Chapter 12: The Fitting Room's Reckoning
The sewing room was a torture chamber dressed in silk and goodwill. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, catching the dust motes that floated lazily through the air, and somewhere beyond the glass a lark was singing with the careless joy of a creature that had never been laced into a wedding gown. Jennie stood on the small dais in the center of the room, her arms outstretched like a martyr awaiting her fate, while the seamstress—a woman of sixty with pins clenched between her lips and eyes like a hawk—circled her with predatory intent.
"You have lost weight, Lady Jennie," the seamstress observed, her voice muffled around the pins. "The bodice will need taking in again."
Jennie glanced down at herself. The gown was a masterpiece of craftsmanship, she would grant it that. Ivory silk that shimmered like moonlight on water, embroidered with delicate silver threads that caught the light and scattered it like stars. The lace trim bore the dual crests of Kim and Manoban, woven together in an elaborate flourish that was meant to symbolize the union of two great houses. It was beautiful. It was suffocating.
"I have not been hungry," she said, which was true enough. She had not been hungry for anything except things she should not want.
The seamstress made a disapproving sound and returned to her pins. "Well, we shall have to do something about that. A bride must have roses in her cheeks, not the pallor of a ghost. I shall instruct the kitchen to send up nourishing broths."
"How delightful," Jennie murmured, but her voice lacked conviction, and the seamstress either did not notice or chose not to.
The door to the sewing room swung open, and Jennie's heart performed its familiar, traitorous lurch. But it was not Leonid who entered—it was Kai, bearing a small vase of wildflowers, his face alight with the eager devotion that had become his constant companion over the past days.
"Jennie!" he exclaimed, setting the vase on the windowsill and crossing to her with quick, purposeful strides. "I brought you these. I saw them growing in the meadow beyond the orchard, and I thought of you immediately. Are they not lovely?"
He gestured to the flowers—simple things, blue and white, nodding on slender stems. Lovely, yes, in a humble sort of way, but they seemed almost embarrassed to be displayed in such opulent surroundings.
"They are beautiful," she said, and meant it. "Thank you, Kai."
He beamed, and for a moment, she felt a pang of something that might have been affection, or might have been guilt wearing affection's mask. He reached out and took her hand, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on her knuckles.
"You look exquisite," he said softly. "Like a vision from a dream. I cannot believe that in six weeks' time, you will be my wife."
The seamstress cleared her throat pointedly. "If I might continue, Lord Manoban? The fitting is not yet complete."
"Of course, of course." Kai released Jennie's hand but did not retreat far, settling himself in a chair by the window, watching her with the contented gaze of a man who believed all his dreams were about to come true. "Take your time. I am in no hurry."
He pulled a newspaper from his coat pocket and began to read, occasionally glancing up to smile at her. Jennie tried to smile back, but her face felt stiff, painted, like a mask that no longer fit properly.
The seamstress returned to her work, muttering about proportions and hems, and Jennie allowed herself to be turned and adjusted and pinned like a doll. Her mind drifted, as it so often did, to the man who was not here—the man who had promised to teach her cards, who had left her to her lavender bath with a smile that promised mischief, who had not been seen since.
Three days. Three days since she had last seen Leonid, and the absence was a physical ache in her chest. He had not come to dinner. He had not appeared in the gardens. He had sent word that he was occupied with business matters, but she knew better. She knew his absence was deliberate, a punishment for her hesitation in the bath, for the way she had whispered, We cannot when her body had screamed we must.
"Hold still, my lady." The seamstress's voice was sharp. "I nearly pricked you."
Jennie blinked, forcing herself back to the present. The sun through the window had shifted, casting a different pattern of light across the floor. Kai had turned a page of his newspaper. The lark had stopped singing.
And then the door opened again.
Leonid entered without ceremony, a folded newspaper tucked under his arm, his expression carefully neutral. He was dressed for riding—dark boots, a coat of deep brown, his cravat loosely tied—and there was a faint flush of color in his cheeks that spoke of wind and exertion. He paused just inside the doorway, his gaze sweeping the room, and when it landed on Jennie, something flickered in his eyes. Something hot, and quick, and quickly hidden.
"Forgive the intrusion," he said, his voice smooth as poured brandy. "I left my reading glasses in here earlier. I thought I should retrieve them before the servants tidied them away."
Kai looked up from his newspaper, his face brightening. "Leonid! I thought you were in the village."
"I was. I have returned." Leonid crossed to a side table near the window, his steps unhurried, and picked up a pair of spectacles that had been resting beside a stack of old letters. "Ah, there they are. Clumsy of me to leave them."
He turned, and his eyes met Jennie's. The contact lasted no more than a heartbeat, but it was enough to set her blood humming. He did not smile. He did not speak. He simply looked at her, taking in the wedding gown, the lace, the crests, the entire glorious edifice of her betrayal, and then his gaze moved on, as if she were no more significant than the furniture.
"Well," he said, pocketing his spectacles, "I shall not keep you from your fitting. Good day, Jennie." A pause, barely perceptible. "Brother."
He was gone before either of them could respond, the door closing behind him with a soft click that echoed in the silence.
Kai frowned. "He seems out of sorts. I wonder if the village dealings did not go well."
"Perhaps," Jennie said, her voice faint. The seamstress was tugging at the bodice, but Jennie could barely feel it. Her entire being was focused on the door, on the space where Leonid had stood, on the coldness in his eyes that had cut her deeper than any blade.
