A Dress for the Wicked

by Autumn Krause

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “So far from the city!”

  She pulled back her head and placed a kiss on his cheek. It was a quick kiss—nothing like the one Tristan and I shared at the gala—the sort one friend might give another. Still, a flash of embarrassed anger flared hot on my cheeks. Tristan didn’t return the kiss, and his eyes found me, even as Sophie stood right by his side.

  “I went to visit you at the Fashion House, and Francesco said you’d been fired and left with Sophie.” He crossed the floor and came to stand next to me. Without hesitation, he hooked his arm around my waist, drawing me near. “I came to see if you were all right.”

  Tristan’s back was to Sophie, but I could see her over his shoulder. She stared at us, her face somehow grimmer than usual. She saw me watching her, but she didn’t glance away. Instead, she responded the way she had back at the showcase. She gave a small half smile and shrugged.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen. It’s warm there,” I said, awkwardly filling the silence. I was happy when Tristan’s hand stayed around my waist as we made our way back to the kitchen. I wanted to melt into his arms, but I couldn’t. Not with Sophie so closely observing our affection.

  “What happened?”

  “Madame Jolène found out about our plan. We got kicked out, so we came here to stay until the exhibition,” I said. “But it seems everyone knows it. Mr. Taylor was here this morning.”

  At the name Mr. Taylor, Tristan’s face paled to a shade similar to Sophie’s.

  “He’s gone now,” Sophie said, guessing the reason for Tristan’s pallor. She picked up her wineglass. Swirling it with one wrist, she sent the liquid spinning inside the goblet. It orbited dangerously close to the top but not quite close enough to spill over. “We’ll be gone by the time he returns. Besides, Emmaline’s mother scared him off.”

  Without making Tristan move his hands, I grabbed my wine and took a long drink. The purple liquid rolled over my tongue. Even after I swallowed, the bitter taste clung to the roof of my mouth.

  “Emmy.” Tristan spoke to me and me alone. “Maybe things are too dicey right now to start your own collection. I know I encouraged you to do it, but the city is in such a precarious state. I didn’t realize starting your fashion house would put you in Mr. Taylor’s sights.”

  I looked down into the red depths of my wine. I was still wearing an amethyst ring from the Fashion House. In the flurry of getting kicked out, I hadn’t taken it off.

  “This dream is everything to me, Tristan.”

  I didn’t want to speak so openly around Sophie, but she stood there, unhurriedly sipping her wine, watching us like two players on a stage performing for her.

  “Clothes? How can clothes be everything to you?”

  “They were never just clothes to me.”

  And that was the truth.

  “I just want you to be all right.”

  “I know.”

  Loudly, Sophie walked over to the cupboard and took another glass out. First, she poured more wine into her glass, and then filled the extra glass to the brim. She approached us and extended the glass to Tristan, making him step apart from me to take it. “Have some wine. It’s red, your favorite.”

  I didn’t know that he liked red wine. In fact, I didn’t even know what his favorite beer was—or even his favorite food. All I knew was that he drank his tea black.

  “Thank you,” he said stiffly, taking the glass from her. I took another long drink of my wine, letting the liquid send a wave of warmth through my body, but the wine’s astringency just tasted like my own bitterness. Why couldn’t I simply enjoy Tristan’s presence? Why did it feel like Sophie’s obvious interest in him diminished what we had, especially when Tristan’s hand was on my back and not hers?

  “Look at you.” Tristan raised his glass to me. “Seems like you’ve already moved up in the world. We have wine instead of tea this time.”

  His words were stronger than the wine. They were a sunbeam of warmth that cut through my wooziness. We didn’t have as many memories as he and Sophie did . . . but I loved the ones we did have, from that first time we’d met under the mural to our first kiss at the gala.

  “It’s cooking wine, but it’s fine enough,” Sophie said.

  “Is there anything I can do to help with the collection while I’m back in the city?”

