sat in the room and not just a soloist.
Celise was enchanted by the sound, though she tried not to show it. She hovered in the doorway. Her presence went unacknowledged. She didn’t want to interrupt Heather’s performance.
Finally, Heather finished her song and stood up. She bowed to Lord and Lady Dhastel.
“I hope it pleases you, Mother," she said.
“It’s much better than it was last week,” Marcella allowed, which was high praise. “Not yet worthy of a blue ribbon, however. Keep practicing.”
“I thought it was lovely,” Lord Dhastel said to his youngest daughter.
Heather beamed at their father, then she took her seat at the end of the table next to Katrina.
Only then did Lord Dhastel seem to notice Celise’s presence. He glanced at her just long enough to take in her soiled clothes. Then he averted his eyes, as he always did when she stood before him, as though he couldn’t bear the sight of her for more than a minute at a time.
“Marcella and I have been discussing the coming ball and banquet at length. We’ve decided you should eat with us in the main house until the gala so you can learn proper table manners.”
Lord Dhastel motioned to an empty chair near the end of the table, close to her sisters. As Celise walked down the length of the table, he began reading over his steward’s reports.
Before Celise could sit down, Marcella waved to one of the servants attending the table. “Place a towel down on the seat,” she said. “I won’t have the girl staining the chairs with her filthy clothes.”
Celise felt a twinge of humiliation as the servant placed a white towel down on the chair across from her stepmother. Then she sat down. Across from her, Marcella perched as stiff as a stuffed eagle, her eyes focused on Celise’s every move, a sneer hovering about her lips.
“Tomorrow and from now on, I expect you to bathe before entering the house,” she snipped. “I don’t want you to embarrass us at the banquet. Many important people from around the kingdom will be there. At the very least, you shall learn to sit properly and conduct yourself.”
Celise bobbed her head, keeping her eyes focused on her plate.
The dinner hour passed with agonizing slowness.
It seemed Marcella was more interested in humiliating Celise than instructing her.
At first, the rot-queen criticized Celise’s slouched posture.
“Sit with your back straight, so you don’t spill soup down your bodice!
” Then came a million other rules she would have to remember at the banquet.
Celise dropped her utensils several times, overwhelmed by paralyzing anxiety.
Katrina sniggered at her clumsiness while Heather averted her eyes.
Celise had to endure a barrage of criticisms until the grandfather clock struck eight in the evening. Lord Dhastel put down his fork. With a groan, he stood up and gathered his papers, then he walked down the length of the table.
“You’re retiring early?” Marcella asked.
“I have to review our accounts before the fair next month,” Lord Dhastel murmured.
Celise wondered if she imagined the slight downturn of Marcella’s lips.
He dropped a brief kiss on the top of his wife’s head as he strolled past. He didn’t look at Celise as he walked through the doorway and turned down the hall toward his study, carrying a stack of papers in hand.
Celise waited until Lord Dhastel left the dining room. Then she shot up to her feet. She bowed to her stepmother and turned toward the door, eager to run back to the stables where she belonged.
But Marcella wasn’t finished with her yet. “Girl, I wish to speak to you for a moment.”
Celise felt a shiver run down her spine.
She stepped aside as Katrina and Heather both exited the room.
Then she turned to face her stepmother. Marcella didn’t rise immediately from her place at the table but took a moment to pat dry her lips.
Then she folded her napkin and set it down next to her plate.
She held out a hand to Celise. “Come here, let me look at you.”
With a lump of fear in her throat, Celise crossed the room to stand before her stepmother.
Marcella stood up from her chair. She was almost a half-foot taller than Celise, a woman of striking beauty with strong shoulders, a wide bust, sloping neck and a proud jaw.
Celise remembered being in awe of Marcella’s dark, dramatic beauty when she first wed her father almost eighteen years ago.
That’s when Celise had tentatively thought of Marcella as her new mother.
However, that role didn’t last very long.
As Celise grew into a young woman herself, her awe of Marcella’s beauty gradually diminished.
Now, nearing the age of forty, Marcella’s jaw was a bit more heavy, her eyes a bit less bright, and an extra thirty pounds clung to her tall frame.
Still, with her luscious black hair and wide, dark eyes, Marcella turned heads wherever she went.
The gorgeous matron looked over Celise like a master appraising a horse. Her hand went to Celise’s jaw, lifting her chin slightly to study her features. Celise kept her eyes downcast, wondering if her stepmother would strike her. With Marcella, one could never tell.
But her stepmother only smiled—a cold, calculating look.
“Such an unusual hair color,” she mused. “A pity, truly, that such a rare quality is wasted on a giftless child. I assume you take after your mother because you look nothing like your father. I doubt anyone would believe you’re my daughter at the gala.”
Celise cleared her throat. “If it pleases you, ma’am, I can accompany you as a servant alongside Dasha . . . .”
“Unfortunately, no. The old lord, Cornelius Blackwood, named you in his invitation, so you must appear among the nobility, no matter how unsuitable I find you. Your name will be on the guest list, so you will be announced alongside Katrina and Heather.”
“I see.”
“I don’t expect you’ll have any luck with the duke, unless the Mad Dog has a taste for urchins.”
“I would never presume to dance with the duke,” Celise said.
“Of course you wouldn’t, and I forbid it!”
Celise’s eyelids fluttered. She glanced up and met Marcella’s gaze, then looked away.
Marcella spoke softly, but her words were laced with ice.
Celise knew what the threat meant. She bore several scars along her back from Marcella’s punishments.
The rot-queen never wielded the cane herself but enlisted her loyal staff to do it.
The carriage driver, the gardener and Lord Dhastel’s footman were all in her pocket, and many of the ranch hands as well, who were still taken with her beauty.
