Treacherous Witch

12. The Queen's Gown

"The ideal young lady possesses five virtues: chastity, humility, patience, kindness, and faith. But never fear. If you are lacking in any such aspect, a little teaching will go a long way."
Lady Briony Bretton's Guide to Court Etiquette for Promising Young Ladies

The transformation took place over the next week. She had the furniture in the sitting room rearranged to make way for the worktable, tools, and clothes rails delivered from the store. She ordered fabrics and new thread too, adding the little sewing kit that Lady Melody had gifted her to the array of equipment. A part of her did feel guilty about it, because she was taking away valuable equipment from the family business, but she squashed that. If that was all the Crescents suffered, and she hoped it was, then it could be worse.

The change was in the mind as much as anything else, she decided. She had to think of these quarters as hers. Not Queen Shikra's. Her bedchamber. Her tools. Her fabrics.

Lord Avon may have helped inadvertently, she thought, by making her a courtesan and not officially a prisoner. She had status in the court. She had to hold her head high about that too.

"You seem happier," Lady Flavia observed on one of their picnics, Valerie lying on her back watching the clouds scud across the sky.

"I am," she said. She'd started on a new dress that morning and felt the change at once: the familiarity of the worktable, the measuring tape, the pins. "I know my place here now."

"What is he like, Lord Avon? You know, in private."

The other ladies huddled closer, eager to hear. She still thought Lady Melody was a terrible snob, but they were all right in their own way. She wouldn't miss them, but they'd been kind enough.

"Not much different to in public," Valerie said, although come to think of it she'd hardly seen him in public. He'd only joined them for dinner on two occasions, and he hadn't talked much with anyone other than Lord Gideon.

"She means in the bedchamber, darling," said Melody, looking up from braiding Lady Rose's hair.

"Oh." She swallowed. He hadn't touched her. Of all the reasons she had to hate him, that wasn't one of them. Still, there was no reason to be kind. "I'd say mediocre. Do Drakonian men tend to be disappointing?"

Melody laughed. "That depends on the man. Do they compare so badly to the Maskamery?"

She thought of Markus and flushed. Once upon a time they had been more than friends. After fleeing the ruins of her village, it had been a long and difficult journey to the capital city. They'd found comfort in each other. As things settled down, those feelings had faded, and she'd naturally expected them to fall back into friendship.

Then he'd told her that he loved her.

While Valerie tried to wrestle away that particular memory, Flavia answered for her. "In my experience, yes."

She went on to tell the story of her dreadful first dinner with Lord Thorne and his clumsy attempts at courtship which had the other ladies in fits of laughter. Valerie was grateful for the distraction. She didn't want to dwell on Markus, who was probably toiling away in some field. She had to trust that Aurelia or the resistance would find some way to help him.

Right now, all she could see when she thought of him was his face when she'd told him that she didn't love him back. He'd looked utterly crushed. Then angry, those red spots appearing in his cheeks that signalled a burst of temper. He had demanded to know why, as if such feelings had a rational explanation.

She had shaken her head. "I was alone and scared. I needed you, but that's not the same as—"

He'd interrupted her. "And now you're with your family, you don't need me anymore? What am I to you, Val? A bodyguard? A warm body? A dog on a leash?"