“I’m afraid the skirts are all too long.”
“We thought perhaps they were meant for someone else,” Nia chimes in, leaning a hip against the counter.
Madame Ella’s bracelets jangle as she slides the ribbon off the top box. “How is that possible? When I removed the ruffled panels, I didn’t change the length.”
“Oh, no. The ones you altered are perfect. I’m talking about the new dresses.”
Ella shakes her head as she lifts the lid. “I haven’t sent any new—” Her soft gasp leaves us leaning over the box. “I didn’t make these dresses for you.”
Lovely. Now I feel awful for not coming to see her sooner. Some poor woman is out there waiting for her dresses and two of them won’t fit her anymore. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve brought them right back the moment I realized they didn’t fit. I thought maybe you had the wrong measurements, so I shortened the skirts on a couple others, but I didn’t touch these.”
She sets the top box aside and opens the one below it. “You misunderstand. I didn’t send you these dresses at all.”
Nia picks up the mauve gown to inspect the stitching. “They’re not yours?”
“They are, but I made them…saints, it must’ve been over thirty years ago. They were commissioned by the king.”
Just when I thought this mystery couldn’t get any stranger. “Are you telling me I’ve been wearing the queen’s dresses this whole time?” Has Ronan been secretly raiding his mother’s closet? The thought makes me shudder. No wonder the woman despised me. I showed up to her castle wearing her bloomin’ gown.
“I know the queen’s measurements by heart, and this gown would never fit her. See. Look.” She stoops behind the counter and stands back up with yet another box. She flings open the lid and withdraws a stunning navy gown edged in gold lace with sequins sewn on the overskirts. Nia holds up the mauve gown next to it and, sure enough, the navy one is at least a foot shorter and a good few inches smaller in the waist.
There is absolutely no way these two dresses were made for the same person.
If the king commissioned these gowns and they weren’t for the queen and he has no daughter, then… “Do you think the king has a mistress?”
Madame Ella grimaces as she folds the queen’s gown back into the box. “That’s what I assumed at the time. He’d hardly be the first.”
That still doesn’t explain how the gowns ended up at my house.
Madame Ella leaves us to collect our Beltane gowns. While she’s gone, I return the mauve dress to its box, tracing the contrasting black ribbon accentuating the fitted bodice.
“What should I do with them?” It feels wrong to keep the dresses, especially since I have no clue where they came from.
“What do you mean?” Nia scoffs. “They’re vintage Madame Ella, Kerris. You keep them.”
I suppose that’s the best choice considering I wouldn’t know where else to send them. “Who do you think they’re from?”
Nia shrugs. “Does it matter? You received seven free dresses made by the most exclusive designer in the kingdom. Let’s just hope they keep on coming.”
28
Everett
“The quickest trail to death is the one you walk alone.”
Surviving The Unseelie Lands, Author Unknown
The softest swaying rouses me from sleep.
We were relieved of our posts a few hours before dawn and returned directly to a silent camp. When I think back to the night, my body comes alive. As irritated as I was at River’s unexpected interruption, the opportunity to share such an intimate space with Kerris made the night a magical one, indeed.
If I breathe deeply enough, I can still smell her honeysuckle hair. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the way she felt pressed against me, the soft swell of her breast beneath my palm?—
This damn hunt could not come at a worse time.
We need food to feed our people, and the threat of wolves is one we need to quash as quickly and quietly as possible, but there is somewhere else I would rather be.
With Kerris Dawn.