Aunt Rosalind's drawing-room was a world apart from the Malling cottage—a sanctuary of polished mahogany, floral silk, and the faint, sweet scent of beeswax and dried lavender. Before her hearth, Doria and Eden stood like twin supplicants, their pleas hanging in the warm air.
"Please, Aunt Rosalind," Doria entreated, her voice a perfect blend of desperation and charm. "It is the opportunity of a lifetime. A real palace"
"With real princes," Eden added, then immediately winced. "Or at least, gentlemen who've seen a prince."
Their aunt regarded them over the rim of her porcelain teacup. Widowed and left with a comfortable, if not staggering, fortune, Aunt Rosalind lived a life of quiet luxury punctuated by bouts of profound boredom. Her sister's choice to marry for love—and to a man she considered a charming but ultimately shiftless dreamer—had created a lasting chill between them. She saw Mr. Malling as a drain, a man who allowed his wife and daughters to shoulder the world while he retreated into convalescence and intellectual abstraction. Yet, her heart, which had no children of its own to lavish upon, held a deep, frustrated tenderness for her nieces and nephews.
She had seen the keen, quiet intelligence in Elowyn and had once offered to fund her schooling, an offer brusquely refused by her brother-in-law. "Girls don't need book learning," he'd grumbled. "They need to know how to run a home." The memory still sparked a quiet anger in her. In Aunt Rosalind's view, education was armor even if to be married, and he had left his daughter defenseless.
Eden and Doria, however, possessed a different currency . She had long wished to introduce them to the more refined circles of the town's lesser gentry, to see them make matches that would secure stability. A royal ball was an untouchable dream, but if the King himself had flung open the doors, who was she to bar their way?
"Oh, alright," she sighed, setting her cup down with a deliberate click, her tone one of exaggerated exasperation that fooled no one. "If only to stop you from sighing at my window like two lovelorn pigeons. But we shall do this properly. There will be no homemade frocks at a royal ball. I refuse to be related to anyone wearing a hem held up by hope and a prayer."
The girls' faces transformed, lit with a joy so bright it seemed to amplify the very sunlight in the room.
"Thank you, Aunt Rosalind! You won't regret it!"
Doria was already halfway to the door, as if fearing her aunt might rescind the offer.
"I already do," Aunt Rosalind said dryly, but a smile tugged her lips
"Nielson!" she called out, her voice crisp. "Have the carriage brought 'round. We are going to war, and we require transport."
As the butler departed, Doria practically vibrated with triumph on the front steps. Her mind was a whirlwind of silks and strategies. All those hours of observing, of practicing a coy smile, of learning to flutter a fan just so. They would all pay a royal dividend. She knew her beauty was a potent tool: the lush chestnut hair, the hazel eyes that could sparkle with mirth or melt with seeming sincerity. She relished the power it gave her, the way men's glances followed her in the market. It was a dangerous pleasure, making it hard to settle on any one admirer when so many seemed to desire her.
Yet, her gaze turned inward, to a familiar thorn of envy. Her complexion, warmed by the sun and her own vigorous nature, was a point of secret resentment. Elowyn, who worked just as hard in the harsh sun, possessed a frustrating, porcelain fairness. Skin so fair and translucent it bloomed with a natural, rosy flush at the slightest provocation. Doria needed pinches and, in her dreams, expensive rouge to achieve the same effect. It felt like a cruel, inexplicable joke.
Eden, sharing her father's coloring but none of his temperament, waited with more contained excitement. Her thoughts were already spiraling ahead to the practicalities: the chores that would need doing before they left, whether their mother could manage their father's mood. She bore the weight of the household on her shoulders and felt a familiar, dull anger toward the man sleeping in the cottage's back room. He had chosen love over provision, leaving the women of the house to build a life from scraps. She loved her siblings fiercely, but sometimes resented the endless need that filled their home. This ball was her chance to escape.
"Come along, girls," Aunt Rosalind announced, sweeping past them, her skirts whispering of wealth and purpose. "The modiste awaits. And do try to think like ladies, not giddy children. The right fabric is an investment. The wrong one is a tragedy we'll all have to live with."
