Don’t worry, mon ami, I’ll keep her safe.
Chapter Eleven
She and Marigold had laughed that morning as they’d continued on with their work about the questionable prospect of cutting the linings out of Poutina and Niebleht’s dresses so even more skin showed through the lace and silk. But that was precisely what Desdemona had in mind when Caresse attended to the daughters in their suite.
Desdemona drilled Leandre with a haughty gaze as she pointed at the bedroom door. “I want that filthy creature out of this room. I’ve had to abide him and his stench all these years in my home, but I’ll not put up with him in my daughters’ bedroom.”
Trust me, Madame Hose Beast, this hasn’t been a model home for any of us.
You’re going to get me in trouble if you make me laugh, Leandre.
Oops.
“Then we will take our dresses to Caresse’s attic room to do the work, Mama,” Poutina said as she gathered the fluffy magenta gown in her arms, shocking Caresse with the show of loyalty. “We know what you want done. We can show her. If it bothers you that much for le petit chien to be nearby, then you can retire for a much-needed rest before the ball tonight.”
Desdemona’s jaw tightened, and as she huffed from the room, she muttered, “Fine. If one more person tells me I look haggard, I will stab them.”
Niebleht’s eyebrows shot up, and she slammed her lips shut over a guffaw. “Poutina, do you have a wish to die?”
“I’m not feeling lucky, let’s just put it that way,” Poutina said as she went to the door and peered out into the hallway. “She’s gone downstairs. Poor Mama, all her plans down the privy.”
Remaining in the more opulent suite, Caresse helped them into the dresses while making conversation. She wasn’t so foolish as to think their loyalties had shifted permanently, and Leandre agreed within their mental chat room.
I think you’ve brought them around to a different way of looking at things, ma chèrie, but they are still their mother’s daughters.
I just appreciate not being insulted by them all evening.
That’s the influence you have on them, seeing the positive instead of always sniping over the negative.
While she worked, Leandre reluctantly allowed them to pat him, and Poutina even used one of her hairbrushes and gathered the tufts of fur on his head together and tied them up with bows.
“Ma petit bebe, you look ravishingly handsome.” She picked him up and held him close, rubbing her nose against his.
Help, I’m being violated!
Poor baby! Caresse couldn’t hold back her giggles.
How humiliating, he groaned from his perch on a tasseled lemon-yellow satin pillow on Poutina’s bed. Caresse burst into laughter when she looked over and saw the salmon pink bows Poutina had adorned him with.
I’ll make it up to you later. How’s that?
Depends on your atonement strategy, my love. I’m feeling a bit emasculated at the moment.
Stop now. I need to focus!
“You’re sure you want me to remove the lining, Niebleht?” Caresse asked as she eyed the bodice of the expensive looking gown. It was an atrocious, retina-searing chartreuse color but had undoubtedly cost a small fortune to have made.
“Yes. We must do as Mama has asked.”
“Without the lining, I’m not sure the lace seams will hold up, especially if you exert yourself with the dances.” Their mother had eschewed the usual corsets in favor of more skin showing.
Poutina eyed the dress and then Niebleht’s torso. “You don’t want to fall out when you ‘whip.’”
“Oh…well…”
“We don’t want your ‘nay-nays’ to fall out,” Caresse agreed.
The girls giggled at her remark.
“I could cut out the satin lining from the center panel, which will reveal your cleavage. It would be more risqué, as you wanted, but the seams will still hold together. Showing your cleavage and some side boob would be more alluring than just revealing everything above the waist, don’t you think?” Caresse asked, hoping she wasn’t chancing a chastisement.
Niebleht and Poutina looked at each other, and then both of them nodded at her. Poutina held up two fingers pinched together. “Maybe a little bit of side boob and cleavage for me, too. I felt practically naked the other night.”
Niebleht snorted. “You were practically naked the other night, Pooty.”
“Oh, hush.”
Leandre laid his head down on the pillow and put his paws over his ears. Caresse gave him a sympathetic pat.
