No bots to fetch a plate of charcuterie to make up for my missed luncheon. After my missed breakfast. No bots to remove my hat, cloak, and satin-laced shoes. No bots to assist me with my evening finery.
Even knowing exactly what I intend to wear, I spend as much time as I can laying it out, then applying my intricate makeup, until at last I’m reduced to spending a quarter hour in graceful stillness, a statue by the post of my bed, wondering how in the world I’m to prepare myself for the formal ball. And in only an hour.
I can’t even unfasten my walking dress without a second set of hands. And I can’t com someone for assistance. Molli volunteers for the overtime-pay role of guide duty on Wednesday afternoons. Pretty young girls are practically Sonoma’s corporate mascots these days, to the point that the bust of Demeter in the company logo has on occasion been satirically recast as Persephone. If the commentators only knew. Lady Mei spends most Wednesdays in the women’s center at the Hameau de la Reine, presumably at her father’s behest, though she might be making a permanent place for herself there. Lord Aaron, who could almost certainly arrange a dresser for me, has either left Versailles on business or, in a fit of angst, hidden himself from M.A.R.I.E.—and, therefore, everyone else. I’ll go naked before begging Lady Medeiros’s help twice in one day, and anyway, she’s surely enmeshed in her own preparations for the ball. I could raid my parents’ apartments for discreet access to some dressing-bots, but all my clothing is in the Queen’s Rooms. What am I to do—carry my outfit across the palace like a washerwoman?
The brisk clacking of heels heralds a deliverance in which I can take no joy. Each footfall is heavy, awkward, exactly the way I walked before Giovanni corrected me. So unmistakable is the cadence of my mother’s footfalls that I have almost half a minute to camouflage my frustration and panic before she strides through the doors.
Typical Mother: avoiding me for nearly forty-eight hours after consenting to this appalling new living arrangement. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say she was afraid to face me. But I’m beginning to understand how she thinks; what she wants is for the move to be fully and irrevocably completed before she has to listen to me beg her to put it back to rights.
Too late, she will say.
Except that she won’t say it, because I refuse to complain. Not to her.
The dozen or so people loitering in the Queen’s Bedchamber pause to ogle the new addition to what I’m sure they must have found a dull show. Without asking permission or even dropping a curtsy—as much as to say You’re not Queen yet, and don’t you forget it—my mother pushes the golden gate open and strides over to where I’m frozen in my most languid pose.
“You’re not dressed,” she hisses, taking in my rumpled walking gown and the pieces of my evening finery laid out on the bed.
I’m starving and exhausted, and I hate that she’s here and that I’m going to have to confess my helplessness to her. “I’m not certain how I could be,” I say with a tight jaw.
“You haven’t a dresser?” she says, her eyebrows climbing. Everyone in the room can tell that she’s appalled and disappointed in me, after I’ve been doing such a good job keeping them uninterested—redirecting their focus onto the filigree about the chamber instead of me. It’s worse when someone else strips your carefully crafted illusion away. My mother and the King both have that irritating habit.
“In,” my mother orders, pointing at the door to the wardrobe behind me and scooping the masses of fabric off the bed. “Go! I will take care of you today. We’ve no time for a substitute.”
Together we pass through the door beside my new bed, into the wardrobe, and I can’t decide which is more debasing: having my mother reduced to a dresser, or being so personally desperate as to allow it.
Even so, when she closes the door and instructs me to turn so she can unhook me, I sigh in relief that at least this undressing isn’t required to be carried out in the public arena.
“Where are the Society people?” my mother demands. “You’d think those lackwits would be more punctual, seeing as how they really only have to work one day a week as it is. It’s no wonder we’ve mostly replaced them with M.A.R.I.E.’s bots. I’ve half a mind to buy another block of Amalgamated.”
Amalgamated Robotics Inc. manufactures all the bots in Versailles Palace, as well as their central control system, M.A.R.I.E., who even on her ostensible day of rest tirelessly attends to the palace’s orderly, if marginally less roboticized, operation. Sonoma Inc. partnered with them sometime before I was born, and whenever someone fails to do my mother’s bidding, she blames human frailty and threatens to buy more shares of Amalgamated stock.
