Page 45 of Crown of Thorns
“Exactly, so let’s get started,” she says as she whipsout a curling iron and a bunch of sprays and whatnot for hair. I let my mind go blank as Maeve curls and pins my long hair so that it can cool.
Once that’s complete, I head to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. When I’m done, I let her sit me down at the makeup vanity in my dressing room, and I close my eyes while she hums some soft tune. She slathers my face with serums and creams before painting my face with enough makeup for a Broadway show cast, but you’d never know it. It might be a lot of product, but Maeve uses it expertly to highlight my natural features. Then she unpins each curl before braiding bits and twisting others so that it’s pulled back into a delicate updo that sits at the nape of my neck. The large blue headband with soft blue and white flowers will sit perfectly over it.
She turns me to look at myself in the mirror and I gasp. I don’t know who this beautiful woman is. She’s not the klutzy girl fresh out of college, she’s something altogether different. This woman looks like the kind of woman a king would marry.
“Aye,” Maeve says with a soft smile. “There’s my beautiful girl.”
“Thank you, Maeve,” I whisper. “For everything.”
“It’s nothing, darling girl,” she says. “If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be just like you. Now let’s get you dressed before we’re both blubbering like babies.”
Laid out on my bed are baby blue silk panties and a matching bra and a pair of nude hose. I untie the sashat my waist and let my silk robe slip down my arms before laying it over the arm of a chair. I pull on the undergarments as Maeve walks into the room with a beautiful baby blue lace dress on a hanger.
“A little something blue for the public,” she says with a wink. “And a little something blue for the groom to unwrap later.”
“How scandalous, Maeve.” I laugh.
“Oh hush. You’ll be married within the week,” she says. “And besides, no one who’s seen the way the king looks at you would think pure thoughts.”
She slips the dress off the hanger and holds it open for me to step into without messing up my hair. She pulls it up my waist and I slip my arms into the sleeves so that she can do up the hidden zip on the back. The neckline comes just to my collarbone with delicate seams from the waist to my chest, perfectly forming the dress to fit over my breasts. The short sleeves have a small pouf at the shoulders. A matching blue belt nips it in at my waist, drawing attention to the flare of my hips and then the skirt ends at the top of my calves. It’s modest and sexy all at the same time.
Maeve hands me a pair of nude leather pumps with a round toe, a thicker heel so I won’t sink into the lawn like an idiot, and a delicate matching leather strap with a small silver buckle that goes across the top of my foot. I slide them on and do up the buckles.
The oversized headband adds just the tiniest extra bit to the whole look, making me look like I couldeasily fit in with the aristocracy when inside I feel like the biggest fake. It’s also not so over the top that I stick out like the awkward sore thumb I might just feel like on the inside.
“And last a bit of frosting fit for a future queen,” she says, pulling an older looking velvet jewelry case from the pocket of her skirt. She opens the case with a flourish and inside are a pair of large aquamarine teardrop earrings, surrounded with smaller white diamonds and suspended from a round aquamarine set on a platinum post.
With a shaking hand, I reach for one, threading it through my ear and then the other. I check the backings for security about a thousand times before she swats my hands down with a laugh and says, “Stop that.”
“I can’t help it.” I smile. “Will I be thrown in a tower if I lose one?”
“Doubtful. The king canno’ have his way with you if you’re locked in a tower.”
“Oh my gosh, stop it,” I say, blushing like crazy.
“Fine but you’re no fun,” she says before handing me a blue satin clutch with a pearl snap closure that has been dyed to match exactly.
“I don’t think I was ever fun if it makes you feel any better,” I tell her as I pop open the clutch and see she’s already dropped a powder compact and lip-gloss in there along with an emergency tampon. I pull open a drawer in the bathroom and grab the last of the bits and pieces I never leave home without. What a strangethought since before Rhys came into my life, I never left home other than to visit my uncles or work in the bookshop. With a sigh I snap the bag closed and say, “I’m as ready as I’ll even be.”
“You’re perfect,” she tells me. “Now go and have some fun but stay close to the king or the princess.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I reply.
She gives me an odd look like she wants to say more but maybe feels like she shouldn’t. And if that’s not the story of my life lately, I don’t know what is. Even if she’s withholding information from me, I’m not going to tarnish this relationship we’ve built. Maeve is one of a few people here that I can count on, and I won’t throw that away.
I follow as she leads me down the hallway toward the corridor where I waited for our engagement announcement and press interviews. It’s hard to imagine how much has changed since that day. I feel like Alice when she fell through the looking glass and everything was all topsy turvy.
“Hello love.” Rhys greets me with the smile of a groom who’s excited to be married by the end of the week and nothing of the man who essentially picked a bride out of a government catalogue for international power and intrigue. It’s easy to fall into the lies; I would never surface out of them if I let myself.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I say with a shaky voice. My nerves are about to get the best of me.
“It’ll be fine,” he says as he gently loops my handaround his elbow. “Ready?”
“Sure.” What else am I supposed to say? No? That’s obviously not an answer that’s tolerated around here. If it was, my behind would be back in America so fast, Rhys’s head would spin. The mental image makes me giggle and when Rhys shoots me a questioning look, I quickly school my face and ready myself for our entrance.
I allow myself to look him over. He’s dressed in a fine gray morning suit that was obviously hand crafted specifically for him. His tie is perfectly tied, and a matching gray top hat is perched on his head. In his other arm is an umbrella. Sometimes, I think I’ll never understand the ways of the aristocracy. Then again, it could just be that it rained this morning. Who knows? Certainly, not me.
The heavy double glass doors are pulled open, and together we step out onto the stone patio where we are greeted with cheers and the flash and snaps of photographers’ cameras.