Niebleht held the lurid green gown up to her front and eyed herself critically in the tall mirror.
Leandre looked away. My eyes! It burns!
Niebleht muttered to herself. “It would help if we knew what Nicola de Rainier’s dress looked like. Think there’s time to find out who her dressmaker was and bribe them for information?”
Well, it fer sure won’t be chartreuse, Leandre replied via the mental chat room. He held her gaze and crossed his eyes.
A wave of fatigue washed over Caresse as she worked sitting on one of the stools by a window, carefully snipping the green lining from one dress and the magenta lining from the other. She blinked when she looked up and noticed the girls staring at her.
“Did I miss something?”
“No,” Poutina said, dropping her hairbrush on the vanity table and pouring a cup of coffee from the carafe Marigold had brought upstairs earlier. Poutina brought the cup and saucer to Caresse. “You just look ready to fall over, that’s all. Three royal balls back to back can be exhausting. You must not be used to the work, along with your other chores.”
Caresse hid her surprise at their uncharacteristic concern as she accepted the offering and breathed in the scent of the strong brew. She almost felt guilty for not sharing with them that she planned to be at the ball. She agreed that the less they knew about her involvement, the better.
Leandre jumped down from the bed and put his paw on her thigh.
Ma chèrie, will you be done soon? Perhaps you can rest before the ball tonight without being volunteered for more work by the mistress.
That does sound lovely. “I’m fine. Thank you, Poutina. The long days and nights are catching up with me. I’ll just have a sip of coffee and get your gowns finished. That was thoughtful of you,” she added as she lifted the cup in gratitude.
“Yes, it…was,” Niebleht murmured, a frown knitting her brow as she stared at Poutina as if she’d grown a second head. But then she turned to Caresse and said, “Since we don’t need to be laced into our corsets, we won’t keep you long tonight. And you can sleep tonight because we’re staying overnight at the palace. They’ll have a servant available to help us if we need it.”
“That would be fine. Here, let’s try this on you, Niebleht.”
Poutina giggled and pointed at Leandre. “Look! Le petit chien is covering his eyes! What a gentleman!”
Caresse giggled at his discomfited groan in the mental chat room. “Poutina, make sure you’re careful about those princess seams. I reinforced them, but—”
Poutina nodded and fluffed her breasts up in the bodice. “We don’t want my Boot Scootin’ Boogie to become a Boob Scootin’ Boogie.”
Caresse did up the laces at the back of Niebleht’s dress. For a last minute change, it had turned out well. The effect was much more risqué, but at least their nipples were covered.
“You look lovely, ladies,” she pronounced as she put all the tools back in the sewing basket she’d borrowed from one of the maids.
“Can you…” Poutina said, holding out the hairbrush, a hopeful light in her eyes. Caresse smiled and nodded. She brushed out Poutina’s long hair and pinned it into an elegant chignon. When Niebleht saw the finished product, she glanced in the mirror at what she’d done with her own hair while Caresse had worked on her dress.
Caresse said, “Would you like something similar?”
“Would you?” Niebleht asked. “Please?” She paused and loo
ked around the room and at her sister, seeming a little surprised. “I mean, yes, I do…please.” She sat at the vanity table and toyed with the bottles on the table. “I feel…odd.”
Replying as if they could hear him, Leandre whispered, It’s because you’re showing respect and kindness to someone else, and it feels better than being catty to them.
Caresse could feel his approval through the link.
“I feel odd, too.” Poutina agreed. “Maybe it was the clams.”
“Not sick. Just…different,” Niebleht replied, smoothing her hand down her middle. “You did a beautiful job with the dress, Caresse. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Niebleht.”
Niebleht looked up at her in the mirror’s reflection while she worked, fanning out a section of hair and pinning it so it resembled a flower at the base of her up-do. “You should know…Mama got on us to demand that you address us properly.”
Caresse chuckled, unsurprised. “What am I supposed to call you?”