“You did make an appointment with the Society people, didn’t you?” she asks.
I wouldn’t even know how. What remains of the Haroldson Historical Society is a small cadre of experts in Baroque culture, art, and fashion. I had no idea they helped the Queen dress.
But then, I’ve never been Queen on a Wednesday.
My silence is all the answer Mother requires, and she sighs melodramatically. “I can’t believe you’re so unprepared, Danica.”
I doubt there’s anything in the world that could make me feel more a child than being berated by my mother as she’s dressing me. “Well, Mother, perhaps that’s because no one bothered to prepare me. I might have managed with a few days’ warning, which I happen to know you had.”
A blush blossoms on my mother’s cheeks. She says nothing, but the fingers pulling the dress from my shoulders aren’t gentle. “It wasn’t my decision.”
And she’s correct. Someone has dropped the proverbial ball today, and I continue to suspect that the King himself allowed some of these oversights merely to torment me.
Once I’m unclothed, my mother reaches for the pile of shimmering silk and gasps. “Solid red? You can’t wear this.”
“I can and I shall.”
“I’m not certain how, as I refuse to help you into it,” she says, dropping the gown into a heap on the floor.
My temper rises like magma into a volcano, but I refuse to erupt. “Well then. When the King—and the press—ask why I’m attending the ball in a shift and corset, I’ll be sure to tell them whose fault it is.” I stride smoothly to the wardrobe door, open it just wide enough that the crowd in my bedchamber can’t see me, and beckon with a flourish. “You’re dismissed, as I’m apparently finished dressing.”
My mother stomps over, wrenches the door from my grasp, and slams it shut. “You will obey me, Danica, and you will select more suitable clothing.”
“I won’t,” I say, my shoulders shaking in fury but my voice calm. “What are you going to do—evict me? I am the resident of Sonoman-Versailles’s Queen’s Rooms. I’ll wear what I please, and you’ll help me, or the tabloids are going to have an exceptionally happy day.”
She mutters something about my willfulness, accompanied by a vaguely unfavorable comparison to Lady Cynthea, but I close my ears to it and simply turn when she tosses the skirt of the satin dress over my head.
It’s a gown I had made two years ago; in many ways it’s rather sadly out of fashion, to the extent such a thing is possible in the retro-culture of Sonoman-Versailles. But it’s striking enough—and the only one I have that’s wholly red.
“You should be grateful,” my mother says as she fastens hooks and ties laces.
“Grateful for what? Being kicked out of my home?”
“For all of this,” she says with an encompassing flutter of her hand. “This engagement. You’re going to be Queen, Danica. How can that not please you?” She gives a sharp tug on the back of my dress, and it’s all I can do to stay on my feet.
“He’s a monster,” I hiss. “A sadistic bully who gets sexual pleasure from his lovers’ pain and fear. And you sold me to him. Forgive me for failing to feel any debt of gratitude for that.”
My mother isn’t provoked in the least. “It’s not as if we’re going to tuck you into your wedding bed and put your sheets on display in the mor
ning, as they used to in these very chambers. You needn’t have anything to do with him outside of the public eye.”
“Thank you for permission to do exactly as I intended.” I turn back to the full-length mirror, shifting slightly so I can’t see her. “You still bound me to him. I’m as blackmailed in all of this as he is.”
“But your mother holds all the cards.”
“That might be a comfort if I had a mother who cared for me half as much as she cares for herself.”
She doesn’t reply, but when she reaches the line of hooks down my back, she pauses. “This bodice is too large. We ordered this dress at least a year ago. Longer. I remember I didn’t like it then, either. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I snap, then curse myself for losing control, even for that tiny instant. She fumbles at the fastenings, and it takes me a few seconds to realize she’s undoing them. “Mother, stop,” I protest, but her fingers are nimble, and before I know it, the back of the dress is entirely unfastened. I feel her hands circle my tightly laced waist, measuring.
“You’re too small. My fingers almost touch. I thought you looked strange en déshabillé. What are you doing to yourself?”
