Chapter 10: The Modiste's Visit
The sapphire hues of the blue rooms did nothing to calm her. Jennie stood on a low dais, a bolt of emerald silk pooled at her feet like captured water. Afternoon light, filtered through lace, fell in soft geometric patterns across her shoulders, which were rigid with tension.
“Just a little longer, miss,” Rosé murmured, her voice a soothing balm that did not soothe. She held a pincushion like a weapon against the modiste’s onslaught.
Madame Celeste was a wisp of a woman with fingers like darting birds. “The line must be perfect. The drape, it is everything.” She tugged at the half-formed bodice currently pinned around Jennie’s torso, her touch clinical and cold. A pin slipped, its point digging into the soft flesh just above Jennie’s hip.
Jennie jerked. A low, involuntary hiss escaped her teeth. “Enough.”
“It was a nothing, a millimeter! Hold still, mademoiselle, or the silhouette will be—”
“I said enough.” Jennie’s voice cut through the room’s stifling elegance. She looked down at the elaborate confinement taking shape on her body. The corset beneath was new, a contraption of ivory brocade and ruthless boning that shoved her breasts into a high, aching swell and stole the air from her lungs. This was not clothing; it was architecture. A prison built for someone else’s eyes.
Rosé saw the storm gathering in Jennie’s eyes. “Madame, perhaps a short break—”
The door opened.
Leonid entered without ceremony. He had changed into a dark grey coat, his own uniform for the battles of the day. His gaze swept the scene: the shimmering fabrics, the anxious maid, the defiant set of Jennie’s jaw above the forced elegance of the corset. The modiste fluttered into a curtsy.
“My lord, we are achieving a miracle despite some… resistance to the process.”
Jennie’s eyes locked onto his. They were pools of pure rebellion. “I am not a doll to be dressed,” she stated, the words flat and hard.
Leonid dismissed the modiste and Rosé with a faint nod. “Leave us. Wait outside.”
When the door clicked shut, the room became a different kind of tense. The silence was alive with the memory of the morning—of sweat and skin and his low voice promising ruin.
He approached the dais slowly. The sunlight caught the dust motes swirling around him. He stopped so close she could see the faint fatigue around his eyes, the shadow of stubble along his jaw. He smelled of bergamot and cold paper, of the study he’d just left.
“You are not a doll,” he agreed, his voice quiet. His eyes traveled down her body, over the engineered curves, the pinned silk. There was no admiration in it, only a fierce assessment. “You are a wolf. And tonight, you will walk into that dining room and show them exactly what a wolf looks like in silk.”
Her breath hitched. He reached out, not for her, but for the loose laces of the corset trailing down her back. His fingers, cool and deliberate, took hold. She felt the pull as he began to tighten them, each tug a deliberate, intimate compression.
“They will expect a trained creature,” he said, his voice close to her ear. His knuckles brushed the knobs of her spine as he worked. “Eyes down.Voice meek. They will expect you to be cowed by the crystal, silenced by the silver.”
He gave a final, firm pull. The air left her lungs in a soft gasp. Her world narrowed to the pressure of the garment and the heat of his body behind her.
“You will give them none of that.” He tied the laces off, his hands resting on her waist, feeling the frantic beat of her heart through the bone and fabric. “You will look them in the eye. You will eat what you please. You will speak only if you wish to. You belong at that table as much as any portrait on the wall.”
She turned within the circle of his hands. The forced proximity made her dizzy. Her raised breasts almost brushed his waistcoat. “And if I throw a goose leg at the vicar?”
A flicker of something—amusement, pride—passed through his dark eyes. “Then I will inform him his opinions are as dry as the meat.” He traced the edge of the corset where it met the soft swell of her breast, a touch so light it was barely there. “The weapon is not the wildness, Jennie. It is the control. Let them see the wolf, and let them watch, bewildered, as she uses their own silverware.”
She shivered. The fight drained out of her, replaced by a terrifying, thrilling sense of purpose. He was not hiding her. He was arming her.
“Now,” he said, stepping back, the moment breaking. “Let Madame Celeste finish her masterpiece. And for God’s sake, let her hem it. I won’t have you tripping on your way to the battlefield.”
A laugh bubbled out of her, unexpected and bright. It seemed to startle him, too, a crack in his own solemnity.
When Rosé and the modiste returned, they found a different Jennie on the dais. Still proud, still untamed, but standing straighter within the constraints, her chin lifted, a dangerous light in her eyes as she stared at her own reflection in the long mirror. The emerald silk, when it was finally fitted and sewn, was the color of a deep forest, of shadows and hidden paths. It made her skin glow, her eyes deepen.
The dinner gong echoed through the mansion, a low, mournful sound that had always felt to Jennie like a death knell. Now, it sounded like a trumpet.
She stood before the full-length mirror in the blue sitting room. The transformation was absolute. The gown was exquisite, the hair Rosé had painstakingly arranged a cascade of intricate braids and loose curls. She looked like a lady. She felt like a spy.
Leonid appeared in the doorway, impeccably dressed in black and white. He stopped, and for a long moment, he simply looked at her. His expression was unreadable, but his gaze was a physical weight, traveling from the emerald skirts to the defiant line of her bare shoulders.
“Well?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“You look…” He paused, searching for a word that wasn’t ‘beautiful,’ that wasn’t ‘expensive.’ “You look inevitable.”
He offered his arm. After a heartbeat, she placed her hand on it. The contact through his sleeve was electric, a secret signal.
The walk to the main hall was a gauntlet. Servers paused, their trays forgotten, to stare. A footman’s eyes widened before he snapped his gaze forward. Whispers trailed them like mist.
Marco Manoban was already seated at the head of the table when they entered. The long mahogany surface glittered with enough silver and crystal to buy a small town. His face was carved from marble, his eyes chips of flint. He did not stand.
Leonid pulled out Jennie’s chair, the one to his father’s right, a place of honor traditionally reserved for his mother, dead these ten years. The scrape of the chair legs on the floor was the only sound in the vast, vaulted room.
Jennie sat. She unfolded her napkin with deliberate slowness, placed it on her lap. She did not look at Marco.
The first course was served, a clear consommé in delicate porcelain. Marco finally spoke, his voice echoing in the space. “I trust the accommodations are to your… satisfaction.”
Jennie lifted her spoon. “The bath was very hot,” she said, meeting his eyes for the first time. “Just as I like it.”
Leonid, beside her, took a slow sip of wine. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips.
The vicar, a thin man seated further down, leaned forward. “And how are you finding your studies in scripture, my child? I understand your education has been a priority.”
Jennie looked at him, her spoon paused halfway to her mouth. She thought of the goose leg. She thought of Leonid’s words. She smiled, a slow, feline curl of her lips.
“I find the stories of wrath and redemption much more compelling than the psalms,” she said, her voice clear and carrying. “There’s more blood in them. More truth.”
A choking sound came from somewhere down the table. Marco’s knuckles were white around his fork.
Leonid leaned back in his chair, his own soup untouched. He watched her, his gaze a steady, unspoken anchor in the suddenly stormy sea of the dining room. The wolf had entered the fold. And her first howl had been a psalm.