A Dress for the Wicked

by Autumn Krause

  Giddy relief rushed through me, surprising me with its strength. I could feel my cheeks turning from pink to red.

  “I see,” I said, trying to regain control of my senses, which came alive with the flush of my face. “That question was irrelevant to the interview. I apologize.”

  “Don’t.” The single word was underscored by the intensity of his tone. I dared to glance up at him. “Don’t apologize.”

  We stared at each other, caught between the things we’d just said and the things that we weren’t saying. The cheerful look in his eyes was replaced by something new. Something strong, undefinable.

  Does he fancy me?

  For a moment, I couldn’t catch my breath. I tried to hide it by inexplicably reaching for an empty teacup and grabbing the hot handle of the teapot. I’d never felt such feelings for a boy before—my only experience was with Johnny Wells.

  Johnny once asked to kiss me. Our mothers had gone into the main dining room of our pub to give us some time in the kitchen. My mother beamed at me, her face practically aglow with happiness. Johnny and I made conversation—or, in reality, I talked about the latest trends in hats until he asked, “May I kiss you?”

  I was startled. I’d always imagined kisses as impulsive things between lovers. My mother had certainly given me that impression. She had always said men were given to passion and that we women had to always fend them off. This polite question from Johnny, asked in the same way one might ask to have the sugar bowl passed at teatime, startled me.

  My first instinct, after years of my mother lecturing me on the impropriety of the male sex, was to say no. But then I shrugged and said, “All right.”

  He leaned forward, eyes squeezed closed, lips puckered, and placed a neat, clean kiss right on my mouth. Afterward, he straightened up in his chair and took a long drink from a beer I’d poured for him.

  Now I was the one grabbing for a drink at the thought that Tristan might desire me. With uncertain hands, I poured myself a cup of tea and took a sip. Hot liquid scorched my tongue and I jerked the cup away from my lips, trying to act natural while the burning tea seared the inside of my mouth.

  “Are you all right?” Tristan asked.

  “Yes.” I gasped, struggling to remain emotionless, my face contorting against my will. “Just fine, thank you.”

  “Let me help.” He took the teacup from my hand, where it dangled precariously, about to spill onto my skirts and, no doubt, give me another burn. “By the way, who else is interviewing you today?”

  He spoke nonchalantly, returning us to familiar ground. I was relieved, but part of me wanted to reset, to see that burning in his eyes and to go forward instead of backing away. But perhaps that was something to be saved and returned to, later on.

  I hoped so.

  “Two other papers,” I said. “The Avon-upon-Kynt Times and the Ladies’ Journal.”

  “The Times, eh?” A wistful glimmer lit his face. “I had a job interview with them earlier this week. Didn’t go so well.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said.

  He gave a blustery shrug.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get hired there someday. I just have to keep working hard.”

  I nodded, sobered. Working hard. Our goals might have been different but, to a certain degree, we had the same plan to achieve them.

  “Anyway, the Eagle wants to know everything about you. How would you describe your style?”

  “My style?”

  “Your designs,” he prompted. “Your coat was characterized as ‘classic’ but I have a feeling that isn’t really you.”

  “No,” I said, cringing. The last thing I wanted was for everyone to think that I had no imagination. “I like to mix things.”

  “How so?”

  “I—that’s a good question.”

  Whenever I thought about my style, my thoughts filled with colors, shapes, and lines in grays and blues and purples. They drifted in my mind like water, sometimes smooth and placid, other times as tumultuous as a raging ocean storm. How did one funnel such a thing, such a feeling, into words?

  I had to begin somewhere.

  “I love to pair hardware elements—like brass buttons, metal hooks and eyes—with softer fabrics, like chiffon and organza.” Once I started talking, the words came effortlessly to my lips. Talking about my designs was easy, almost as though I was standing next to him at the train station again, looking at the mural.

  “Why?” His pencil stilled on the paper as he glanced up.

  “Because it’s all around me at home,” I said. “It’s what I know: hard work and functional items mixed with beauty. It’s me.”

