Anything she smiled at or seemed to linger over I added to the growing stack of items for Lord Trench’s tab. The dressmaker skipped behind me, pulling dresses from hangers and dress forms and bolts of cloth, piling them on the main counter. With the tower ready to topple, I figured we’d bought enough.
I pulled a folded piece of paper from my purse and slipped it into the woman’s hand. “I would like all of the dresses made to these measurements.”
Her thin brows pulled together. “I have your measurements on file, Lady Aveen.”
“Not the ones on file,” I said, too low for Keelynn to overhear from where she loitered next to the entrance. “Use the ones I’ve written down.”
Our second stop was to the designer making my wedding gown. I told her that I had started the tea-and-brown-bread diet she’d suggested and needed my gown altered to the same measurements I’d given the first woman.
The next shop—and my favorite of the lot—was the florist.
The heady scent of roses filled the air in the converted chapel. I touched the feather-soft petals on a hydrangea bloom. My sister’s favorite flowers. “For the church and my bouquet, I’m thinking of going with these.” When I turned around with a cluster in my hands, Keelynn’s face fell.
“Shouldn’t you choose your favorite flower?” she sighed.
“I think having white flowers at a wedding is more timeless.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. Bless Keelynn: her heart was breaking, and yet she forced a smile. “They’re perfect.”
I ordered the bouquet and decorations for the church, knowing full well I wouldn’t be there. Once we finished, we stepped out of the florist’s shop into the market.
The fish monger called from his stall, waving people toward what was left of his catch. Next to him, Farmer Warren tied bunches of blooms with twine, settling them in clumps next to a basket of dirt-crusted potatoes.
Keelynn started up the street toward the carriage.
When I didn’t immediately follow, she stopped to give me a questioning look.
“I need to go to Dame Meranda’s,” I told her.
“For what? You’ve already bought an entire year’s worth of dresses.”
“For something special.”
Rolling her eyes, Keelynn drew her cloak closed over her stunning emerald-green dress. “My feet hurt. I’m going back to the carriage with Padraig. I’ll wait for you there.”
I could taste her disappointment, bitter and sour as the smells wafting from the pub across the street.
It’s all for you, I wanted to scream.
“Keelynn.” I caught my sister’s wrist. “You know I do not love Robert, right? I’m not going to marry him,” I vowed, to my sister, to myself, to the folks not paying us one bit of attention as they ventured from one stall to the next. “I’m going to fix this. All of it.”
She gestured toward the dress shop. “But you just paid for your trousseau.”
“Father insists I do all of these things, and I am complying so he doesn’t get suspicious. I have a plan. I’m going to—” Pain shot through my head, and the confession died in a strangled choke.
Keelynn’s eyebrows lifted as I struggled with the truth.
“There’s something I must tell you,” I tried again, gasping and gripping her shoulders. “I’m not—” The pain was too excruciating. I couldn’t get it out without collapsing.
Bloody Rían.
What had he done to me?
“I will make this right,” I managed, my gaze landing on the brick townhouse next to Dame Meranda’s that the wicked prince had claimed to be renting.
Keelynn sighed. “Your hands are as tied as mine. Just get your last few bits and meet me in the carriage.” Her posture remained rigid as she swept past the fortune teller’s empty booth and disappeared around the corner.
Shoppers carried boxes from the bakery past a group of sailors pouring from the pub, singing a bawdy tune. The air buzzed with the sounds of spring—bees and birds and bustling servants.