Page 10 of Ruling the Green

How… why… there were too many questions and no one to provide answers.

The men dropped me on the floor in a large room lined with beds.

Two women stood beside a large tub with drab gray gowns and aprons and matching pinched, unpleasant faces.

“Well, leave, will you? This is not for men,” the older woman declared, waving at the men with a slate-colored rag in her hand.

The women waited until the men were gone to move.

But then they did so all at once.

One moved behind me, tugging at my hair with a brush. The other wet the rag from the tub and scrubbed at me with uncomfortably hot water.

“What a state she’s in,” the one with the brush tsked. “There’s all sorts of things in her hair.”

“Pretty, though,” the older woman said as she rubbed my face raw with the scratchy rag.

“Right bit prettier than the miss,” the other one whispered.

“Hush now. You know how she has ears in the walls,” the elder chided.

“You think she will fit in the gown? She’s rounder in hip and heavier in the bust.”

“When has a groom ever objected to a heaving bosom?” the elder woman asked as she shoved a hand down my bodice to scrub the aforementioned bosom.

There was something deeply impersonal about it all. The way they spoke of me as if I wasn’t there. How they touched me as though I was a dirty table rather than another living being.

But perhaps that was better.

“Doesn’t say much, does she?” the younger asked after what felt like a lifetime of brushing and twisting my hair into a thick braid down my back.

“For the best, I say. No man likes a chattering woman. Besides, don’t think her talking would do any of us any good. If Mr. Grimwood and the missus get in trouble, we’re all out of a job. Might not like it here, but like an empty stomach a lot less.”

They prattled to each other the whole time they cleaned me, applied creams to me, then moved me to stand.

I didn’t know their intentions until the elder servant grabbed the bodice of my dress and tugged downward, exposing my breasts.

A yelp escaped me.

Not at my nudity, per se. But at the secret that was strapped to my thigh: the item I would wither and die without. The flask I needed them not to find and confiscate.

My hands rushed to my chest, covering myself.

“Oh, she’s shy,” the younger observed.

“Definitely not royal behavior,” the elder woman murmured.

“I can…” I started, having to clear my throat with how scratchy it felt without my water to swallow. “I can dress myself.”

The women shared a look, observed me, then shared another look.

“Suits me,” the elder woman said. “Careful not to ruin the gown, mind you.”

With that, they made their way out of the room, muttering to each other about how a shy woman was not going to enjoy the wedding night duties of a new bride.

I ignored that, waiting until they were gone, then quickly slipping out of my ruined dress and into the white one hanging nearby.

Reaching under the long skirt, I readjusted the tie holding the flask to my body before spotting a mirror in the corner of the room.