  “That’s a good quote,” he said, offering me that lopsided smile. He lowered the notebook and sat back. The smile still played at his lips, but his eyes stared at me, open, thoughtful. “You’re an interesting girl, Emmaline Watkins.”

  “Is that so?” I stared hard at him, trying to determine if he turned on this charm for all women, or if he really did think there was something different about me.

  “Girls in the city are taught to be stylish, but you . . . you figured it out by yourself.” He spoke slowly, as if he was thinking hard about what he was saying. The spaces between his words were a change from his typical quick way of speaking. “And Madame Jolène picked you over the other candidates. That’s pretty impressive.”

  I sighed, tempted to let him think I alone had caught Madame Jolène’s eye, that she had specifically wanted me, Emmy Watkins, at the Fashion House. I wanted to sell him this piece of fiction in the way that Madame Jolène sold her designs to her patrons, as a mesmerizing story. He already knew I was the political hire, but I wanted him to think more of me. However, even though the story gathered on my tongue, I couldn’t utter it.

  “That’s not exactly what happened. Madame Jolène didn’t pick me so much as I forced myself on her.” The truth—the fact that Madame Jolène would probably send me home after the Fashion House Interview ended—wanted to pour out of me, but I stopped. Tristan was a member of the press who no doubt wanted good stories more than most men wanted a pile of gold. And even if I was drawn to him, I needed to be wise. “I’m happy to be here; don’t mistake me. But things are a little . . . limiting here for someone like me . . .”

  I shrugged, leaving the thought hanging in the air between us.

  “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you.” He leaned forward, his cunning smile gone for the moment. His eyes weren’t just blue, I noticed. Small flecks of green dotted his irises. “I’ve seen the pressure on the Fashion House lately, and I’m afraid you’re a pawn in all of it.” That sly smile pulled at the corners of his mouth again. “Albeit a very lovely pawn. But it must be a hard spot, no?”

  Yes, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t discuss that.

  “It can’t be much worse than writing about mermaids.”

  He laughed then, brightly, unapologetically. It made me relax, the tension from the past days melting away in the warmth of the sounds. For once, I wasn’t worrying about fitting in or covering up my lack of knowledge about this thing or that.

  “At least I have interviews with actual people this week. You today, and then in a few weeks, Duchess Cynthia Sandringham.”

  “Who?”

  “She’s Prince Willis’s former lover. It’s an old story, but it still sells well,” he said. “Everyone loves reading about a woman in disgrace.”

  Prince Willis’s former lover. The painting of the blue dress hanging in the staircase. Every time I’d passed it, I imagined it lifting right off the canvas to hang in the air, invoking the scorned princess who wore it. I’d never given Cynthia, the prince’s paramour who’d been blacklisted from the Fashion House, a second thought. Her part in that narrative was only to contrast the beauty of Princess Amelia and her blue gown.

  “She’s a sad figure,” Tristan said. When he brought the teacup to his lips, it looked like he was gulping beer, not the Fashion House’s finest Darjeeling. He returned the cu
p to its saucer with a sharp clink. “Always asking me to try to put in a good word for her to Madame Jolène. She doesn’t understand I never actually interview Madame Jolène—and that Madame Jolène is many things, but sympathetic is not one of them.”

  “Then where does she get her fashion from?”

  “Personal seamstresses, I think. All previous Fashion House Interview contestants, but their styles aren’t anything in comparison to the gowns from the Fashion House. She hasn’t been in the fashion pages since the jubilee—for a duchess, that’s devastating. Lately, she’s been in a pretty bad state.”

  “Bad state?”

  He pantomimed someone drinking from a bottle.

  “I think she might be desperate enough to show up at the gala for Madame Jolène’s new designs.”

  Every season, Madame Jolène held a gala to introduce the theme of the upcoming collection. Anyone who was anyone in Avon-upon-Kynt’s elite attended, and the Times always devoted several pages to covering it.

  “She’s not invited,” he continued. “But she says she’s going this year.”

