A titter of polite laughter.
“His Majesty commented the first night I wore it that it was utterly exquisite. With so many of you inquiring, I decided that all of my dearest friends should have a chance to wear it.”
My guests express their polite appreciation with a smattering of applause before Lord Aaron speaks over them, formal and ingratiating. “We’re unworthy of Your Grace’s favor. I’m certain I speak for all here when I say that we’re so looking forward to the day you officially take the crown. In this very room.”
Bless Lord Aaron for mentioning that little tidbit to anyone thick enough not to understand the significance of our setting. “Thank you, Lord Aaron,” I say, grinning widely, feeling more false than ever. “But I see my gift comes too late—it would appear that you’ve already ferreted out my supplier!”
Lord Aaron laughs and then preens dramatically, letting the light catch on the glitter adorning his cheekbones. An appreciative breath sounds from Sir Spencer, but he coughs and covers it. It’s often obvious that Sir Spencer wasn’t raised in the palace; he doesn’t guard his expressions as we’ve all been scrupulously taught. In truth, it’s rather refreshing.
A few of the assembled have noticed Molli’s sparkles now too, and she’s receiving a number of approving smiles. Amazing how easy it is to get people to think something by simply assuring them that it’s something they already think.
I reach into a cleverly designed pocket at the top of my panniers and remove several Glittered containers of lip color, cake foundation, and rouge, including some colorless gloss for my more conservative guests. The guilt washes over me again as I hand one of those to Lord Aaron’s love, but I remind myself that perhaps with a bit of loosening up, Sir Spencer would be willing to…dally with Aaron a bit more. As they both so desperately desire. Perhaps…
Focus.
I hold up the container, label forward, and say, “It is, of course, aptly named, and my supplier has given me exclusive rights to distribute this line.” Another smattering of applause, and I incline my head graciously.
Lady Cyn looks at her gift with skepticism, but I lean forward as though confiding in her and say, “You truly should indulge, Lady Cynthea. It’s utterly magical. His Highness is such an admirer.” Her lips tighten, but she removes her glove and dips a finger before passing it to her sister. That look assuages my guilt at least on one person’s behalf.
The deed done, I spend the rest of the party on tenterhooks, half expecting someone to faint into a puddle of bliss. But of course not all of them have even applied my little gift, and I made certain the dose was low. Are they laughing more loudly than usual? Is their behavior more relaxed, friendlier? Are any of them experiencing euphoria?
In the end, no one slumps to the floor in mindless ecstasy, or even succumbs to an uncontrollable fit of the giggles. On their way out, several do thank me for the lovely event, declaring it an unmitigated success.
Only when Lady Cyn’s sister sends me a com the next morning, asking if she can order directly through me, do I tentatively agree.
“LADY CHEN WOULD like to sample the rouge this week,” Mademoiselle Olivier says as she brushes a dab of sparkling blush on my own cheeks.
“Certainly,” I reply, tilting my head so she can reach the other side.
“She’s also requested that her friend Lady Ebele Sesay receive a pot of gloss, as a gift. Paid in advance.”
I let myself smile a little. New client. I don’t even keep track anymore. This week I shattered my previous record, moving just shy of seven hundred units of Glitter. I can’t be bothered to count individual customers. “Tamae, make a note—let’s gift-wrap that one and have it delivered,” I say to a different young lady, sitting just off to the side. Extra effort, but Lady Chen is one of my best customers—adding sometimes five new names in a week—so I’ll do it for her.
It’s my Wednesday lever, and I’m surrounded by six ladies chosen specifically to help me run my new business. Tamae’s ballpoint quill scratches out the order on a decorative scroll of parchment I keep in my room especially for this purpose. As we discuss the cosmetics going on my face, we’re also cataloging the product going out the door, all without a single tourist any the wiser.