  “You can hire us some models.” Sophie spoke smoothly, almost as though I wasn’t there. “We need twelve. Factory girls will do.”

  “All right. I can do that.” He glanced from me to Sophie and then back again to me. If he’d been feeling awkward before, this was the first sign of it. “Well . . . I should probably get going. There aren’t any formal lodgings here, but the general store owner is letting me stay in one of his rooms for the night.”

  “You just got here,” I protested. Even so, I knew he was right. Mr. Crowe wasn’t likely to wait up long for Tristan. “You came from so far.”

  “It’s all right. I needed to check on you.” This time, he didn’t say you two, and I smiled, happy he spoke just for me. He took a final drink of his wine and stepped away to set the glass down on the table. Coming back to me, he leaned forward and quickly kissed me on the lips. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too.”

  He turned to Sophie.

  “Have a good night.”

  “You too,” Sophie responded. Thankfully, she didn’t embrace him like she had when he’d entered. We watched him walk the length of the kitchen to the dining room. Hardly thinking, I hurried after him.

  “Tristan!”

  I burst into the dining room. My motions made the door between the kitchen and dining room swing closed, shutting Sophie away. He stopped in the middle of the room, his face lighting up as he turned toward me. I rushed to him and his arms opened to enclose me. We kissed, only this time there was nothing quick or proper about it. It was exactly what I’d been wanting since he’d first arrived.

  His lips were strong and insistent, and the kiss built into something that was fire and ice at the same time. It cut through the mist of the wine, awakening my senses into tingles that started at my lips and spread down through my body. His hands reached around to touch the back of my neck and they followed the pathway of my spine, tracing it through my shoulder blades and down, down, down before moving apart to settle on my hips.

  Vaguely, I heard a door open. At first, I tried to ignore it, but the sound of heels on the floorboards rang out, and I knew she was there. Tristan didn’t seem to notice, his shoulders, hands, and mouth pressing into me, a force of energy that I didn’t want to stop. The footsteps moved to the outer side of the room. I pulled away from Tristan, my lips buzzing with the touch of his.

  Sophie’s form walked along the perimeter of the room.

  “Don’t mind me. I’m just looking for another bottle of wine,” she said when my gaze fell on her. Despite her comment, she stopped still, one arm folding across her middle, the other extending out to hold her wineglass.

  With hooded eyes, Tristan turned to see her. His hands remained low on my hips, his fingers pressing into me, each one strong and demanding.

  “It is late, though.” Sophie gave her wine another swirl. “There’s lots to do tomorrow, Emmaline.”

  “I should go,” Tristan muttered, but there was no conviction or will behind his words.

  “I’ll miss you,” I said, even though I’d already said that back in the kitchen.

  “I’ll miss you,” he echoed huskily. He stepped back slowly, heavily, as if fighting the pull of something much stronger than he.

  Sophie waited as he walked to the door, pretending to be more preoccupied with sipping her wine than interacting with us. Once the door closed behind him, she lowered her glass and said, “You didn’t have to make him leave on my account.”

  I sighed at her ridiculous comment. After all, she’d obviously been trying to force him out. Disappointed as I was, the reverberations of the kiss stayed, enveloping me in fe
verish warmth.

  “I know.” I responded to her several moments after I should have. “Let’s . . .” Giddiness descended on me, a mix of kisses and wine. “Let’s put away the collection and get some sleep.”

  We headed toward the kitchen, falling in step with each other. The biting scent of red wine mixed acridly with her violet–witch hazel perfume. I should’ve been annoyed at her for interrupting my time with Tristan, but I could hardly think straight. Beside me, Sophie let out a high-pitched sigh.

  “You know, Tristan proposed to me once,” she said casually.

  I fell back a few steps, my legs wobbly beneath me.

  “What?”

  “Oh, it was a while ago.” She waved her free hand flippantly in the air. “But don’t worry—it was no great matter.”

