Amaskan's Blood, Raven Oak [read me a book .TXT] 📗

that protruded like rocks along a river bed. She bit one of her nails, then stilled her hands at her sides.

Her lady-in-waiting nodded at the correction and ordered more pins to be brought into the room.

If this dress is sent to the seamstress for adjustments one more time, I think Papa might bust the seams of his own britches. Margaret looked down on the black head of Lady Nisha and said, “I can’t help it. I’m just too nervous to eat anything.”

Nisha bent over the stitching on the back, clucking her tongue as she slid more pins. “The dress will have to be sent back to the seamstress for adjusting.”

The woman rose, and Margaret took her hand in her own. “Thank you, Lady Nisha.”

“Whatever for, my lady?”

“You’ve been like a sister to me, and I know, times like this how you must miss your home and your sister.”

Her lady-in-waiting stared into the mirror at nothing and murmured, “Shad is no longer my home, and my family is dead. But you have given me both a new home and a new family, and a status I’d been stripped of in Shad. I am indebted to you, my lady.”

With the pins in place, Margaret wiggled and squirmed as Nisha pulled the dress over Margaret’s head. It was retired to the chest in the corner until its return to the seamstress. Margaret’s shoulders slumped as her handmaidens dressed her. Their deft fingers made quick work of the task, yet Margaret frowned. “What is the matter, my lady?”

“My father. You know what he’ll say when the dress goes back for a fourth time.” She sucked in a breath as the handmaidens pulled on the laces of her corset.

Nisha chuckled. “Worry not. It’s normal for a bride to be so, I swear it.”

Margaret settled into her embroidery chair and picked up the stitching from earlier. “Would you recommend a purple or blue for his tunic?” Prince Gamun’s embroidered face resembled a blob more than the image in her memory. Not that she recalled all that much. He was handsome, that she remembered. Still, no one would notice with the snow-topped mountains behind him.

Nisha settled next to Margaret. “I would choose the blue of your kingdom.”

“I agree. Have you heard anything of interest lately, Lady Nisha? Please, take my mind from my nerves.” Her fingers trembled as they pushed the threaded needle through the coarse fabric.

“Nothing.”

Her lady-in-waiting stared at her feet, her own embroidery forgotten, and Margaret pushed the matter. “What have you heard? I know a lie when it’s before me. Speak.”

“There are rumors about the Prince. I don’t wish to say, my lady.”

Margaret caught the woman’s arm, her fingers tightly gripping Nisha’s brown skin. “You will say. I would know what things are said of my future husband.”

Nisha stared at the stone floor as she whispered, fingers bunched in her russet skirts. “Some call him ‘the Monster.’ They say he enjoys things he ought not.”

“Such as?”

“Young maidens.”

Margaret flushed, the heat spreading across her almost gaunt cheeks. She wasn’t supposed to know of such things, or at least that’s what her father and tutors said behind cracked doors when they thought her not listening. But the books in the royal library held quite an education if one was so inclined. Not that I read the entire book. Some parts were just too unseemly. As if men and women conducted themselves so.

She shrugged at Nisha’s words. “Most men prefer women to other men.” The heat that spread across her arms and chest at this admission was more than embarrassment, and she pretended to study her too-short nails.

“No, my lady. The things they say he does, he hurts them. There are houses in Shad for men such as this, and it is said he frequents such places. The tales from Shad and Nicen—”

When Margaret stood, the embroidery tumbled to the floor and left the Prince a blob against the grey stone. “And where would you hear such unseemly topics? A lady of nobility such as yourself? Or be you the bastard the women say you are?”

Nisha’s lip trembled and tears gathered in her eyes. “No, my lady. My sister, before she was killed, she told me of such things.”

“Your sister is as unseemly as these tales of hers. I will not listen to such conversation. Now,” Margaret said, taking in a deep breath before returning to her chair, “What color for his boots, black or brown?”

“B-black.”

Margaret misplaced a stitch and picked at it, trying to remove the thick thread from the fabric’s heavy weave. The piece of art was her wedding day gift to her new lord, and it had to be perfect. When Margaret said nothing of her lady-in-waiting’s tears, the handmaidens busied themselves with cleaning the bower for a second time that day.

The thread broke, and Margaret bit the inside of her cheek. Rumors reached her ears as well, though she tried to dismiss them as lies. Who knows the sources of such words? Besides, my father would never give me to some monster—someone like that.

Nisha sniffed, and Margaret placed the sewing aside. “Nisha, come and talk with me. I am sorry that I chided you so. I haven’t eaten. You know how I get when I forget to eat.”

Nisha returned to the chair beside Margaret where she sorted the thread colors in the basket beside them. “Your memory of His Highness is perfect,” she whispered.

“Is it? Maybe I remember only the perfect prince my mind wishes to see.”

“There’s little difference between ladies of noble birth and those cleaning the chamber pots.” Margaret gasped, and Nisha continued, “Both are capable of speaking in lies to twist the mind. Pay no worry to the words spoken on your new Lord. I’m sure he’s both handsome and perfect.”

Margaret smiled, her eyes gazing at the stitching of the half-done Prince. “Just wait until he’s done, Nisha. Better yet, just wait until he’s here.” The princess returned to stitching the blues of his tunic.

Two more months. Only two more