  I nodded, unsurprised. Before, I would’ve said that behavior was ridiculous, but now I knew the truth. The Fashion House was enough to make anyone crazy. Or drunk.

  “She’s convinced herself that if she just talks to Madame Jolène, she’ll be able to persuade her to take her back. She really shouldn’t worry. Things are changing, and the Fashion House will probably have less influence very soon.”

  “Because of the Reformists Party?” I thought about the mural in the train station, now nearly covered in white paint.

  “The queen is a Fashion House devotee, but the monarchy’s power is dwindling. Have you heard about the Parliament Exhibition that’s happening next month? The Reformists Party has been billing it as a fun event with food and entertainers—but everyone knows it’s an excuse for them to give speeches and round up support for their causes.”

  “In Shy, the papers always make it seem like the monarchy is so strong,” I said. “I guess that’s not true.”

  “Not particularly,” Tristan said. “The Reformists Party wants Britannia Secunda to be known for more than just our fashion.”

  “Oh yes, they want factories, right?” I recalled what Francesco had just told me. “I suppose the factories do create opportunities for people. . . . When my mother was young, she actually came to the city to work in one. Of course, there were only a few back then.”

  “Did she? A lot of country girls come here before going back home and getting married to good old country boys.”

  “I’ve always wondered about her time here,” I said, ignoring his comment about country girls getting married. “Maybe I can figure out where she worked or what her time was like here . . . but it was a long time ago. Nineteen years, about.”

  “Nineteen years?” Tristan thoughtfully bit his lip. “You know, the textile factories keep records of their employees. It isn’t hard for me to access them.” He paused and then said, “I can check for you. I mean, if you like.”

  “Really?” I was edging toward a place with no handholds or stops, the sort of place where one lost herself to a young man with an eager manner and blue eyes.

  “It’s no trouble,” he said, and he sounded excited. He was smiling, again, as though pleased he’d made me happy. “What’s her name?”

  “Edith. Edith Watkins.”

  He wrote her name on his notepad so close to mine that it looked like one word: EMMYEDITHWATKINS. Forward or backward, it was us, mother and daughter.

  She still hadn’t written me.

  “I’ll find her. Or the past her, I should say,” Tristan said. “Everyone leaves something behind, whether it’s a name in a record book, a bill, a payment stub.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Consider it done,” Tristan said. “Now, I need just a few more comments for my article. Why don’t you tell me why you love designing so much?”

  “Well . . .” I leaned back on my hands, pushing away thoughts of my mother. “I almost don’t know why,” I said. “All I know is that I’m compelled to design. When I’m sketching, or sewing, I feel most like myself, like I was made for it.” The last sentence poured out of me, and I stopped. “It . . .” I tried again, starting slow. “Designing lets me explore and create stories. . . . I’m just prattling.”

  “Don’t worry.” He was staring at me, his face completely serious. “I think I feel the same way about writing. Half the time I feel completely ridiculous running around town harassing people for comments or leads. But I know I could never quit. I must try to be the best at it. It’s all part of it.”

  “Part of what?”

  “Being seen,” he said. He arched his back slightly and fidgeted, as though he didn’t quite belong in the silk, pillowed armchair.

  “Being seen?”

  “There’s something communicative about art. If no one sees it, there isn’t much of a point.” He reached forward to finally return the teacup to the saucer. He set it down gently, noiselessly. “So, for me, it would be breaking life-changing news on the front page of the Avon-upon-Kynt Times.”

  “And for me, it would be designing a dress that shaped an entire fashion season,” I said, nodding. Even though it was a maid’s job and not mine, I picked up the pot to pour him more tea, this time barely registering the hot handle scorching my palm. He was right. Part of art was having it seen.

  Madame Jolène wanted me to be seen, that much was certain. But not as a designer. I was her cheap token of progress and nothing more.

  I couldn’t let that be my story. No matter what, I would figure out a way around Madame Jolène’s plans for me and make some plans of my own.

