Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Thank you, Your Grace. So lovely of you to terrorize the Magnars. “And where were you when that talk took place?”
“Hiding on the wall above them.”
“I’m unlikely to get murdered at the joedurar, Kaiden. This is the king’s special gathering. If anyone embarrasses him in any way during it, he will have their head. I should be safe. I will go there, show my face, turn right around, and come home.”
“We will need a dress,” Clover said.
“I’m sorry?”
“We’ll need a dress in the Demarrs’ colors.” She broke her trance and looked at me. “We’ll need jewelry, footwear, and accessories. In fourteen days.”
“How long does that usually take?”
“For a gown fit for the king’s court? Six weeks. Two months would be better.”
“Can you do it?” Shana asked.
Clover raised her chin. “Absolutely.”
Shana and I looked at her.
“We have fourteen days to brush up on dinner etiquette and dancing. You will be fine.”
“Dancing?” That’s right. The joedurars ended in a combination dance and banquet.
“Yes,” Clover confirmed. “What dances do you know?”
“None.”
Clover blinked. “None at all?”
“None that wouldn’t get me instantly killed.”
Throwing my hands in the air and seductively wiggling my hips would probably get me decapitated.
“I could go and just not dance,” I said.
“That may not be an option,” Clover said. “Some invitations shouldn’t be declined.”
She was right. The entire upper echelon of Rellasian society would be there, not to mention the foreign dignitaries. In those circumstances, dancing went beyond simple social entertainment. If I refused the wrong person, I could make an enemy, and once again the Demarrs would be dragged into it.
Having a family was turning out to be a lot more complicated than anticipated. I could picture Everard leaning against the wall across from me like a tall dark wraith. I warned you.
Yeah, well you can just shut the hell up.
Clover wrenched a smile back on her face. “Don’t worry. We have fourteen days. We can do a lot in fourteen days.”
Shana put her hand over her face.
“Fourteen days,” Clover repeated like a prayer. “Stay right here. I need to get you measured.”
CHAPTER 37
REDBERRY 7
Raise your arms, my lady,” Clover said. It sounded like an order, and the “my lady” was clearly tacked on.
I obeyed.
The gown I wore flowed over me in delicate folds. It was breathtakingly beautiful, with a luxuriously full skirt, long sleeves, and delicate embroidery. It floated as I walked, fit me well, and was perfect in every way except one: It was a ghastly greenish yellow. It was probably some sort of fancy shade of chartreuse, but the color was less French liqueur and more diarrhea slime.
A shop assistant held up a large mirror so I could see myself. Yep, I was the prettiest digestive-upset princess ever.
Clover pursed her lips. “Ereglin family?”
The shop owner, a woman in her early forties in an impeccably fitting blue gown, nodded. “A wedding fell apart. I was told to burn it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Clover pondered the dress. If she concentrated any harder, the gown would catch on fire.
Making the kind of dress I needed for the joedurar in fourteen days was impossible. Our only option was to purchase one and alter it. We’d spent the whole day taking the carriage from one dressmaking shop to the next, with both Will and Lute watching over us and Kaiden on scouting duty.
The unfortunately colored gown wasn’t just our best option. It was our only option. Attending the dance in one of my regular gowns was out of the question. I might as well show up in a bean sack.
“Do you think it will take the dye?” Clover asked.
The owner frowned. “It should. Although I cannot guarantee it. We had to soak it for three days in a vat of goseweed to get this shade. The dye is very saturated.”
“I was thinking cantolin powder,” Clover said.
“Hot or cold?”
“Hot, then cold-set with vinegar and a dash of burgundy dust.”
“To counteract the undertone from the yellow?”
“Yes. I need rust, not orange.”
The two women peered at me.
“The embroidery is gold thread,” the shop owner said. “It should hold.”
I cleared my throat. “Tresses?”
They looked at me.
“Can I put my arms down?”
Clover turned red. “Of course, my lady.”
Oh good. Actually, I could’ve held out longer. My arms weren’t that tired. All of that daily stabbing I’d been doing was paying off.
“I will let it go for half a grest,” the shop owner said.
Clover gasped. “Fifty nomas? For a dress that should be burned?”
“This is Olvian silk!”
“In a hideous color! For all we know, the dye will eat holes in it. And since they told you to burn it, you were already paid for it.”
“Forty-five. The embroidery alone took a month.”
“Fifteen. The embroidery is gold which doesn’t even fit our family colors.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Twenty.”
“Meet me at thirty or leave,” the shop owner ground out.
Clover raised her chin. “Thirty it is.”