I turn, forcing her hands off my corset, wishing suddenly that I could change into one she hasn’t touched. “Going through puberty,” I say darkly, knowing it’s a weak excuse at best. “Unless you’d care to forbid that, too.” I hadn’t realized I’d constricted my waistline quite so far. Didn’t want to, if I’m honest with myself. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I have a new stomacher that will match. I can wear it over the top and no one will know.”
“I’ll know.”
“No one important will know,” I amend, and don’t bother to watch for her reaction. I turn to a drawer in my credenza instead, rustling through a few tissue-paper-wrapped items. “Here,” I say, holding the embroidered black silk stomacher across my waist while I wait wordlessly for my mother to pull the strings tight in the back. I stand, frozen in place, for nearly a minute before I finally feel her begin to thread the satin ribbons.
I’m not convinced that even the solid black of the adorning piece will work with what I’d hoped would be a completely red canvas, but once all the pieces are put together, I scrutinize myself in the mirror and decide it does. My purpose tonight isn’t to scale the heights of fashion. The gown is slim, with smaller panniers than usual, drawing attention not to my hips, as a fuller skirt would do, but pulling the eye upward with a triangular bodice. The deep red complements my olive skin and dark brown hair beautifully, and the shiny satin has neither pattern nor excessive trim—nothing to catch the eye.
To match the last-minute stomacher, I add a black lace panel to my low, square neckline so even my shadow of cleavage is less distracting. My makeup features a dark, smoky eye, and I’ve coated my eyelashes more heavily than usual. Now the crowning detail.
I reach into my satin reticule and pull out small ceramic pot of red lip paint.
With glitter in it.
Not the tiny black pot Saber flipped to me; this contains a fine but simple silver glitter I found in the bottom of my trunk. From a costume at some point, I imagine. I didn’t even make too excessive a mess when I mixed it with some shiny red lip gloss an hour ago in my bathroom. Away from the prying eyes of my spectators. It’s not perfect—the costume glitter isn’t nearly as fine as in Saber’s mixture, so the glossy red paste is a bit gritty as I brush a red curve onto my lower lip. But once I’ve painted bottom and top, the sparkling effect is rather stunning.
“Perfect,” I whisper at the mirror through sticky, coated lips.
“What in the world is that?” my mother asks, glaring at my audacious mouth.
“The next big thing, Mother,” I reply, smudging one uneven line. “The next big thing.”
“PARDONNEZ, EXCELLENCE?” THE French rendering of my new title sounds from outside my wardrobe. The minion His Highness always has flitting around him at formal events is standing just outside the golden gate that cordons off my personal space. Matt-something-or-other. At the sight of me, he bursts out with a high-pitched “Aaah!” and pushes his way through. He pauses a meter from where I stand and drops into a deep bow, then continues in French. “Your Grace, His Majesty the King requests your presence.”
Odd. “He mustn’t worry; I’ll join him in time to be announced. The ball doesn’t begin for another quarter of an hour.” I wave the man away dismissively and begin buttoning my finely embroidered gloves without waiting to see if he goes.
“My apologies, Your Grace,” the man says, dropping another subservient bow. He’s easily twenty years my senior and certainly wouldn’t be putting on this syrupy display were there not a dozen wide-eyed tourists soaking in every moment, eyes gleaming unnaturally as their Lenses subtitle our conversation for those who don’t speak French. “His Highness needs to consult with you before the ball.”
I raise an eyebrow and fix the man with my most irritated glare, and it’s almost amusing how quickly he begins to quake beneath it. Sometimes an audience is helpful. I tuck that little tidbit away for use in the future.
“H-he was most insistent,” the man stammers, and I wonder if my supposed beloved hired him because he’s so easy to boss about.
This wasn’t my plan, but perhaps I can turn it to my benefit. “Help me, then,” I say, thrusting out my still-unbuttoned glove. “I cannot leave this room improperly dressed.” He almost chokes at the inferior task I’ve given him, but he can hardly refuse, and soon his nimble fingers have fastened twenty tiny seed-pearl buttons on each arm.
“Lead on,” I say sweetly when he drops my left hand.