Poutina flicked her hand, as if dismissing the idea. “She said you should be using milady or mademoiselle, but not simply our names. She said it denotes a lack of respect in the mansion hierarchy.”
“I see.”
Niebleht caught her eye in the reflection again. “We couldn’t care less…I think.”
“But we don’t want to see you in trouble. We’d also better wear our cloaks downstairs and in the carriage. If Mama sees that we haven’t exactly done her bidding with the dresses—”
“Putting ourselves on full display like a lurid meat market where bare nipples make a difference—”
“She’ll stand over you while you make the necessary changes…while we’re wearing them to punish us.”
“Will you be in that much trouble?”
Niebleht took a long breath in and let her eyes close. “Maybe we’ll find worthy suitors tonight, and she’ll be distracted from our nipples.”
Poutina burst into laughter, and the rest of them joined her.
* * * *
Sebastien contemplated spiriting away from the palace to Le Maison de Rochambard, even if only for a few moments, to check on Caresse and Leandre.
Guests were arriving in the grand foyer two stories below where he stood at a balcony railing.
He’d never observed the spectacle as guests arrived before, but there he stood, scanning the crowd for her familiar golden blonde head. Expectation filled him for how she would look in the next over-the-top creation Leandre had outfitted her in. He teased Leandre for his ability with women’s attire, but the man did have a flair for the unique.
“My love, has Leandre arrived with Nicola yet?” his mother asked as she approached with her lady’s maid in tow.
“Not yet, Mama,” he murmured as he leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Unlike you with your fine feathers, it will take me the work of a moment to dress. No laces and rows of tiny buttons to fumble with.”
“It strikes me as unfair sometimes what we females go through to make ourselves presentable.”
“But you love keeping us waiting, and you know it,” he replied with a chuckle.
“Well, sometimes.”
“You look ravishing in red tonight. You don’t wear it often. In fact, I can’t recall the last time you wore it.”
“It used to be my favorite color. Oh…”
Regine whispered instructions to her servant, and the lady’s maid nodded and patted Regine’s hand, smiled and bowed to Sebastien, and then made her way to the stairs that led to the royal suites.
Regine sighed. “I forgot my fan. It matches this dress. Last night brought back memories, and I decided to wear it…maybe recapture some of my youthful vigor.”
“You are ever youthful, ever lovely,” Sebastien said as he offered her his arm.
She seemed in need of support as she looked over the railing at the guests traversing the wide corridor to the ballroom in the west wing. “Nicola has such spirit. She made me feel young again last night. She reminds me so much…”
“Of what, Mama?” he asked, hoping for a few answers to her cryptic statements the night before. Possibly a clue that tied to the story Leandre had told him of Caresse’s history.
“I had a dear friend years ago. You were just a baby so you wouldn’t remember her. Her name was Ella, and she was Charles de Rochambard’s first wife. She married young—an arranged marriage like mine. She was the mother of Ninette, your intended,” she said as she patted his hand. “She died young. If it hadn’t been for Desdemona, poor Charles might’ve died of a broken heart, as well.”
“A broken heart? What do you mean?”
“You recall that your intended died in infancy? You wouldn’t have heard the story growing up. No one talks about it for fear of upsetting me. Ella’s newborn daughter was snatched from her cradle one night and was never seen again.”
“How awful,” he murmured with sincerity, recalling what Leandre had told him of the event. He still didn’t understand why Leandre hadn’t brought her home immediately.
“Ella was beside herself. Charles hoped word might come of a ransom demand, but he still sent out search parties to every corner of our kingdom, looking for any clue of Ninette’s whereabouts. Ella worried herself sick and took to her bed with milk fever.”
“No trace was ever found?”
“Oh,” Regine said, squeezing his hand with a strong grip. “They found traces. In the forest, the searchers discovered a scene of...such horror. When Charles demanded details, the men told him that it was obvious wild animals had come upon a campsite. The gruesome evidence they found told them there was no way anyone could’ve survived. Ninette was no more, they said.”
“And Ella?”
