relation between the girls' old schoolroom and the suite reserved for more notable company.
There she removed her wet slippers and settled down to wait. As she listened for Alix's step on the main stairs, she debated putting on dry stockings—the damp had soaked straight through to her skin—but realized that what could be done unthinkingly when clothed in her loose gray robe was less easy in a bodice boned to within an inch of its wearer's life. She contented herself with pulling up her skirts and sitting with her feet close to the small coal stove that filled the room with such comforting warmth. Her petticoats would cover the bruises the pavement had left on her knees, and Alix, although she was more observant than she appeared, would have other things on her mind.
In time she heard voices: her mother and Alix. Closing her eyes, Kyra extended her senses down the hall. But as she'd suspected, the topic of conversation was where things would go in the ice cellar and whether everyone who had been invited to the wedding had been sent a message of postponement. Like her mother's, Alix's mind ran very much to the practical, despite a romantic streak the width and depth of the River Glidden.
“We're not going to need another before-wedding banquet, are we?” she asked above the soft rustle of petticoats. From the sinuous slither of silk and the pauses of the voices, Kyra guessed that having set all the maids to carrying creams and garlands to the cellar, her mother had come up to unlace Alix before going down to assist in the portage herself.
“Oh, I hardly think so.”
“Oh, thank heavens! I don't think I could stand another evening at the same table with Esmin Earthwygg.”
“Now, darling, you know her father got your father the contracts of the charity hospital and the Prince Dittony Barracks.”
“What, didn't you see how sweet I was being to her?” There was a kind of rueful brightness in Alix's voice. “Truly, I'll be like a sister to her—I will, really—at the bath and through the wedding and the feast, but honestly, it will be a relief not to have her around all the time, asking how much my jewels cost and insinuating that since Tellie's father owns a factory Tellie must eat with her hands, and poking into boxes and drawers to see what's there.” There was a moment's silence. Then, more softly, “It will be a relief not to have… all this hanging over my head.”
In the awkward pause Kyra wondered about the expression in her mother's eyes, for the next instant Alix said, with all her old vivacity, “There! Now you run along and keep Papa from fretting himself into a frenzy.”"
More silken rustlings as Binnie Peldyrin, plump and featherheaded as a little golden partridge, left her daughter's room and descended the stairs.
Soundless as a cloud in her damp stockings, Kyra moved along the corridor to her sister's room.
“Kye—” Alix turned, the expression of exhaustion and strain that had added ten years to her face dropping away so suddenly, Kyra was not certain she had seen it; her sister's hand flicked with suspicious casualness across her eyes. A silver-backed hairbrush was in Alix's other hand, but she was not sitting in the fuzzy halo of candlelight that surrounded her dressing table. She stood, rather, before her wedding gown on its wicker frame in the corner.
Against the white of Alix's nightgown and robe the wedding costume blazed like blood sprinkled in flame. The crimson silk of the bodice sparkled with rocaille and bullion, the stiff gold patterns of the lace repeated on the golden petticoat revealed beneath the swagged folds of the skirt. Above all that color, Kyra thought, Alix's sloping white shoulders and fragile stem of neck would lift like alabaster and honey, glittering with the traditional gems—jasper, beryl, topaz, and tourmaline—covered with the saffron veil like a sheet of fire.
But in her mind all Kyra heard was that little broken sigh, the whisper, Don't leave
There she removed her wet slippers and settled down to wait. As she listened for Alix's step on the main stairs, she debated putting on dry stockings—the damp had soaked straight through to her skin—but realized that what could be done unthinkingly when clothed in her loose gray robe was less easy in a bodice boned to within an inch of its wearer's life. She contented herself with pulling up her skirts and sitting with her feet close to the small coal stove that filled the room with such comforting warmth. Her petticoats would cover the bruises the pavement had left on her knees, and Alix, although she was more observant than she appeared, would have other things on her mind.
In time she heard voices: her mother and Alix. Closing her eyes, Kyra extended her senses down the hall. But as she'd suspected, the topic of conversation was where things would go in the ice cellar and whether everyone who had been invited to the wedding had been sent a message of postponement. Like her mother's, Alix's mind ran very much to the practical, despite a romantic streak the width and depth of the River Glidden.
“We're not going to need another before-wedding banquet, are we?” she asked above the soft rustle of petticoats. From the sinuous slither of silk and the pauses of the voices, Kyra guessed that having set all the maids to carrying creams and garlands to the cellar, her mother had come up to unlace Alix before going down to assist in the portage herself.
“Oh, I hardly think so.”
“Oh, thank heavens! I don't think I could stand another evening at the same table with Esmin Earthwygg.”
“Now, darling, you know her father got your father the contracts of the charity hospital and the Prince Dittony Barracks.”
“What, didn't you see how sweet I was being to her?” There was a kind of rueful brightness in Alix's voice. “Truly, I'll be like a sister to her—I will, really—at the bath and through the wedding and the feast, but honestly, it will be a relief not to have her around all the time, asking how much my jewels cost and insinuating that since Tellie's father owns a factory Tellie must eat with her hands, and poking into boxes and drawers to see what's there.” There was a moment's silence. Then, more softly, “It will be a relief not to have… all this hanging over my head.”
In the awkward pause Kyra wondered about the expression in her mother's eyes, for the next instant Alix said, with all her old vivacity, “There! Now you run along and keep Papa from fretting himself into a frenzy.”"
More silken rustlings as Binnie Peldyrin, plump and featherheaded as a little golden partridge, left her daughter's room and descended the stairs.
Soundless as a cloud in her damp stockings, Kyra moved along the corridor to her sister's room.
“Kye—” Alix turned, the expression of exhaustion and strain that had added ten years to her face dropping away so suddenly, Kyra was not certain she had seen it; her sister's hand flicked with suspicious casualness across her eyes. A silver-backed hairbrush was in Alix's other hand, but she was not sitting in the fuzzy halo of candlelight that surrounded her dressing table. She stood, rather, before her wedding gown on its wicker frame in the corner.
Against the white of Alix's nightgown and robe the wedding costume blazed like blood sprinkled in flame. The crimson silk of the bodice sparkled with rocaille and bullion, the stiff gold patterns of the lace repeated on the golden petticoat revealed beneath the swagged folds of the skirt. Above all that color, Kyra thought, Alix's sloping white shoulders and fragile stem of neck would lift like alabaster and honey, glittering with the traditional gems—jasper, beryl, topaz, and tourmaline—covered with the saffron veil like a sheet of fire.
But in her mind all Kyra heard was that little broken sigh, the whisper, Don't leave
Similar Books
