Moon Drunk: Origins

A Burgundy Gown

"As though I am a horse to add to his stable."

"Exactly so," Anjolique says. 

"Claude!" Lady Margrithe announces, clapping her hands to set the preparations in motion. "Have the serving boy bring hot water to her room and prepare her bath. Then help the girls dress. Oh, and Claude! Claude! Pay attention, girl! Fetch my new headdress for Felicite to wear."

"I do not wish to wear a headdress at all!" Felicite says stubbornly, but her mother ignores her completely. It is as if she is invisible. "Can I not simply wear my tiara? Am I no longer the Princess of Bourbon and Bruges?"

"We do wish to remind him what he is gaining by marrying her," Margrithe says. She and Anjolique exchange a glance and then Anjolique shrugs.

"Wear your tiara. Better to remind him what he will lose if he refuses."

Shimara appears with a stack of fresh linens and a bottle of rosewater for her hair, and the maids scurry to fill the bath with hot water. Felicite's wishes matter to no one but Felicite, and she decides arguing is no longer worth the effort.  

When Felicite finishes her bath, she steps out, her body trembling not with the chill in the air but with trepidation as her maids wrap the linens around her. She dries quickly and hurries into her dress. Shimara laces the gown while Bragnae fusses over her hair, tucking the thin gold crown into the braids she has plaited with painstaking detail.

"Oh, Your Grace, you are a stunning beauty," Bragnae says, beaming as she studies her charge. "The most beautiful woman in all of the Three Kingdoms, I swear it."

"Indeed," Shimara says, fussing with the gown. "His Grace is unworthy of your hand."

"You must not say such things," Felicite says, blushing. She studies her face in the looking glass. Her skin is flushed from the heat of the bath, but she looks healthy, rested. Her face is a perfect oval shape, her eyes a pale, ice blue - the eyes of her father, calculating and studious, alert and watchful. She attempts a smile for the king, forcing her lips to curve upward, but the smile is not authentic, and the king, if he has half a brain, will know. There is no happiness in this smile.

But how could the king expect to see happiness? 

Jolis had always been generous with his praise, of her beauty and her body, of course, but also of her mind, her intelligence and her wit, her talents for politics and knowledge of academics. He had told her dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, that she was the most beautiful woman to grace the world with her presence. Her perfect skin. Her hair, how he loved to sleep with his face buried in her golden-bronze, rosewater-fragranced locks. He would say such pretty words, telling her that her very gaze set him on fire with lust. His words would burn a deep crimson blush onto her cheeks and warm her core. 

Never again will a man speak such tender words of utter devotion to her. 

Never again will she feel so beautiful as Jolis made her feel.

Her beauty died with her lover on the battlefield at the hands of Julien Fleming. 

The door to Felicite's chamber opens and Dulce bursts into the room.

"He's here, Felicite!" Dulce shouts, her young face flushed with excitement. "He is riding into the courtyard now. Mother says you must come at once!"

Felicite takes a deep breath. She is filled with fear, but she will not allow him to see her tremble and quake like a peasant under the scrutiny of his stare. 

I can do this.

She begins to descend the stairs slowly, with as much grace as she can muster. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other. She must not appear too eager to see him, and yet she must not keep him waiting, either, like he has kept her for months.