Page 121 of Prince of Masks
I fight the urge to tense my jaw or snarl my lips. My face is perfectly schooled as I drone, monotonous, “Yes, Grandmother.”
This is my training and my punishment.
This is Father’s ultimate weapon against me.
Mother hates it.
Bet she put up a fight when Father ordered me away. Convenient that Mother was in Versailles with Amelia the morning he sent me off to Craven Cottage.
My reward for not wobbling on these killer heels, these torture devices, for not falling or stumbling, is lunch at the little cakeshop. The thatched-roof cottage deflates in on itself, and maybe there’s a magic to it, a magic that stops it from collapsing.
The scent of cakes lures me into step with Grandmother—until she says, “You will have a black coffee, and a salad, no dressing.”
So much for a reward.
I wish Dray was here—
I almost lose my balance.
The thought rattles me.
Invasive, ugly, uncontrollable.
I only mean that he would order me a cake or let me have his. Even in the face of this enforced diet, he would get me the sweets I want in his quest to maintain his gentlemanly mask.
Still, the invasive thought leaves an unsavoury taste in my mouth, and that isn’t soothed by the tasteless bowl of lettuce, spinach, unseasoned chicken, and bland tomatoes.
After lunch, we walk back to Craven Cottage where I am made to stand in the corner of the reading room, a stack of thick, old books balanced on my head.
Grandmother has her back to me. She’s perched on the couch, the servants tending to her afternoon tea and sandwiches, and she has a servant standing beside me.
The servant holds the cane.
One wobble of the book means a knock to the arms or the thighs. But if the book falls, well that’s a strike to the bone. Shins, spine, ribs, wrist.
It is hours before I am released from the corner, and we have dinner in the sunroom.
The meal is nothing to rave about.
Broth. No meat. No bread. Just brown water.
So my diet continues—every day and night that I am here, until it is the last night, the final one before the Debutante Ball.
In her final moments with me as her captive, Grandmother squeezes every ounce of blood from me that she can. I am not dismissed after dinner. Instead, she has me in the library, sorting through the books, reorganising them; then she forces me to rehearse my entrance to the Debutante Ball over and over in the foyer before practicing the dances.
It's midnight when I am dismissed.
I drag myself back to my room, where the hearth is tended to already, crackling with the low flames.
I drop onto the armchair. Dust clouds up around me and I cough on it.
I tug off my shoes, one by one, thenpeeloff my socks. Whether sweat or rain residue, I don’t know—and I don’t want to.
I run myself a bath in the copper tub. The water comes out hot.
Relief sags me.
The enchantment has been lifted from my bathroom, and finally, I get warm water.
