All of this happened as I was reminded, if I didn’t spring Mom and the other Maxine early, it was going to take me at least a year to get this done. I might have to have a kid in the meantime, and for sure, she or he’d have to come home with us.
This meant I’d be taking him from Loren.
Then there was Loren. And his dad, who seemed to be sweet. And Idina, who was shy and reserved, but I thought…
“Shall we get you dressed, Countess?” Idina queried.
I came back again and whispered, “I’m sorry, I have a lot on my mind.”
“I’m sure,” she whispered in return, holding my gaze in the mirror.
I drew in breath and said, “Let’s get this done.”
She tipped her head to the side and hesitantly asked, “He doesn’t please you?”
At her question, the weight in my belly felt the slightest bit lighter.
Was she making an overture?
“He’s very handsome,” I told her.
“That he is,” she agreed.
“He’s also very overbearing.”
She scrunched her mouth to the side. It was cute.
She stopped doing that to say, “They tend to be.”
“Of course they do. However, perhaps I can break him of that.”
She made a surprised pip of a laugh, and I grinned at her.
Then I said, “Bring on the iron maiden.”
Her eyes got huge.
“My corset, Idina,” I explained.
At that, she actually giggled.
That was cuter.
Cripes, now I was building a bond and making friends with a girl I was probably going to have to use.
Okay.
All right.
Gah!
This sucked.
All of it!
We moved to the dressing area.
She laced me into the contraption.
And it was (almost) worth it after she put a silk scarf over my head to protect my hair and be certain that my makeup didn’t get on my dress, before she dropped a very heavy, but outrageously beautiful gown onto my body.
It was pale pink with an embarrassment of rosy-pink beading and sparkling crystals, mostly around the bodice and the empire waist, but also dripping in swoops down the skirt from the center between my breasts at the front and along my spine at the back. These were thick along the hem. And there was a rather long train.
It had cap sleeves made entirely of strings of the crystals.
It also had a set of rosy-pink gloves that fitted all the way up to my biceps.
Completing this ensemble, pink satin slippers that had pointed toes and the beading of the gown.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
I looked amazing.
It was exquisite.
I abhorred it.
“The finishing touches,” Idina said quietly, and we moved back to the vanity.
While I sat before her, she slid a diamond-headed comb in the side of my hair. She then draped a necklace around my neck that sat at the base of my throat and was a simple row of diamonds, but there was nothing simple about the stones, their size (each had to be at least three carats), or their perfection. And finally, Idina fixed a matching bracelet over my glove at my left wrist.
She looked at me in the mirror. “You’re ready.”
“I’m perfect, and it’s all because of you,” I replied, the words feeling funny in my mouth, because they were true, but I was partially saying them to make her like me so I could ask her to do things that might get her into trouble.
She ducked her head shyly then murmured, “Which scent would you—?”
The door opened, and startled, we both looked that way to see Dad-not-Dad storming in.
“Ah, the lost art of the knock,” I bemoaned wryly.
“Leave us,” he ordered Idina.
She instantly made to exit.
I got up from the velvet seat, waited for the door to close on my maid, looked to Dad-not-Dad, and snapped, “You shouldn’t speak—”
I didn’t finish that because his arm went down and across his body, then flashed out, and he caught me on the cheekbone with a vicious backhand.
I reeled to the side, catching myself on the dressing table, the tubs and vials and bottles clattering dangerously, pain exploding through one side of my face into the other.
I started to turn back to him in shock, only to receive another, more brutal blow, one which took me down to sitting sideways on one thigh on the seat.
Stars filled my eyes, I blinked at them as my brain was forced to do nothing but experience the blinding pain, my hand drifting up to touch my burning skin.
“You audacious trollop,” he clipped into my ear. “Behind closed doors in the stables, of all places, without a chaperone.”
I was still blinking.
He caught my chin and wrenched my head around, something that also wrenched my neck, and I couldn’t control my whimper.
“We will not do this your way, you cheap, inveterate whore. To continue your education, my fair daughter, a man of noble blood does not marry a whore. Lord Remington has had his fair share of whores, and likely will have more, but he won’t take one to wife.”