  No great matter? I knew they’d been together, but marriage . . . that was more than I ever imagined between them. Marriage was sacred, it was forever, and he’d wanted it with her.

  “I asked him to.” She turned her attention from me to her wineglass, running her finger around its rim, still unconcerned. “I wanted to get away from Alexander. But then I was accepted into the Fashion House, and I figured that was a better plan. Tristan was a dear about it. Even bought me a little gold band.”

  “You . . . so you asked him to do it.” I struggled to understand. All the elation from Tristan’s kiss evaporated, replaced by the nighttime chill and this new information. “He—he was doing it to help you.”

  “Yes, exactly. That’s how he is, you know. Always helping the people he cares about, no matter what.”

  “I know.” I tried not to sound snappish, peeved.

  “Of course you do. He is your beau, after all.”

  “Yes.” Despite my efforts, I was speaking too quickly. I couldn’t stop myself. “He is. He’s with me.”

  And not you.

  She inclined her head slowly, mysteriously elegant in her rumpled dress. Then she gave a fleeting smile, and proceeded up the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other still clutching her glass.

  I watched her figure recede upward until it was swallowed by the darkness swathing the higher steps. Tremulously, I took a breath. I willed myself to lift a foot onto the first stair. I couldn’t stay here all night. Not with so much to do and no time to do it in. But I stood there, one foot up on the stair, the other planted on the floor, suspended between up and down.

  He’d been trying to help her. It hadn’t meant anything to him. Or to her. What we had was special, different. Still, even as I told myself that, the emptiness in my chest contracted into one constant, steady ache behind my heart—the same one I’d felt earlier.

  At some point, I started shivering, and my teeth chattered. I roused my chilled limbs into movement. Standing still never got me anywhere or made anything better. And the longer I stood there, the more hurt and confused I became.

  The only thing to do was keep climbing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I WOKE EARLY THE NEXT morning and went downstairs, leaving Sophie asleep in my bed. My mother was already up—I heard her moving about the kitchen. Wordlessly, I joined her at the sink, where she was scrubbing potatoes. I picked up one of the grubby potatoes and a brush.

  “Are you all right, Emmy?” my mother asked as I slowly scrubbed the brush over the potato’s uneven slope.

  “I . . .” I didn’t know if I should tell her about Tristan. She might see him as she saw everything from the city: a bad influence drawing me away from her. “Things are just so complicated.”

  “Is this, by chance, about a young man?”

  Still holding the gritty potato, I turned around from the sink so I could see my mother. There was a knowing look in her eyes.

  “There were three wineglasses left out last night.”

  “Oh.” My face burned bright. “There is . . . someone I met in the city. He came to see me last night. But he isn’t like the people at the Fashion House. He’s different.”

  “Then why do you seem so burdened?” My mother’s voice was gentle, and its softness was as comforting as a hug. At the Fashion House, I’d been so on edge. I’d been unable to trust anyone, and no one really cared about me. My mother loved me. After being away, I could truly appreciate it, even if her kind of love didn’t have much room for my dreams.

  “I found out he had a past with someone. Someone I know.”

  “I see.” My mother inserted her paring knife into the skin of a potato. “In my experience, it’s best to let go of the past. If you dwell on it for too long, you’ll find yourself living there. And there’s no life in the past. What’s done is done.”

  I walked over to the kitchen table and put the potato I held into the stew pot. My mother motioned me over to the table and I sat down. There was a pot of tea sitting on a dishcloth and she put down her knife to pour me a cup.

  “The blue china?”

  “I thought it would be nice.” She placed her hand on my shoulder for the briefest moment before returning to the pot and the potatoes.

  “Mother . . .” I mulled over her words about the past. She tensed, sensing I was about to ask her something she might not want to answer. “What was it you did in the city? Did you really work at a textile factory?”

  She slowly pushed aside the pot of potatoes. She took a deep breath. “No. I didn’t. I worked at the Fashion House. I was a maid there.”

