𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 ✔

Chapter Four

After we had bought me four nightgowns and five different shaped smocks, the three of us gathered in the carriage, trying to hide our exhaustion from one another.

"Why are there so many noble women out and about today? I have never seen so many people in the shopping district before." Adela looked out the window, watching the clumps of women go by.

"They are doing the same as us." Mother sat with her back straight and hands crossed in her lap at all times. "Everyone wants their daughters to capture the gaze of the prince."

"I see." Adela looked at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled. "I am glad you chose to keep me from going."

It was very strange for Adela of all people to come to an understanding, as well as admit it, and it caught both mother and I by surprise. We looked at her, brows raised, and a dumbfounded look on our faces.

"Why is that?" Mother corrected her face and was once again neutral.

"Because people talk, and he is not my type after all." She looked back out the window.

I wanted to ask her, "talk about what?", but I sat quietly once I saw the look on mother's face. She knew exactly what Adela had meant by it, and it had been made clear that I had been, once again, the only one left out of the know.

Though this time it had actually bothered me.

The rest of the ride was painfully quiet, and once we returned to the manor I was sent to my room for the rest of the night. Something I was fine with because I had been exhausted from all the shopping and running between boutiques.

After dinner, I asked my lady's maid, Cordelia, to draw me a hot bath while I admired the few things that we had bought in store as I waited. I was excited to wear one of the new nightgowns most of all. They were so soft compared to all my worn-out ones.

Before today, I had never had anything of my own, and for the first time in the nineteen years of my life, I held in my hands new and unworn items that had been bought just for me.

I cherished them, held them tightly as if mother was going to barge through my bedroom doors and take them from me. And I knew it was silly to get so excited over something so trivial, but I could not help myself.

A knock on the door caused me to flinch in surprise. Then fear washed over me as I started to think it really was mother coming to take my new things.

"Miss, your bath is ready." Cordelia's kind voice was muffled through the door.

"I will be there this instant." I sat the other things I had in my hands down and picked up one of the nightgowns, carrying it with me to the door.

"I would like to wear this tonight." I could not hold back the small little grin that had forced its way onto my face.

"Of course, Miss." Cordelia smiled back, gently taking to from me. "Shall we?"

Once we entered the bathing room, she helped me undress, piece by piece, until I stood there bare looking at myself in the mirror.

The bruises across my body were absolutely horrid. They were ugly. And if I could have, I would have ripped my own skin off to have kept from seeing them. Because, in my mind, my body looked disgusting.

I was too tall. Too thick in places and too thin in others. My legs were too long, my feet too big. Yet, I was on the smaller side, and had one of the most sought-after body types in the Kingdom.

But despite knowing that others would have loved to have had a body like mine, I could not feel grateful. After all the pain and torment that I had been put through because I was shaped this way, I had started to hate my own image. I resented the fact that if I wasn't the way I was, or just simply me, then I would not have had to endure so much pain.