Too many emotions drenched Céleste at once. Fury, fear, despair? All three?
The tears she'd tried so hard to hold in drizzled down her cheeks.
She had no idea how much time had passed since Emeric had stormed out, but she sat against the tree trunk, her knees pulled up to her chest, shielding her as she sobbed. Beside her was Harriet—when had she showed up?—seated at the edge of the stone surface, heels tapping to the ground.
Esther paced before them in a puff of yellow silk and pink taffeta. "This will not do." Her voice drained the fog around Céleste's mind, drawing her to the present. "It is one thing to speak down to his sister, perhaps; but to me? The woman he courts?"
"Calm down," said Harriet, her tone a breeze of fresh air compared to Esther's strained squeaks. Her soft sleeves against Céleste's shivering arms were a welcome comfort. "It sounds to me he had his reasons."
"Reasons?" Vivid violet lines scarred through Esther's pupils as she glared at her friend. "I care naught for his reasons! A gentleman does not speak like that in the presence of a lady!" She grunted. "Two ladies. Forgive me, Céleste; I tend to forget you are a contender."
"Right," Harriet spun to Céleste before the latter answered. "A contender of Prince Sébastien, asked to present herself in front of the King and Queen during a party for a Giromian." She crossed one leg over the other, her foot jiggling as she studied Céleste. "You know him best. Would you say he disrespected you? Or Esther? Was he out of line by refusing this?"
"He..." Céleste swallowed, but winced at her acidic saliva. "He used tones, but he was not out of line." She peered at the still distraught Esther. "He has a temper, and it gets out of hand if he is triggered. You and I, we triggered him."
"How?" Esther dug her fingers into her auburn curls and tugged. Céleste had never seen her so overcome with anxiety. "By asking him to attend a Ball with us? To present you to the King and Queen?"
"No," interjected Harriet, pressing a fingertip to her light lips. "By pushing him to attend a Ball where a Giromian is the guest of honor. I know your family, Céleste. My father does, at least. The Richels, Senior and Junior, would rather choke to death than be in a room with a Giromian. More so one of a higher status and a feeble reputation such as the Duke of Terter. We have dealt with him and he is unpleasant. I expect your brother was furious about that, and now livid with a second Giromian arriving."
"There must be a way to change his mind, no?" Esther seethed, actual fumes seeming to derive from the top of her head. "He wants me to go by myself? Does he not consider how that will make me look? Courted by him one second, deserted the next? First, I am rejected by all the Princes, now by the son of a Marquess? I will end up with a squire! Or a page boy! Ahhh!"
Céleste would have laughed were she not so distraught herself. Esther, in her bundles of bouffant skirts that were about to eat her whole, her hair unwinding like loose balls of yarn, was quite the sight.
Harriet stood and grabbed Esther by the shoulders. "He is stubborn." She side-glanced at Céleste. "From what I have learned, all Richels are. Am I wrong?"
Céleste wiped her nose on her petticoat before lowering her feet. "He is. We are. We will not persuade him. He will not go to the Ball."
He will shame me to avoid shaming himself and tarnishing Father's reputation.
Though she'd already committed the words to her mind, to say them out loud was something else. Any tiny twinges of hope she'd held on to fizzled into nothingness, and the pit in her belly grew larger.
"Then I cannot either! I cannot show myself! If I am to marry into the Richel family, I must... well, I must follow their rules. If he boycotts the foreign King's arrival, then so will I!" Esther stomped up to a bush and ripped out a few of its ruby roses.
"I doubt Miss M. will allow that." Harriet trudged up to her and pried the poor flower from her hands before she tore it to shreds. "Besides, you are not engaged to him yet. You may do as you please. He told you to go, no? Pretend he has caught a chill and cannot make it. Anyway, I have no one to go with; we can be there together!"
"But you do not understand—"
"—I do, more than you can imagine. I have no prospects, and never will. So I am asking you to accompany me!" Harriet attempted to drag her back to the bench. "We will discuss the specifics later. Should we not brainstorm to help Céleste? She is one of us now, we owe her our expertise. We should find an alternative to present her to Their Majesties." Esther rolled her eyes and grumbled. "Axel Espinar might accept. He has to be there, since Julia gained favor from the Giromians."
How do they know about Julia already?
"And he is courting Cristina, whose father would murder her if she did not go."
Céleste rose from her seat. "Ladies, I appreciate your help, but it will not do, as Esther said. I need Emeric. Or my father. Not someone else."
A sorrowful frown painted across Harriet's face as her shoulders sagged. "Are you sure?"
Céleste had helped Harriet a few times at the Academy; surely the strawberry-haired girl felt she owed her a favor.
Esther plucked another rose and ripped it before Harriet could take it from her. "We are in agreement! It is Emeric or nothing!"
As Harriet swiveled to her friend, Céleste snuck out. She wouldn't loiter to listen to them talking about her like she wasn't there, or fighting to find solutions that didn't exist.
Her fingers ached from the constant clenching of her fists, and her calves were so tight she wondered how she walked—but she continued. Cringing through her agony, head held high as if nothing were amiss. As if she hadn't lost the opportunity of a lifetime because of her selfish brother.
Each step to her bedroom brought more rage to bubble in her gut. Each breath she took made it harder and harder to not cry. But she had to wait until she was alone, until no one would see her.
She had no clue how, but she arrived in the dark desolation of her chambers and slid down the back of the door, her teeth shredding into her lower lip to not let her sobs explode out like gunshots.
Her lungs ached. Her belly sucked in, as if every organ inside was shrinking and eating at her stomach linings.
Prince Sébastien will not wait for a better time.
Marguerite was quite clear—the Princes were in a hurry. To thwart their mother's plots—or to play into them, no one knew—they had to announce their favorites and put wedding plans in motion.
By postponing her presentation, Céleste would dampen those plans. Sébastien wouldn't have the right to delay the proceedings if he wanted to be with her; his mother wouldn't allow it.
She remembered what Marguerite had warned her about only days prior. "He cannot follow his heart."
Crawling to her vanity, she heaved up onto her chair and seized her quill. Quivering, tears spilling onto the parchment and staining every other word, she wrote.
Dearest Sébastien,
My brother will not attend a Ball honoring a Giromian. My father is far, as you stated, so I have no escort to present me to your brother and sister-in-law tomorrow night.
I assume you must reconsider your options, since I imagine you cannot push my presentation back indefinitely.
Perhaps it was not meant to be.
Regards,
Céleste
The moment she folded the paper, another surge of tears unleashed. She pushed the note out of the way before the waterworks inundated it, and in her haste she sneezed, dislodging her ink bottle. She had no time to stop it from leaping off and shattering as it reached the floor. Ink splashed all over, coating the vanity legs in shiny layers of black, covering the hardwood ground in pools of ebony.
Numb with sadness and disappointment, she slid off the chair and landed in the ink puddle, without a care for how it stained her crisp white gown. Without a care for how the blotches sank deep into the fabric, expanding like blood gushing from a wound.
Her vision was so clogged she thought she was bleeding; like her veins had exploded and the once salty tears were now a vibrant, oozing red. But as she mopped her eyes, she realized she'd dramatized it all.
I need to lie down.
She slipped the note underher door, and, shedding her ruined dress, not bothering to put a robe or anight-chemise over her undergarments, she shifted under her covers and stuffedher face into her pillow.
•••