“Is this necessary?” I asked, prodding the sharp point.
“It stays,” Giselle said with a warning look. I lowered my hand. “I designed the whole ensemble around it.” She snipped off a loose thread before meeting my eye in the mirror. “I expected you to be at the palace.”
I looked away from the mirror. “Who made you do it?” I asked, ignoring her comment. “Is this another rebellion? Are you a part of it?”
Giselle raised her brows. “You think I would join a rebellion and betray the crown?”
“I-I don’t know. You left me alone with a stove!”
She laughed at that, though I was feeling far from amused. “Don’t fret, Narcissa. It’s not a rebellion and you have nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me who it is,” I grumbled.
Giselle shook her head with a smile.
LADY VANESSA JOINEDme for the carriage ride to the palace. She was wearing the same dressing gown she had donned last night, pale blue with tiny satin roses at the collar and cuffs.
“You didn’t have to escort me,” I said, half-apologetic and half-curious. She had nearly sprinted through the abbey gates when she saw my carriage leaving.
Now, barely out of breath and without a single strand of blonde hair out of place, Lady Vanessa leaned forward in her seat and gave me one of her wide-eyed, earnest stares. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Cissa?” she asked.
She wanted an explanation for last night.
I fiddled with my hands, turning my engagement ring around my finger. The diamond sparkled as it caught the light. “I know I shouldn’t have come back last night,” I said. “It won’t happen again. Please don’t tell Father. It was...horribly inappropriate and I didn’t mean to shame you.”
Lady Vanessa furrowed her fair brows. “Darling, you didn’t shame anyone. What happened to you?”
I was glad the rattling of the carriage masked my shaking hands. “Bennett and I...fought.”
Lady Vanessa leaned back, looking surprised. “Really? In the middle of the night?” She lowered her voice. “Did he want to do something you didn’t?”
My face flushed when I caught her meaning. “No! He wouldn't—it wasn’t that.”
“Good,” Lady Vanessa said with a firm nod. Something told me she would’ve done something drastic if I’d answered otherwise. “Then was it a serious fight?”
“Serious?”
“Well yesterday your father and I fought about him leaving his soiled socks on my side of the bed,” Lady Vanessa said wryly. “But that’s hardly comparable to the fight we had when I found out he was a witch.”
“Oh,” I said. I never considered that Bennett and I would fight at all, much less the nature of our fights. He was nothing but calm and diplomatic and I....
“You’re frowning, dear.”
“It was my fault,” I said, easing back into my seat. I wanted to slump, but my corset refused to let me show such weakness. It was the only thing I could depend on to hold me together. “It wasn’t serious. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Lady Vanessa raised an eyebrow, clasping her hands in her lap. “If it made you this upset, it must have been serious.”
I shook my head. I had been dramatic last night, that was all. Daylight always put perspective on things.
Still, as the pointed spires of the palace came into view, my throat tightened.