  Chapter Eight

  FRANCESCO JOINED ME FOR THE next interview. He practically took over, answering the questions with flair. Not that it bothered me. My mind was racing—my small window of time between the current interview and the next was approaching, and I felt like a horse at the start line of a race.

  As soon as the reporter left, I pulled my sketchbook out from under my chair. I flipped open to a clean page and sketched out the maids’ uniform, struggling to draw quickly yet neatly and keep an eye on the clock. Francesco sat back in his chair, drinking tea and watching. It took me seven minutes to draw out the uniform. It wasn’t my best work—I sacrificed some of the more nuanced shading to save time. Once it was finished, I jumped to my feet.

  “You have twenty-three minutes until the next interview,” Francesco reminded me as I headed toward the door. He set his teacup down and picked up a petit four. He plucked the fondant flower off the top and popped it into his mouth.

  “I know,” I replied. “But I have to find two other items for the challenge.”

  “Well, I suppose I can stall a bit. Take thirty-five.”

  “Really? Thank you, Francesco!”

  “Yes, yes. Now hurry!”

  I burst out into the hallway but then stopped, realizing I didn’t have a plan. I looked left and then right, the urgency of passing time bearing down on me. Where should I look, when I only had thirty-five minutes? I walked over to the staircase. Even if I wasn’t sure where I was going, I needed to move. I hurried down the stairs, the Fashion House paintings staring down at me as I scurried by.

  At the second landing, I stopped to lean against the banister. The paintings of the famous Fashion House designs stretched along the wall, rectangles of color and beauty, each detail so vivid that I felt like I could touch them and feel the smoothness of silk, taffeta, and chiffon underneath my fingertips.

  Slowly, I continued down the stairs, staring hard at each painting. At the second-to-last step, I came to a stop. The painting staring back at me featured the Moroccan ambassador’s wife in her red chiffon dress with the long train. The artist had caught her in motion, captured midstep. The chiffon floated ethereally around her, but her skirts were still huge, supported by an underskirt of thick red satin. Behind her, her t
wenty-foot train trailed through the air, following after her in a red streak. The dress was spectacular. I’d never questioned it or ever thought it should be changed, but now as I stared at it, revisions burst into my mind almost faster than I could process them.

  I opened my sketchbook and lifted my pencil. Then I froze, pencil pressed to page. What was I doing? Revising a beloved Fashion House design? Could I make it better? Should I? The dress was iconic, a piece of Fashion House history. But . . . I was running out of time. And the changes that I wanted to make came naturally to my mind—I didn’t have to force them at all. I wasn’t trying to conform to the invisible Fashion House rules. I was listening to myself.

  And at least I’ll be proud of this. Unlike the navy coat.

  I drew in a long, steadying breath and started sketching. As I did, I lost myself to the beauty of the dress. In my mind, sights and feelings mixed. Bursts of red combined with the silky sensation of chiffon.

  Carefully, I streamlined the silhouette, ridding it of the heavy satin skirt so that the chiffon fell against the body. I embellished it with gunmetal beading reminiscent of tarnished silverware. Nothing at the Fashion House was tarnished, but I always loved objects that showed a patina of age.

  “Emmaline!”

  Startled, I nearly dropped my pencil. Francesco stood above me on the stairs. “It’s been forty minutes. Ms. Walker is waiting.”

  “Waiting?” I looked around, as though I could find a clock nearby. “I completely lost track of time.”

  “I should say so. You aren’t successful enough yet to be demanding and have people wait for you. Though, to be fair, only Madame Jolène is on that tier. Someday, I hope to be as well. Now, come along, my dear.”

  I shut my sketchbook and climbed the stairs toward Francesco, trying to stay calm. I was out of time, and I only had two sketches: the maids’ uniform and the red chiffon gown. The now all-too-familiar feeling of panic rushed over me. What could I do? Sketch something out fast as I headed to the judging after the interview? Maybe I could do that. I could sketch and walk at the same time. Guiding myself with one hand on the banister as I moved upward, I looked over my shoulder into the lobby, desperately searching for anyone in a Fashion House gown. No one was down there. There was nothing to inspire another sketch.