Page 133 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
Dimitri scratched the back of his neck. “I started off with ‘beautiful’ and slipped into ‘mesmerising’… and now I’d like to drown myself.”
Adeline laughed, and leant up to kiss his cheek. “Not quite yet, dear Dimitri. I’m still in need of your company.” She turned her gaze around the rest of the room. “These dresses, were they your mother’s?”
Mother’s, aunt’s, grandmother’s... who knows?”
“It’s not weird then?”
“Half of them probably haven’t even been worn. It’s not like I’ll suddenly think,oh my, Adeline looks like my mother.Because yes, that would be weird.”
She laughed again, spinning around in a flutter of petticoats, marvelling at the weight and movement of the dress.
“Are we just playing dress up?” she asked him.
“I’ve arranged for us to have some of the banquet food.”
“Ooh! Food!”
“You’re so easily pleased.”
“It’s the little things in life.”
“Stay here,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
He came back fully dressed, in the clothes she’d made for him, the ones he’d insisted he wouldn’t wear, all velvet waistcoat and sharp, clean blue lines.
He looked every part the perfect prince, and she the princess on the way to the ball.
“Beauterising.” She grinned.
Dimitri shrugged. “From one angle, maybe.”
Adeline moved so she was standing on the other side of him. “Fromevery angle,” she insisted. “Now, are you going to be grumpy, or accept the compliment?”
He groaned. “But I’m very, very good at being grumpy.”
She laughed, her hand going to his arm. He laughed too, easily and unrestrained. She was still touching him, and her grip only dropped when he looked at it.
Silly to be embarrassed. She touched him all the time. To help him dress. Tobathehim.
But there were other kinds of touches.
They headed down to the floor above the ballroom. Dimitri opened a small door above the staged area at the end, a balcony overlooking the rest of the festivities. Music swirled from beneath them, delicate as lark’s wings and thick and full as a furnace.
A lavish table decked in white and gold had been set up for them, ivory candles glinting against the polished silver. Lanterns hung from the ceiling over bowls of spiced soups, creamy potatoes, beautiful cuts of beef and buttery greens.
Adeline’s mouth watered. “You really went all out.”
“It is your first ball experience. I wanted it to be a decent one.”
“It is. The company alone—”
“You don’t need to flatter me.”
“Yes,” she said, “I do.”
