“Mmm.” Lauriana paid no notice to the rolling eyes and gagging faces, but she did shoo the twins out of the kitchen. “Go play in your room, girls.” Then, to Ellie, “Wear your green dress, kit. It makes you look rather pretty.”
“Why would I want to look pretty for Den?”
A stern hazel gaze pinned her in place. The laughing, flighty Mama was gone. Practical, no-nonsense Mama was back. “You’re twenty-four, Ellysetta. That’s long past time to be making a good match and starting your own family. Look at your friends. All of them married for years, with at least one child walking and another on the way.”
“Kelissande’s not wed,” Ellie reminded her mother.
“Yes, but Kelissande’s not lacking for offers.” The stern look inLauriana’s eyes remained the same, but her voice softened. “She’s got beauty, girl, and wealth. You don’t.”
Ellie ducked her head to hide the glimmer of tears that sprang to her eyes. She knew she was no beauty. She’d seen her reflection often enough to understand that. And Kelissande Minset had always been happy to point out her shortcomings in case she missed them.
“Even though you’ve got a fine, kind heart,” Lauriana continued, “and a strong back to make any man a treasured helpmate, young lads and their parents don’t look for those blessings first. The lads want beauty. The parents want wealth. The queen’s commission will probably be enough to bring Den’s family up to scratch, but you don’t have the time to wait for Papa to make a fortune so you can take your pick of men.” Unspoken was the common knowledge that if a girl was not wed by twenty-five, she was obviously defective in some way. Spinsters were to be pitied—and watched carefully lest the hand of evil that had blackened their futures laid its shadow over those around them.
Ellie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was obvious her mother had already decided whom Ellie would marry. “But I don’t love Den, Mama.” To her horror, her voice wobbled.
“Ellysetta.” There was a rustle of skirts and then the unexpected warmth of her mother’s arms wrapping around her thin shoulders and drawing her close. “Ah, girl. This is my fault.” Lauriana sighed. “I should have done my duty by you long ago. But you were such an... awkward... creature, and we were poor. I thought you’d never be wed, so where was the harm in letting you keep your dreams?”
Awkward. Such a mild euphemism for the fearful truth Mama never voiced. Ellie knew her parents loved her, as did Lillis and Lorelle. But that had not stopped her from hearing the talk of others—or seeing the fear that Mama could never quite hide whenever... things... happened around Ellie.
“But you’ve changed, Ellie, and so have our circumstances.You’ve grown rather pretty in your own way, and this royal commission puts a few coins in our coffers, with the promise of more to come. Look at me, child.” Obedient to the command and the accompanying hand raising her chin, Ellie met her mother’s solemn gaze. “Life is never certain, Ellie. This is your chance to wed, and you must take it.”
“But, Mama—”
Lauriana held up a silencing finger. “Despite everything that happened when you were young, I’ve never curbed your love of Feytales or your dreams of truemates and happy endings, but that’s for Fey, not mortal folk like us. We don’t have centuries to wait for true love.”
“I know that, Mama.”
“Love will come in time, Ellie.”
“But not with Den, Mama!” How could it, when the very thought of his touch revolted her?
“Hush! You’ve not even given him a chance, Ellysetta. Den’s not a bad sort, and he’s certainly shown interest in you these last few months. His family’s well enough, both in manner and position, and your children would never lack for food. Believe me when I tell you there’s nothing worse for parents than hearing a child cry for food they cannot provide. Even if that child is not of their own blood.”
Ellie dropped her gaze as the reminder that she was not the Baristanis’ natural child knifed through her. Almost twenty-four years ago, on a journey from Kreppes to Hartslea in the north, Sol and Lauriana had found an abandoned baby in the woods near Norban. A girl baby with a shock of orange hair and startling green eyes.
Despite the fact that they were grindingly poor—Sol’s hands stiff and nearly crippled by an accident that had left him unable to work as a journeyman woodcarver—they had taken in the baby rather than leaving it to die. And they had kept her, even while Solbarely eked out a living on a few coppers a week as an apprentice carpenter, his broken hands managing to hold hammer, nail, rasp, and lathe, though they could no longer do the intricate detail work he loved.
They kept her even when mysterious, violent seizures afflicted her and the priests declared her demon-cursed. They’d even left their home in Hartslea rather than cast her out or give her into the Church’s keeping as the exorcists and the parish priest advised them to do.
After that, thankfully, the family fortunes changed. Sol’s hands had miraculously healed, and he’d been able to return to his first love, woodcarving. Ellie’s ghastly seizures had dwindled, then stopped almost completely—a fact that Mama attributed to Ellie swearing her soul into service of the Light at her first Concordia in the Church of Light.
Still, Ellie had never forgotten all they’d sacrificed on her behalf. Now there was a chance for her to wed, if not well, at least well enough. It would ensure that Lillis and Lorelle would have the opportunity to make a truly fine match.
“You must trust your parents to do what’s best, Ellysetta. For you and the family.”
“Yes, Mama,” she whispered. She owed them that much and more.
“I know he’s not the man you’ve dreamed of, but give Den a chance. And if another young man of good family asks to court you, we will consider his suit as well.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And wear your green dress tonight.”
Ellie’s shoulders drooped. “Yes, Mama.”
That evening, Ellie donned her green dress and tried not to feel like a lamb being led to slaughter. At her mother’s insistence, she wore Lauriana’s bridal chemise beneath the green gown, and agedivory lace fell over the backs of her hands, looking beautiful and feminine and delicate. Ellie wished she were wearing her own plain cuffs instead.
She stared hard at her reflection in the mirror. Startling green eyes stared back at her, looking too big in a too wan face, accentuated by prominent cheekbones and a slender nose. In the last year or so, her eyebrows and eyelashes had darkened to a deep auburn. The slashing wings of her brows were now exotic rather than pale and washed out, and once her eyelashes had darkened, their thickness and length had become apparent. She had been grateful for that, though at this moment she could have cheerfully wished them back to the transparent pale orange of her childhood. Her mouth was too wide, she acknowledged critically, her lips too full and too red. Her teeth, however, were white and straight, one of her best features.