As the carriage rolled toward town, Doria stared out the window, already envisioning herself as the undisputed jewel of the ball. Eden sat straighter, mentally cataloguing the lessons in etiquette their aunt had drip-fed them over the years. And Aunt Rosalind watched them both, a small, satisfied smile playing on her lips. This was something she could do. This was how she could fight back against her brother-in-law's neglect and her sister's quiet suffering.
The bustling town square was a kaleidoscope of hopeful faces and anxious energy when Aunt Rosalind's carriage rolled to a stately halt. As Aunt Rosaline alighted, her eyes immediately found Elowyn, who was lingering near the bookstore, her new volume tucked under her arm.
"Elowyn, come along now," Aunt Rosalind commanded, not with a greeting but with the brisk efficiency of a general marshaling her troops. "We have no time for literary loitering. We must get you all ready before the world runs out of thread."
Ever compliant, Elowyn fell into step without question, though her mind whirred. She had missed the pivotal negotiation at the mansion and could only marvel silently at her sisters' success.
"Kaelas!" Doria's voice, bright and commanding, cut across the crowd. She descended from the carriage in a flutter of skirts and immediately linked her arm possessively through his. "We are going to the modiste! I want the biggest fan, the tallest feathers, the finest silk. Sparkles, everything!"
Kaelas raised an eyebrow, a playful smile tugging at his lips. "Be careful now, Doria. One might think you are heading for the circus, not the palace."
The group erupted into light laughter, a brief, sunny moment in the tense afternoon. Eden's eyes, however, were on the modiste's shopfront. "I wonder if we'll even be able to get anything but scraps," she murmured, noting the queue that snaked three blocks down the cobbled street, a ribbon of anxious women in worn woolens.
"We do have some dresses at home," Elowyn offered softly, thinking of the carefully mended garments hanging in their shared wardrobe.
"Don't be tacky," Doria chuckled, the sound lacking warmth. "Only you would think of wearing our Sunday best to a royal ball. They'd mistake you for a particularly pious scullery maid."
Eden reached over and gave her sister a sharp thump on the head, shooting her a warning glare. Before Doria could retort, Kaelas spoke, his gaze fixed on Elowyn with a softness that seemed to still the air around them.
"Elowyn would look good in anything."
The words hung, simple and devastating. A profound, scorching blush flooded Elowyn's cheeks, mirrored precisely on Kaelas's own face as he realized the quiet intimacy of his declaration. Discontent with their exchanged Doria tightened her grip on Kaelas arm while Eden suppressed a knowing giggle.
Elowyn, to steady herself, looked back at the long line. Her heart sank as she noticed the modiste's assistant discreetly turning away group after group of women, their faces crumbling from hope into resigned poverty. They had no means. That would have been their fate, too, without Aunt Rosalind.
As their party bypassed the queue following Aunt Rosalind's determined figure, they drew the sharp, glowering attention of those left waiting. The women's eyes lingered with particular venom on Doria, whose arm was still tucked proudly into Kaelas's. The attention didn't intimidate Doria; it inflated her. She stood taller, preening under the glare, feeling their envy like a tonic. Kaelas, uncomfortable with the spectacle, gently but firmly extricated his arm under the pretense of adjusting his coat.
Elowyn observed him—the lean strength, the broad shoulders that seemed to carry an easy grace, the sharp, handsome planes of his face framed by light brown hair. His grey eyes, the color of a winter sky, briefly met hers before darting away. This, she thought is why it could never be.
They reached the shop entrance, where the harried assistant was blocking the door. Without a word, Aunt Rosalind drew a small, heavy purse from her muff and pressed several generous coins into the woman's palm. "Let us not waste time with the democratic process" she stated, her voice leaving no room for negotiation.
The assistant's demeanor transformed instantly. "Of course, madam. Right this way, please."
As they were ushered past the threshold into the hushed, fabric-lined sanctum of the shop, Doria could not resist a final, haughty glance over her shoulder at the line of waiting women, her chin lifted in triumphant superiority. The door closed, muffling the sounds of the common world outside.