Murmurs of delight surround me as I glide down the halls of the salons in my finery, treading a roped-off path. Wouldn’t want any eager tourists to reach out grubby hands and touch my pristine satin gown as I glide by, after all. Judging by their excited whispers, I’ve impressed them—the Americans especially—but the King will be another matter.
The reedy assistant leads me to the King’s Private Office, where His Highness conducts much of his personal business, and closes the double doors behind me. His Royal Highness is sitting at his Chippendale desk, already dressed in a formal coat, with perfectly curled hair. I’m a little shocked to see him holding a small tablet—screens are supposed to be off-limits on Wednesdays, especially in the popular royal quarters. But I remember his comment earlier about the rooms M.A.R.I.E. automatically ceases to record when he enters. Why don’t I have a room like that?
“Must we both waste our time?” I ask after he sits silently for the better part of a minute, eyes fixed on the screen.
He looks up as though only now realizing that I’m here, even though I know that can’t be true. “What the hell is this?” He angles the screen toward me.
I have to step forward to make out the image, but I freeze in horror. It’s a video of me, this morning, waking up. And it’s worse than I thought. My entire thigh is exposed, and as I stir and begin to wake, I pull the fabric up several centimeters higher. The camera gets a very clear shot of the rounded curve of my…lower cheek.
A flush works its way across my chest and up my neck, and I hate that His Majesty is seeing this. In a horrifying moment of clarity, I realize that having a hundred random tourists see half of my rear is infinitely preferable to this one man’s getting to see it, even secondhand.
“Please tell me you didn’t pull such a stunt on purpose.” I almost miss the twitch at the side of his mouth. He’s amused by this débâcle!
“As if I would.” My voice sounds calm, and I feel vaguely proud of myself. I’m not sure where I dredged up the will to speak at all.
He stares at me and says nothing for a long moment. When at last he speaks, each word is slow and measured. “It’s never easy to tell when something is accidental with you. I can’t read you.”
I say nothing.
“This is unacceptable,” he continues at last, snapping the cover of his tablet closed.
“In
the future I will endeavor to control my every motion while sleeping, Justin,” I retort.
“Where was your staff?”
“Staff?” I feign ignorance. We may as well both lie.
“Six ladies for the lever. It was advertised. We sold premium-price tickets, and believe me, they were not impressed.”
“You advertised my first lever and yet told me nothing of it?” I arch an eyebrow. What I want to do is shriek at him for his infernal stupidity. Or drive for revenge. Sometimes it’s difficult to read him as well.
“Your mother didn’t inform you?”
“My mother wasn’t the one selling tickets, was she?”
“I thought every little girl in Sonoman-Versailles dreamed of being part of the lever one day.”
“Considering I wasn’t noble enough to reside in the palace as a little girl, I wouldn’t know.”
“You didn’t have big dreams?” he says, his voice soft, dangerous with its vague lilt of seduction.
“Not of being in this hellish position.”
He rises and pushes the lapels of his elaborate coat back, baring a similarly exquisite waistcoat, and fists his hands against his hips. There’s no subtlety or nuance in his sarcasm. “It is indeed difficult to imagine a greater hardship than being Queen of the wealthiest pocket sovereignty in the entire world.”
“I meant being married to you.”
The only sound in the room is his heavy breathing. He leans forward, his knuckles white on his desk, and I can practically hear his mind shouting at him to lash back.
But he can’t fight truth.
“Get a staff,” he says very quietly. “It’s a well-paid position, with a side of prestige. M.A.R.I.E. has a full training program. We’ll be selling premium tickets again next week, and a full lever will be expected. Sans the peep show this time, if you would. Now you’ve been told. Are you happy?”
A bitter laugh rolls from my glittering lips. “Happy? Let’s not exaggerate to absurdity.”
He slams his hand down on his desk. “I expect a full lever next week. That’s a royal command. Why the hell do you think I moved you into that room before the wedding?” He looks chagrined at his own admission and toys with the lace at his cuffs, avoiding my eyes. “Too damn many people staring at me. It’s the Queen’s lever that’s always been the draw, and ever since my mom died, they’ve all had nothing better to do than come in and gawk at me.”