  I set down my teacup with a hard clink. My mother had been at the Fashion House? She’d worked there? My whole life, I’d talked about going to the Fashion House—and she never said a word. I tried to picture her as a girl my age, moving about the Fashion House, her hand gliding up the banister of the stairs, taking in the wallpapered lobby. But even as I imagined a small, girlish form passing through the fitting room hallway, she had the aged face of my mother, her veiny hands with bitten nails.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’ve never had much in my life, Emmy.” My mother spoke so quietly that the crackle of the morning fire nearly overpowered her voice. “But my past is mine to reckon with in my own way.”

  With that, she reached for the pot again. Her motions indicated that the conversation was over, that she’d let me in for just a peek, but that was all she was going to allow.

  I watched her, uncertain about what to do with this new knowledge, unsure if it changed the way I saw her. A shaft of light fell over her, illuminating her features. I’d always seen her as plain-faced—dour, even. But suddenly I was able to see underneath the web of wrinkles and weathered skin. There, hidden by exhaustion and time, were elegant lines that rose and fell in all the right places. I’d never realized it, but my mother had been beautiful.

  I cupped my teacup and let the warmth seep into my hands. I thought about Tilda, about how everyone talked right past her and through her. My mother would’ve been treated the same way, before she was forced to leave in disgrace because she was pregnant. I always knew her story was full of pain, but now I understood it—I’d seen, firsthand, the hard ways of the city.

  “Is that why you never wrote me back? Because it was just too painful to think about the city?”

  “I wrote to you. I wrote to you the very night you left. You didn’t get my letters?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  I didn’t know if I was happy that she had written me all along—or stricken by the thought that someone must have stolen my letters. Was it the same someone who’d destroyed my sketches?

  I didn’t want to give her any more reasons to hate the city, so I tried to brush it off.

  “Maybe they got lost in the mail.”

  My mother pursed her lips. The clock chimed, and she wiped her hands on her apron. It was time to unlock the front door. She left me sitting at the kitchen table, weighted by her past and the familiar sense that someone had been sabotaging my every move at the Fashion House.

  “Emmy . . .” She walked back into the kitchen. “This was tucked into the doorjamb. A note.”

  “For
me?” She held it out, and I instantly recognized Tristan’s scrawl. The sight brought back our wine-stained kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

  I could feel my mother’s eyes following me as I left the kitchen. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t need to. I already knew her expression was full of frustration. Disappointment. She saw me following in the steps of her youth—going away to Avon-upon-Kynt, falling in love with a boy from the city—she didn’t consider that maybe our endings could be different.

  Halfway up the stairs, I stopped. Part of me wanted to tear into Tristan’s letter right away, but another part of me wanted to savor it. Slowly, I opened the envelope and took the note out.

  Emmy,

  It’s been only one night since I’ve seen you, but somehow it feels like two years.

  —Tristan

  PS. I’m headed back to the city, but I’ll be in the front row at the debut. Can’t wait to see your creations!

  Underneath the note, he’d drawn two stick figures facing each other. One wore a long cape, and they both held teacups. A larger stick figure with fuzzy, scowling eyebrows and crossed arms stood off to the side. Us and Grayson. Our time at the pub, captured in his messy lines.

  I closed my eyes, remembering that day at the Prince Regent, how steam had drifted up from my teacup, how the pub had reverberated with the sounds of content customers, how Tristan had sat so close to me. Slowly, eyes still closed, I refolded the note and pressed it to my heart, trying to hold on to the moment a little longer. Then I tucked it into my pocket, making sure it was deep inside so it couldn’t fall out. Anytime I was overwhelmed today, I would remember it was there.

  The debut was only four days away. Normally, the thought would have sent me into a panic, but now it meant I’d see Tristan soon.

  I headed back to my bedroom. I heard Sophie moving about before I stepped inside. She stood in the middle of the room, looking at something small in her palm. The minute I entered, her hand snapped closed.

  “What’s that?”