The fitting continued. The seamstress pinned and measured and clucked her tongue. Kai read his newspaper and occasionally offered comments about the weather, the crops, the latest political scandal. Jennie smiled and nodded and said nothing, her heart a caged bird beating against her ribs.
When the seamstress finally declared herself satisfied and began the laborious process of freeing Jennie from the gown, Kai rose and stretched. "I shall have the carriage brought around. I thought we might take a turn in the gardens—the fresh air will do you good."
"The gardens," Jennie repeated, her voice hollow.
"Unless you are too tired?" He looked at her with such earnest concern that she wanted to weep.
"No," she said. "The gardens sound lovely."
He smiled, kissed her hand, and departed, leaving her to the mercies of the seamstress. The gown came off in layers, each one a shedding of some part of herself. When she was finally free of it, standing in her shift in the sunlit room, she caught her reflection in the tall mirror and hardly recognized herself.
She was pale, her dark eyes enormous in her face, her hair escaping its pins in silky strands. She looked like a ghost—a bride for a funeral rather than a wedding. She pressed her hands to her stomach, where the ache had returned, and tried to steady her breathing.
"My lady?" The seamstress was watching her with a hint of concern. "Are you well?"
"Yes," Jennie said, but her voice cracked. "I am quite well. Thank you."
She gathered her discarded robe and made her way to the door, but before she could reach it, it swung open, and Leonid was there.
The seamstress was gathering her supplies, her back turned, oblivious. Leonid stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, and suddenly the space felt impossibly small. The air was thick with his presence—that clean, masculine scent of tobacco and something darker, something that made her knees weak.
"I forgot my gloves," he said, his voice low, but he made no move to look for them. His eyes were fixed on her, and the coldness from earlier had been replaced by something far more dangerous. A simmering heat. A barely contained storm.
"Leonid," she whispered, her throat tight. "You should not be here."
"No," he agreed. "I should not." He moved closer, and she stepped back, her retreat carrying her toward the draped form of the wedding gown. "But I find myself unable to stay away. I have tried, Jennie. For three days, I have tried to be a gentleman. I have buried myself in ledgers and meetings and all the tedious business of my estate. And yet, here I am."
"Here you are," she echoed, her heart pounding.
He stopped before her, close enough that she could see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the lines of tension around his mouth. His hands hung at his sides, but she could see the effort it took to keep them there. The veins in his forearms stood out against his pale skin, and she remembered, with a vividness that made her breath catch, the feel of those arms around her waist, lifting her, holding her.
"You are a vision," he said, and the words were flat, almost bitter. "Standing here in that gown, you are everything a bride should be. Ethereal. Untouchable." His jaw tightened. "Yet you pull away from me as if I am poison."
"I do not—"
"You do." His voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through her like glass. "You push me away and pull me close in the same breath. You let me touch you, let me taste you, and then you speak of duty and honor and my brother's trust. Tell me, Jennie. Do you love him?"
The question hung in the air between them, heavy and terrible.
"Do you truly wish to marry my brother?" He stepped closer, and she stepped back, her shoulders pressing against the cool wood of the dress form. The gown loomed behind her, a silent witness to her betrayal. "I have watched you with him. I have seen the way you smile and nod and play the perfect fiancée. But I have also seen the way you look at me. The way your pulse quickens when I enter a room. The way you say my name when you think no one is listening."
"Leonid, please—"
"Answer me." His hands came up, hovering at her waist, not quite touching, but close enough that she could feel their warmth through the thin fabric of her shift. "Do you love him?"
She opened her mouth, but no words came. What could she say? That she loved his brother? She had once thought she did. Kai was kind, and steady, and everything a husband should be. But he was also absent, and distant, and prone to treating her like a beautiful possession rather than a partner. He had left her alone for months, and in that loneliness, Leonid had found her. And Leonid, with his dark eyes and his dangerous smile and his hands that knew exactly where to touch, had filled the void.
Silence stretched between them, taut as a thread about to snap.
Leonid's expression hardened. His hands dropped, and he stepped back, and the distance between them was sudden and absolute. "I see," he said, his voice flat. "I have my answer."
"Leonid, it is not that simple—"
"It never is." He straightened his coat, the gesture almost insulting in its casualness. "I have some business to attend to, milady. I wish you a pleasant afternoon."
He bowed—a perfect, formal bow, the kind he might offer to a stranger at a ball—and walked out. The door closed behind him, and Jennie was left standing alone in the sunlit room, trembling, the ghost of his presence still lingering in the air.
She turned to the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her, pale and hollow-eyed, a stranger wearing her face. The wedding gown hung on its form behind her, beautiful and empty, a promise she was not sure she could keep.
Somewhere in the house, a door slammed.
She pressed her hand to her mouth, and the tears came, silent and scalding, carving paths down her cheeks. She did not know how long she stood there, weeping in her shift in the middle of the sewing room, but when the tears finally subsided, she felt hollow, scraped clean.
She would marry Kai. She would smile and curtsy and play the perfect wife. And she would spend the rest of her life remembering the look in Leonid's eyes when she had failed to say the words he needed to hear.
The lark resumed its song outside the window, oblivious to the wreckage within.
And somewhere in the house, she heard the sound of a horse being saddled, hooves pounding against the gravel drive, and the fading thunder of a man riding away from everything he could not have.