“Was that a defiant look?” Marcella sneered.
“No, ma’am,” Celise whispered.
“Don’t cross me,” Marcella snapped. Celise flinched, expecting a strike that didn’t come.
“Now you listen to me, girl: you are only attending the dance to support your sisters. Don’t you dare do anything to embarrass my family.
If you put so much as a foot on the dance floor—or cause any kind of scandal—you will rue the day you were born.
Your father might be against sending you to a convent, but there are other places for unwanted women. ”
Celise didn’t react to her stepmother’s threat but did her best to pretend to be deaf and dumb.
Marcella released Celise’s jaw, her hand falling back to her side. “For the next two weeks, you shall meet with me for an hour each morning until we leave for Gravenmere. I will do my best to make you presentable for the gala, although I feel my efforts will be wasted. Do not make me regret this.”
“Yes, ma’am. I will do whatever you ask.”
“Good. Now, when we meet tomorrow morning, you must wear a skirt and slippers, not men’s clothing, and nothing smelly or covered in hay . . . .”
As the long list of requirements spilled from Marcella’s lips, Celise found herself hunching lower and lower. Maybe I should fall off a horse to avoid the ball, she thought. It sounded a lot more pleasant than enduring the next two weeks of torture.
“I will see you in the morning in the Great Hall. Don’t be late.”
Marcella dismissed her with a wave of her pale hand.
Celise bowed deeply and left the room. As soon as she entered the hallway, she started to run, unable to restrain herself any longer.
Her boots pounded on the floor as she darted down the length of the dark manor, passing by dim wall sconces and charging down wood-paneled hallways.
She flew out the back door and across the wide lawn, barreling toward the stables like a galloping horse.
It was hard to breathe in the house, but out under the stars, she felt much better. Her claustrophobia faded. She ran until she was covered in sweat, her legs aching, her lungs heaving. Then she threw herself down upon the cool grass.
I can’t do this, she thought. It’s too much. I’m not like them. I’m not meant to be in high society.
The gala was going to be a disaster.
Two weeks wasn’t enough time to learn lady’s etiquette—Katrina and Heather had both attended school for two years for proper training.
What if she brought shame to the Dhastel name?
What if she let slip that she worked in the stables?
What if she accidentally spoke and behaved like a common laborer?
How much longer would her stepmother tolerate her?
Celise’s eyes traveled to the barn at the side of the field, where she saw one of the upper windows aglow with lantern light.
It looked like Mr. Talisworth was still in his office.
She gazed at that warm window for a long moment.
Should she go to him? Tell him her fears?
Ask him to help her with some scheme to avoid the ball.
He would help her, but . . . .
Was there truly any escape?
Could anyone protect her from Marcella?
It all seemed out of her hands.
Celise sighed, her eyes returning to the two moons above her.
One was high in the sky, a pure silver color, called the Kinder Moon for its gentle light.
The other was close to the horizon, a pale orange like a copper coin, which they called the Maddening Moon.
Only one day a year was the Maddening Moon alone in the sky, and that was Darkwell, the last night of Hallowsin, which heralded the end of harvest season.
Darkwell was a holy night when ghosts and daemons were thought to walk the land.
The celestial goddess Valestra governed over the two moons, and it seemed they were dancing early this year. The Kinder moon usually didn't appear in the sky until after midnight during the summer months of Ardoursol.
Mordwen would say it was a sign.
A sign of what?
Destiny? Fate?
She thought of Mordwen’s oracle cards and her unfinished fortune. Valestra’s wand. The meteor. A significant change in her destiny.
As her panic faded and her heart calmed, Celise’s thoughts turned inward.
Did she want her life to change? This was a much bigger question than simply pondering the moons.
As overwhelmed as she felt, some part of her was also curious about the ball.
How had her name come to be on the invitation?
Was it truly by chance—a diligent clerk too thorough at his job—or was some greater force at work? Some higher will?
Perhaps Valestra’s wand was at play.
Don’t be silly, she chided herself. You were invited to the ball by mistake. It’s best to keep your head down and stay invisible.
But, maybe some small part of her didn’t want to hide. Maybe she was tired of feeling out of place no matter where she went. Tired of Marcella’s threats. Tired of Katrina’s bullying. Wouldn’t it feel good to transform into someone else, if only for a few days?
What awaited her at Gravenmere Castle?
A bit of warmth awakened in her breast. Celise felt an unfamiliar fire—long ago stifled, all but smothered—stir in her heart.
Was it courage? No, not entirely. But maybe it would become courage someday.
The next two weeks were spent in a whirlwind of activity, preparing Celise for her introduction to high society.
Marcella’s hurried lessons in etiquette were confusing at best. Celise didn’t remember any of it, and her stepmother gave up by the end, leaving Celise with a long list of rules to memorize.
Marcella forbade her from doing anything at all at the gala: no eating, dancing, speaking or sitting.
She could stand prettily in her dress and smile, curtsy but not too deeply, and if she must sit, do so with poise, as though sitting on a pin.
She must follow Katrina and Heather everywhere and not wander off.
She mustn’t be out of their sight for even a minute. And no horses.
Now, standing on the front steps of Gravenmere Castle, Celise wondered once again why she had come so far to attend a party she wasn’t truly invited to. Her fragile self-assurance had dissipated with the morning dew. Every small sign seemed like a bad omen.
A gust of wind rustled through the hedges. The front drive seemed overly long, solitary and winding. Beneath the midmorning sun, she felt a shiver of foreboding. She pulled in a steadying breath, trying to ease the knot of apprehension in her stomach.
She reached up and rang the bell.