Even though I’d run the figures in my head, I hadn’t really understood how difficult it was going to be to satisfy the number of nobles necessary to make the profits I require. The first few weeks were easy enough; orders trickled in for three days after the party, until nearly every attendee had ordered something. It took three weeks to move my first hundred units of Glitter, but then word of mouth began snowballing. I’d estimated that each customer would need one pot a week, but this turned into three, four, sometimes five, not because they were overindulging, but because they were sharing.
Despite Saber’s repeated warnings each and every Thursday, after the first month I had to stop trying to regulate how many units each person received. I simply let them have what they wanted and reminded them sternly how exceptionally gauche it would be to wear more than one type of Glitter at a time. In fact, at one of the Wednesday-night assemblies, Lady Neema Gueye approached me gleefully sporting both the lip gloss and the rouge, and I made a haughty comment about overindulgence and gave her the cut direct.
No one has done it since.
What more can I do?
Last week was an incredible milestone—I banked my first million euros. It took eight weeks to reach twenty percent of my goal, but my clientèle continues to grow exponentially, and if present trends continue, I expect to meet Reginald’s price in six to seven weeks.
And I have nine. Nine weeks until I turn eighteen and my mother forces the marriage.
Unfortunately, last week I also had to put up my white flag of surrender and ask Reginald for help.
Visiting my father once and even twice a week to prepare the cosmetics was perfectly acceptable at first. No one noticed a thing. But once I crossed two hundred units, I had to go more frequently. I’ve gotten better at concealing my movements from M.A.R.I.E., so I can make unscheduled trips without the court making note, but last week I was in Father’s rooms into the early hours every night and spent my days in a bleary stupor.
Unacceptable.
I expected Reginald to be angry at the note I sent him demanding help, but the following Thursday he showed up at Giovanni’s—the first time I’d caught sight of him in weeks—rubbing his hands with glee as I told him what sort of assistance I needed.
“Tell your lordship husband—”
“Affianced,” I corrected him instantly.
“Him, too. Tell him you’ll be needing a secretary. I’ll send you an assistant. You find a way for him to come and go, place to sleep, make sure you feed him, and he’ll take over prepping the product and fetching deliveries.”
I nearly crumpled in relief. “At what price?” I asked, raising one eyebrow. Reginald always has a price.
“Call it a company perk,” he said with a grin that almost looked friendly. “You’re moving more product; I’m making more money. One man won’t cost me hardly anything.”
“You’re too kind,” I said flatly, my teeth clenched together.
But a gift is a gift, and it’s refreshing to know that tonight is the last night I’ll have to sneak to my father’s room to prepare tiny pots of Glitter, the finest makeup in Sonoman-Versailles. Just ask anyone; the occasional off-brands that enterprising imitators have attempted to hawk just don’t go on as smoothly, don’t wear as comfortably as the name-brand product from my secret Parisian supplier. At least, that’s what my customers tell themselves—and others—when cheaper alternatives somehow fail to…satisfy.
The ladies finish up the motions of the lever, the crowd applauds, and finally we can make our exit into the dressing room behind my very public bedroom. “Thank you, ladies,” I say. “Does anyone have money for me?”
This part we can’t do in front of the crowd. Pannier pockets open and my staff begin handing me stacks of euros,
which I’ll count, organize, and bind later. I collect money only on Wednesdays, due to the lessened computerized surveillance, but everyone knows they can give their fee to any of these six ladies to receive their cosmetics on any day.
“Your supplier must be happy with you,” Lady Nuala says as the stack in my hands grows. I have to dump it rather unceremoniously onto my dressing table lest I drop it on the floor. I took a risk deciding to hire Lady Nuala for my lever team less than a week after our…incident with the wine, but she’s proved to be a very loyal traitor. Flattery goes far with her. “Has he ever said why he won’t sell Glitter over the feeds? It seems to me that courier delivery could triple his business overnight.”
“Oh, everything has to be an art project with Parisians these days,” I say, holding my voice steady. “Give them avant-garde or give them death. I think his angle is ‘makeup so fine, you have to buy it from a Queen.’ Although,” I say heavily, lifting a gloved hand to my forehead, “it’s becoming most fatiguing. I suspect I’ll have to bow out soon.”
