I shivered. “Isn't it too cold for this?” The dress exposed my shoulders, a daring cut some would wear during the summer months. Although it was a bold style, I didn’t feel as exposed as I used to in the gowns Mother picked for me.
“Fashionable ladies never get cold,” Giselle said, briskly pulling a pair of matching gloves over my arms. “Now spin for me.”
I obliged as Misty watched us disinterestedly over her breakfast.
Giselle clapped. “My, my. I’ve done it again! So. What do you think?”
I spread the gathered skirt, which flared dramatically at my feet. “I’ve never worn purple before.”
Mother had practically worn red all her life, favoring shades of ruby and crimson. So had I. She said it was the boldest hue there was. Now, I wasn’t sure I would agree. The velvety purple was deep and mesmerizing, especially when it caught the light.
Giselle grinned. “It’s his favorite color.”
I gave her a blank look.
“The person next door,” she said impatiently. “You know, your fiancé?”
“Why does that matter?”
Giselle threw her hands in the air and muttered under her breath about “those two idiots.”
16
After the fitting andbreakfast, I went to the common room to read a romance novel I found in the Huntington’s library. It was undoubtedly Isabelle’s, about a princess who ran away from her marriage to find true love with a stablehand. I found it rather vapid—no princess in her right mind would abandon her kingdom for a simpering stable boy—but I was hooked nonetheless. I had just gotten to the part where they were discovered by a palace maid when Giselle knocked on my door, informing me that the ball was about to commence.
I left the book begrudgingly. Before long, I was dressed in the finished purple gown and escorted to the entrance of the abbey’s ballroom where Ulysses and Crown Prince Bennett waited. Murmurs of conversation and warm candlelight streamed through the archway, a taste of what was to come. My heartbeat quickened.
“Several illustrious families from Coriva are present this evening, some of whom have made their distaste known about the kingdom’s recent changes,” Ulysses murmured, removing several folded papers from his waistcoat. The ball’s guest list. “To them we must pay extra attention. They have as much of a hold on Coriva as Corivians themselves.” He read off a list of names. Interestingly enough, my former fiancé was included. “And that is why, Lady Narcissa, you above all must make an impeccable impression tonight.”
I dipped my head. “I will certainly try my best.”
Impressing high society was second nature to me. But being Mother’s daughter, which was once a merit, was now a disadvantage. There was Father, of course. But being born out of wedlock was no merit either.
“Lady Narcissa?” Crown Prince Bennett’s voice broke through my increasingly frantic thoughts. I looked down at the crook of his arm, which he had offered to me. It was clad in the same velvet as my dress.
His face, though expressionless as always, was almost reassuring. It reminded me that I still had an identity—the future crown princess. I was not just a friendless girl who talked to animals. Not just a traitor’s daughter.