“She came from her bed and demanded to be told the news. She always did have spirit. But she collapsed when they spelled out what they’d found. They had to carry her back to bed, and she never left it. Desdemona even moved in to help care for her in her brokenhearted state. A week later my sweet, spirited friend was gone.”
Sebastien’s heart ached at the emotion in his mother’s husky words, but suspicion edged into his thoughts as he imagined Desdemona Farkle worming her way into the de Rochambard home.
Caresse had referred to her as a black buzzard, and right then, the image certainly fit—a bird of carrion just waiting for its opportunity to scavenge the spoils.
“My love,” Regine said, blinking as if she’d returned from a vivid dream. “I’m sorry to bear such a heartbreaking tale on your special night. I know Ella, and Ninette, would take great joy in your happiness. I’m sure of it.”
“As am I,” murmured Reginald, his father and Plaisir D’Or’s king joined them on the overlook. “I’m ready to get this affair over with so Sebastien can have some peace and privacy.”
“To make my grandbabies. I agree wholeheartedly!” Regine said, humor filling her tone as Sebastien looked for a rock to hide under. “Ah, there’s Desdemona and her girls. Hmm, she looks in a state.”
“Mmm,” his father muttered. “She’s always ‘in a state’ about something. You didn’t let her wear you out while I was gone with all of her haranguing about her girls and Sebastien, did you? I’ll not have it.”
“No, my darling. She told me last night that she’s having a terrible time with her staff at home. A new servant is making her life difficult.”
“Making her life difficult? I thought that was her specialty. I say good for whoever has Desdemona on her toes.”
Sebastien cleared his throat to hide his amusement at his father’s astute assessment. He’d never hidden the fact that he disliked the way Desdemona monopolized his wife’s attention. Regine always insisted that it wouldn’t be right to reject someone who had been such a good friend to Ella and comfort to Charles.
“It’s not like you to be so uncharitable, Reginald,” she said, nodding her thanks to the maid as she returned with the red feather-trimmed fan. “As a matter
of fact, she and I had a rather difficult but cathartic conversation last night. I explained it was time to accept that Poutine and Niebleht might marry well in our kingdom, but neither of them would wed the crown prince.”
Reginald snorted and did a poor job of hiding his surprise and amusement. “Did you now? I thought she had you all but convinced!”
“Granny lust will convince a woman of many things. I thought if I gave Sebastien a little push—”
“Little push?” Sebastien declared, gesturing to the huge crowd below. “A little push?”
“All right, not so little. Don’t belabor the point, dear. It’s unbecoming a gentleman. Anyway, I thought you might be persuaded if you could see my mind was set on it. But I respect that you know your own mind.”
“Yes, he does,” Reginald chimed in, looking pleased with himself. “I told you, didn’t I, my boy?”
“You did, Father. I know you will love—” he almost said Caresse but caught himself. “Nicola.” The names were going to be a challenge to keep straight.
“Where is Nicola?” his mother inquired. “I wish she’d stayed at the palace last night. Then we could’ve had breakfast with her and your father would’ve met her already.”
Unable to address her assertions, Sebastien gazed down at the expanse of marble floor below and said, “She and Leandre should be here by now.”
Where are you? he called out in the mental link, unsure if it was strong enough to reach them in the village at the base of the mountain. No response.
Regine flapped a hand. “I’m sure she’s just doing last-minute primping. It’s a woman’s prerogative.”
“Hmmpf, yes, and might as well get used to it, my boy,” Reginald said as he put out his crooked elbow to Regine. “We’ll let Sebastien worry about that while I escort you into the banquet. Your man is starving.”
“Best we feed you then,” his mother replied with a girlish giggle as they went off, obviously happy to be in each other’s company again after his trip abroad.
Deciding to not delay, Sebastien spirited away to Le Maison de Rochambard, and chaos greeted him when he materialized in her attic room. Neither George nor Marigold seemed to even notice his appearance, or his identity, in their panic.
Midnight of the Fae Page 15