“Surely once you’re wed,” chimes in Lady Cardozo, the one married woman I brought onto my team. “You’ll have other things to do.”
“Indeed,” I say, drawing my fan up to my face as though covering a pleased blush.
“Then your supplier will have to sell directly.” The hope in Lady Cardozo’s voice is cringe-worthy.
“Likely,” I demur, grasping about for a new subject. “Oh! For you all.”
Though it rather pinches to do so, I buy both the services and the secrecy of my ladies—on top of the wage M.A.R.I.E. pays them—with one free pot of Glitter each Wednesday. It’s hard to see three thousand euros’ worth of product walk away from me in pastel silks every week, but I know the ladies are generous with it, and I’m certain they attract more customers than I sacrifice in profits. Surely.
Regardless, I need them. And one must pay one’s employees.
As they leave, the adrenaline that always comes with the lever, as well as the rush of doing business, drains from me and loneliness envelops me. Not for the first time I wish Molli were on my staff. And I know Molli wishes she were as well. It’s a position with both a high wage and high prestige—two things Molli stands in need of. I didn’t ask her; I couldn’t, once I realized it was the best way to conduct my business under the King’s nose. And I want Molli to have nothing to do with this whole affair. But it’s driven a wedge into our friendship. Not a big wedge—neither of us would allow that to happen. But it’s a small wedge, and like a tiny splinter, it agitates, stinging a bit more each time it’s jostled.
I stroll down the hallways of the palace toward my family’s dwelling, not acknowledging the tourists but keeping my pace leisurely so that they can take their damned pictures and intone softly about my gown. A brief consultation with my Lens confirms that my mother isn’t inside—she almost never is—and I let myself in, ignoring the disappointed mumbles of the crowd as I close the thick door behind me.
I quickly rid myself of my Lens and head to my father’s study. I don’t bother to knock or call out to my father. He’s accustomed to my walking in, and I’m accustomed to finding him blissed out on the floor.
Today, however, he nearly bowls me over in his haste to get down the hallway.
“Gracious, Father, I am breakable,” I mutter, righting myself even as I put both hands to his shoulders to hold him steady.
“Do you have it?”
“Have it?”
He doesn’t speak, but his eyes widen meaningfully. A growl builds in my throat, but I censor it—even here, in the sanctity of a room in which M.A.R.I.E. is blind and deaf to its occupants. “Father,” I say, my tone brusque as I turn away from him to place my reticule on his desk, “it’s not Thursday.”
“What?”
“I’ll have your patches tomorrow. It’s Wednesday, and I’ve not seen your criminal man.” I continue to call Reginald—I suppose it might have been Saber, technically—that silly name and act as though I have nothing to do with him. If my father were to discover that the makeup I’m preparing in his office has his beloved Glitter in it…well, that would be most unfortunate.
I was here at four this morning finishing up an enormous batch of scarlet lip gloss, and the tiny pots are arranged in a perfect ten-by-twenty grid across a sideboard that runs the length of the wall. They’re set now and look perfect, their shiny surfaces smooth but dotted with the faint sparkle of additives both narcotic and benign.
“But I’m out,” my father protests as I begin screwing lids onto the round pots, then immediately flipping them over to hide the little stickers declaring them to be Glitter.
“Then you’ve miscounted your patches. Or perhaps,” I add in an undertone, “you’ve been miscounting the hours in the day.”
“I only need one more. That’ll spell me.”
Frustration edges out the guilt. “You speak as though I have any,” I snap. “I don’t. I acquire them on my trip to Paris every Thursday, and I give every single one to you.” I open up the pockets on each side of my dress and begin filling one side with the new pots of gloss. The other I’ll stock with rouge I made two nights ago, currently locked in a desk drawer.
I’m rather proud of my little innovation. The hip satchels Saber provided me with are supremely useful for bringing supplies in from Paris each week. But for distribution around the palace, I needed something that wouldn’t require me to flash my legs to the court in order to access it.
