But Wenthelen, nose back in the crack, cried out: “Oh, he is handsome as ever. A face as sweet as a lamb. What does he want with Elin?”
“What does a man ever want with a girl?” Alice retorted.
I stepped around her.
“Shush,” I whispered, heading up the stairs. “I will have plenty of words for you both later. Do not wake Rosie or Mathilde. If they rise, tell them to stay in their rooms. And ready some coffee. More than one of us will soon need it.”
When I was out of sight, I picked up my pace, hurrying quickly through the house, down the hall, and toward the tower keep.
Not suitable.I heard Otto’s words in my mind again. Did they apply, only, to my Tremaine girls? Was Elin exempt from the same contempt? I wished I might have been able to nurse this wound in peace. To have better protected Rosie and Mathilde from judgment. To have never seen those blue buttons fastened around Elin’s torso.
Once again, I had to duck my head to get into her room.
“Get dressed,” I told her, for she was still under her quilts. “The royal carriage is here. For you.”
She sat up, her colorless hair tumbling down around her shoulders. “The prince?”
“The prince,” I confirmed. “And you’re still abed.”
She pulled the covers back hastily. “I was embracing the stillness of the morning for clarity of mind.” Going to a basin of water, she began to wash with a cloth. She made a face at the temperature, and then kept going.
I walked to her dressing area and saw the sky-colored wedding dress, hanging from a peg. I touched its hem. “Though it should hardly surprise you after last night.” Turning, I glared at her.
She turned, and hurriedly began to undress, pulling off her sleeping gown. The interest of a prince had stripped her of her modesty. Her skin looked nearly blue. Her nipples pebbled. So thin I could see the articulation of each rib and knob of her spine as her hands searched out the sleeves of her smock.
“You are upset that I came?” Her face emerged through the neck of the undergarment.
I handed her a pair of stockings. “You wore my dress.”
She sat to pull them on, the white silk climbing her calves like a snake shedding its skin in reverse. “It was in the trunk in the attic—”
“It was my wedding dress,” I hissed.
“No.” She paused, one leg extended in front of her, toes pointed. “You wore green.” The stocking went up and over her knee. “I remember.”
I picked up her basquine. “Hurry,” I told her. She stepped in, and I began to work on the laces on the back. “Not my wedding to your father.” I pulled the laces and then pulled them tighter. Elin exhaled a mouth of air. “My first wedding. To the girls’ father.” With a final vicious tug, I fastened the knot.
“I did not know,” she protested, stepping into her petticoat. “Ignorance persists where ignorance dwells. You had said there was a trunk of my mother’s things in the attic. And then I found yours gathering dust and did not think you would mind so much. The dress had a train and bare shoulders. It was out of necessity. How else would I have gone to the ball?” She went to the deep-set window. “How else would I have met the prince?” She turned back to me. “Let us set our sights on loftier ideals. Would you really deny me my happiness over a dress?”
I grabbed her kirtle in a fist and thrust it toward her. “I have never denied you a single thing.”
She took the bundle from me. “Except going to the ball.”
“Which you went to.” I picked up what remained of my blue dress from the peg it hung on, gathering its folds into my arms.
“And you did little to support me—me, who has lacked a family since I was eight years old! When all I want is to make a new family, my own family, once I am married.”
I held the dress against my chest, taken aback. “You have repeatedly been offered a family—this family!”
She shook her head. “It does not work that way. Families are not offered or negotiated. A woman—” She reached for her book, which sat on the end of her bed.
I spoke before she could begin quoting at me. “Of course families are negotiated. We are all in negotiation. A marriage begins with negotiation and continues to be one. And that is if fortune smiles upon you! If you are not viewed as chattel, or property. Do you really think it willbe so simple? You will go to one ball, and your world of sorrow will be resolved in a single stroke?”
Her eyes darted to the foot of the bed. “A good wife is a man’s best wealth.”
“You stupid girl.” I shook my head. “For even if that is true and there is a prince downstairs, you are not yet anyone’s wife and you still live here with us.” I went to the door, unable to stomach any more from her. I did not look over my shoulder as I told Elin: “Be downstairs in three minutes and no later.”
I stopped in my own room to lay the dress on my bed, taking care with the fabric and folds. The organza had not lost its color, though it had gained the brittle, stuffy smell of years in storage. I could not check for the stains since the sleeves were missing. Rubbing the cloth between my fingers, I wished I could unstitch so much of what had happened. I thought of Otto’s shiny shoes, stomping beside mine on the dance floor. Of Mathilde’s gray eyes, searching my own for reassurance and answers. Of the yellow dress my daughters had made me. Of the blue one, that had been entwined with it all. Mostly, I thought of my poor Rosie, who might rise at any minute to see a prince’s carriage in the drive, only to have her renewed hopes dashed, once more, like a bad dream that insisted on recurring.
