Page 7 of A Princess, Stolen
Two things make people unpredictable; one is war and the other is love. (Ivy-Rose)
I stopped, completely taken aback. Ivy-Rose was my mom—and I was used to hearing words about war, but of course from Dad since Mom was no longer alive. Dad owned several private armies, one of which was currently stationed in Afghanistan and two in the Middle East; that meant he heard a lot.
So, why had Grandma written that quote at the bottom of the letter?
I would have loved to pick up the phone and ask her, but I didn’t have Grandma’s number, nor would I arbitrarily disregard Dad’s no-contact rule. I had only done that once. Back then, eight years ago, I was bursting with excitement over Nathan’s kiss. The first and only time Dad noticed, and because it had been shortly after my forbidden trip with Nathan, ithad only shaken his trust in me. Since then, I had never done anything forbidden again because I couldn’t stand it when Dad was angry with me.
I blinked a few times, an annoying tic I’d developed when Mom died. Grandma had invited me, not Dad, because he certainly hadn’t received a separate invitation. She wanted to speak to me about him and Mom, but with or without an invitation, Dad wouldn’t set foot in her house anyway. So, the question was, did I want to go without him? The very idea of going anywhere without Dad seemed unimaginable, I mean we were like Athos and Aramis sans Porthos, two lonely musketeers who only had each other. Besides, it would feel like a betrayal. I hadn’t forgotten that she blamed him for Mom’s death even if her words sounded so loving on paper and she surely only wanted the best for me. I wouldn’t go anywhere without Dad.
A knock on my bedroom door pulled me out of my musings. “Willa, love? Are you awake yet?”
“Just a minute, Delilah,” I called hastily, gathering the petals and putting them and the letter in the envelope.Why on earth is Delilah here already? She usually visits her father, who suffers from dementia, in the nursing home at this time.
“I simply want to know if you’ve decided on a dress yet?”
“No!” That was a blatant lie even if I didn’t like admitting it to myself. Naturally, I knew which dress I would wear tonight. I quickly slid the letter under some old drawings in my bedside table drawer not wanting our maids Jane and Ruby to find it later when cleaning. “But we can try them on right now,” I responded.
“Okay. I’ll wait in your dressing room.”
That was the advantage of Dad’s billions. I didn’t have to worry about anything. Five days ago, New York’s top three designers brought the most exclusive pieces from their latestcollection. They had explained every advantage of their creation to me and all I had to do was choose.
When I entered the dressing room, a pristine white room with walk-in closets and tall silver-framed mirrors, Delilah was standing in a maze of clothes racks, adjusting the ruffles ofBelle, one of the many evening gowns.
“There you are!” She gasped as she approached, probably still out of breath from the stairs. “Happy birthday!” Before I knew it, she was pressing me so tightly against her gigantic bosom that I couldn’t breathe. Nevertheless, I was beaming when she released me and showered me with a barrage of good wishes. They were mainly for my health and my painting.
“May you finally understand how talented you are, young lady,” she said and disappeared again into the maze of clothes racks on which the evening gowns for the gala were lined up.
“Why are you here already?” I asked.
“Oh, my father said there was a strange man in his room who was rummaging through everything and I didn’t want to argue with him.”
I looked in her direction, concerned, but she didn’t notice as she piled up my dress choices. “Perhaps it was another patient who thought it was his room.”
Between two parallel rails, she shook her head. “I suspect it was merely the orderly sorting his clothes. They always do that on Fridays…he just didn’t recognize him.” She returned with three dresses that almost swallowed her up. A small miracle given her stately figure of almost two hundred and fifty pounds. “Here is your shortlist from yesterday afternoon. Which one would you like to wear tonight? The yellow one?” she asked, holding it out to me. Her round, friendly face was black and beautiful, and the yellow shone like a sun against it. I liked yellow, I liked all bright colors, but yellow didn’t suit me wellor so I thought. Plus, the frilly dress the designer had lovingly namedBellereminded me of a cupcake.
“I don’t know.” I likedAzurethe best.Azurewas a simple blue silk A-line dress, but I knew it wouldn’t be Dad’s first choice. Delilah knew that too.
“Perhaps, you prefer blue?” She awkwardly pulled the azure dress up so it covered her face. “This is your favorite, right?”
She simply knows me too well!I couldn’t fool Delilah. She had been working for us since I was nine. Back then, she was my nanny, but now she did my manicures and pedicures, looked after my wardrobe, helped in the kitchen, and played cards with me when Dad or my friend Penelope didn’t have time. In short, she was a girl Friday, although the term girl was not appropriate. She was over fifty and had a congenital hip problem that didn’t exactly help her Rubenesque figure. And, in fact, she was not only a girl Friday but also my friend, one of the few I had.
“You should wear what you like best, Willa Rae. It’s your birthday, not your father’s,” she said softly, loweringAzureand examining me.
She had no idea—or maybe too much. I gazed longingly at the simple cut and the shimmering shades of blue. The azure would go great with my smoky blue eyes, but Dad would think it was too plain for me and he would say the same about the strapless gray with the shimmering beadwork. “I like the yellow best,” I therefore stated, trying to sound confident. “The blue is too…too plain and the gray is boring.” So I didn’t have to look Delilah in the eye, I pulled the nightgown over my head.
“That’s exactly what your father would say,” she sighed, taking the nightgown from me and handingBelleto me. She knew I was lying and that made me uncomfortable because I hated lying.
I watched her hang the rejected dresses back on the racks with her hips turned to the side, groaning as she did so. She wasclearly in pain, but she would never quit on her own. I knew she needed every cent for her father’s nursing home, but the medication for her niece, who had kidney disease, cost far more. Since Delilah hadn’t been able to have children of her own, her heart and soul belonged to ten-year-old Sophie. And, as long as the little girl received her medication, she was fine. So, that was why Delilah would work until she dropped, bad hip or not, and that was exactly what always made me feel guilty. Several times, I had asked Dad for money for her, and each time he had said that Delilah was too proud to accept handouts from him, and besides, he was already paying her five times the usual rate.
I’ve known Delilah longer than Mom. I have no idea why I thought that when I slipped into the yellow meringue dress for the fitting.
After Delilah zipped me up in the back, I stared at myself in the mirror.Oh no!I suppressed a sigh. The dress looked even more like a cupcake than I had feared.
“Luckily, it fits you.” Delilah walked her adorable duck waddle around me while adjusting the ruffles and tulle at the same time. “I was afraid we’d have to call the tailor to get it tightened.” Naturally, she couldn’t resist taking a jab at my weight. In her opinion, I wasn’t eating enough, which was true.
I looked self-consciously in the mirror and fiddled with the tulle over the ruffles. I actually looked a little like Belle fromBeauty and the Beast.
“You should stop trying to please your father and live your own life,” Delilah suddenly said from behind, smoothing the fabric again.