Small pannier pockets are common in court—a simple ribbon-tied closure or cleverly concealed zipper at the top of one’s skirts gives access to a drop pocket that descends into the empty cage of each pannier. A handy place to carry cosmetics, or a Lens case, or even to stash a small tablet on Wednesdays. But I’ve taken it a step further. With the assistance of a seamstress I happened to know would soon be leaving Sonoma’s employ, I rigged up a satin lining on all of my panniers that allows the entire circular cavern to be utilized. A few snips to the bottom of my existing pannier pockets and I can fill the entire cage, on both hips, with product. Or with money.
Though I do have to be careful with my glide. If I allow my hips to swing, I…clatter. And the panniers are heavy when filled; after I had bruising the first week, I added padding on both of my hips. It’s awkward and took a fair bit of getting used to, but I think I carry it off admirably.
Perhaps my new assistant will be able to bear some of the literal weight.
“Dani, please.” A childlike tug on my sleeve pulls my attention back to the addict at hand.
“Father,” I say, feeling grumpy and sleep-deprived. “I don’t have any. I don’t know what you expect of me.”
He gulps air like he’s on the verge of suffocating, but at least he doesn’t cry. There’s been more than one bout of tears the last few weeks, and it’s embarrassing for both of us. He’s more like a child than a parent, and shame eats at my insides when I think too hard about the fact that I’m enabling his addiction.
Not that I’ve been left with any other choice. The fact is, he’s one of the people responsible for my circumstances. Natural consequences?
“It’s Wednesday?” I know he’s asking me, but he looks down at his hands, wringing them savagely, and it appears more that he’s speaking to himself.
“Indeed,” I reply, trying not to sound either interested or concerned as I move lip gloss into my panniers. Wednesdays are the best day for distribution. I’ll likely pass out more than half of the entire week’s orders by the end of the assembly tonight. How I used to loathe Wednesdays. Now they’re my salvation.
“One more. I could make it on one more. Maybe I have one…” His voice trails off as he begins patting his pockets and opening the front of his waistcoat as though a spare forty-euro patch might just, oh, fall out. I hold my anger at bay until he turns to the drawers of his massive desk and begins yanking on the handles of the drawers.
“Father, stop!” My own voice surprises me. I’m so thoroughly trained never t
o raise my voice. Even the night I watched the King strangle Sierra, I never yelled. Not once.
But this desk is mine now. It’s full of product and supplies. It’s locked, of course; I confiscated the key ages ago. But my father’s been using this desk years longer than I have; who knows if there are tricks for getting around the locks, or to what lengths he’ll go in his crazed state?
Damnation. I’ll have to do something.
“Father,” I say, gently now. “Come with me. I’ll help you.” I lead him down the hallway toward his bedroom.
“But…but—”
“I can help you. Just don’t ask,” I add, knowing that sometimes no answer is the best answer. I lead him to his bathroom and carefully remove his waistcoat and shirt and run warm water into the sink. He needs a full shower, but that is certainly not my job. Still, I apply foamy soap to a washcloth and help him wash his face and chest.
I wish I had completely altruistic motives, but what I really need is for him to don a new shirt, and I simply can’t bear to place one on such a filthy frame. His thin arms are covered with adhesive black marks. The lack of such a thing is a prime benefit of my method of Glitter distribution. Still, I’ll have to ask Saber how to get them off. Surely he’ll know. Assuming he doesn’t fall into a snit and refuse to tell me. He’s touchy, that one.
Doesn’t stop my heart from racing every time I see him. But touchy.
When my father smells half-human again, I retrieve a fresh linen shirt and loose waistcoat from his armoire and sit him on the edge of his bed. Once he’s seated, I look him in the eye. “I’ll make you feel better. Do you understand?”
He looks confused but nods.
“You should rest after this. Lie down. I’ll return tomorrow, but in the meanwhile you’ll fare better if you remain calm.”