The she-wolf in the Tower

Finding the right look

*Rapunzel*

I’m aware that I’m not acting normally. I’m used to feeling strong emotion only in response to music or a battle with my father. I pride myself on maintaining tight control over my sensibilities.

But now, with less than an hour before I’m due to join the Alpha of Chatteris, his fiancée, and their guests in the drawing room before dinner, I’m overwrought, for lack of a better word. I feel as if I’m about to burst out of my skin, too edgy to settle down.

I find myself pacing the floor of my guest chamber, rejecting every gown Mary offers me. I’m not the sort of she-wolf who spends time worrying about my attire. But that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of the power of clothing to wreak havoc on men’s minds.

I didn’t pay much attention yesterday when Mary packed my trunk for a few days at Fensmore and the Alpha of Chatteris’s wedding; my attention was fixed on the Boccherini score. But now that I’m here, and Miss Honoria… soon to be the Luna of Chatteris… has just informed me that the Alpha prince of Montrose is already in residence, I feel vastly different about what I’ll wear.

The Alpha prince will be at the evening meal, and I’ll see him for the first time since his proposal. The very idea makes me feel feverish all over again.

Any she-wolf in her right mind would dislike the idea of meeting her fiancé garbed as a vestal virgin missing only a lamp… and obviously, a white dress with a modest ruffle at the hem confirms that particular illusion.

After our exchange of letters, I’m fairly certain that Montrose wants to marry someone boldly sensual. Someone who can bandy about words like ‘prick,’ words that I barely understand. I want more than anything to look into his eyes and see desire. Lust, even. If he looks at me and his prick isn’t on the dial of noon, to put it in a lyrical but earthy fashion, I will be humiliated.

I want to dazzle him.

The stupid thing is that I’m not even certain I’ll recognize him. I’m betrothed to a tall man with a Scottish burr, but I can’t recall his face at all.

Still, his letter… that letter… has given me just enough that I’ve decided he has a pair of laughing eyes. Not dissolute eyes or a rakish expression. But desirous.

Only after Mary has offered every single gown she’d packed, and I’ve rejected each and every one as unbearably lackluster, do I give in to the inevitable and send her to find Layla.

“May I wear one of your gowns instead of mine?” I ask, when Layla appears in the doorway. “I loathe my frocks. They make me look like an insipid fool.”

“You know perfectly well that a young unmarried miss should wear only pale fabrics.” Layla strolled across the room and pushed open the window.

“No smoking!” I order, pointing at a chair.

Layla sighs and sits down.

“I am practically married. Montrose is here, and I simply cannot wear one of these dreary gowns.” I don’t know how to put it differently, but if I don’t see desire in his eyes, I might break off the betrothal out of pure embarrassment. I can’t stop feeling that perhaps he offered his hand due to my silence.

“Darling, you’re a willow compared to me,” Layla object. “It’s not that I don’t understand, because, truly, I do. Your coloring has never been flattered by soft tints. Still, we don’t have time to miraculously remake one of my dresses.”

I shake my head, “We are the same height. I may be a little slimmer in the hip area, but our bosoms are the same.”

“My bosom is as unfashionably large as my hips.” Layla mumbles.

“You can call your bosom unfashionable if you wish, but I like mine. And it is nearly the same size. Any gown will work,” I insist. “Don’t you see, Layla? Montrose has never really seen me, though I appreciate the fact that he chose a wife on the basis of rational analysis. I truly do. I approve.”

Layla rolls her eyes. “Rational analysis is an absurd reason for marriage. Your father once told me that after your mother died he made a six-point list of attributes for his next Luna, and I met five of them. Look how well that’s turned out.”

“What was the sixth one?”

Layla gets up again and goes over to the pile of dresses. “Fertility, of course,” she says, turning over the gowns. “The ability to turn out baby Alphas by the yard, if not by the dozen. What about this green one? It’s not as bland as the white ones.”

“You and Father love each other,” I say, ignoring Layla’s attempts to rearrange the neckline of my green gown into something sensual it can never be. “you just don’t…”

“Like each other,” Layla finishes. With a quick jerk, she rips out the lace trim around the gown’s neck.

“I don’t believe that. I believe you do like each other. I just think you need to talk more. But never mind your lamentable marriage for the moment. I’m trying to ensure that mine works out happily. I don’t want Montrose to think that I’m some sort of insipid lily.”

“He’s unlikely to think that after reading your letter,” Layla observes. “Thank goodness your father had that book of Shakespeare quotes. Do you suppose Montrose imagines you a bluestocking who’s actually read all those plays?”

“He’ll soon find out differently,” I say. “You’re destroying that dress, Layla!”

My stepmother holds up the green dress, now relieved of its white lace. “If you pulled down the sleeves to bare your shoulders, this one could be very appealing.”

“I don’t want to be ‘appealing.’ I want to be the sort of she-wolf who tosses about bawdy jokes.”

“That she-wolf would definitely love this dress. Perhaps I shall run away from your father and open my own dress shop.”

I go over and pick up the gown. “I can’t wear this: look, you’ve torn the shoulder seam. I just don’t want to play the part of a virginal swan.”

“You are a virgin,” Layla says, sighing. “Think of it as an unavoidable stage of life, like getting old and toothless and having to drink soup. Unfortunately, men seem to think that she-wolves are like new wine, good only before being uncorked.”

I try, and fail, to work that one out.

“Thus the fact that she-wolves well into their thirties… and married… still wear nothing but white. I view she-wolves mired in that delusion as nothing short of pitiable.” Anyone could guess at that scorn by measuring the distance between a white gown and Layla’s daring… and colorful… concoctions.

“I’m not denying my virginity,” I say, returning to the stool before my dressing table. “I just don’t want to play the demurely chaste Miss Rapunzel, the way I did when I was ill… indeed, as I’ve done all my life.”

She sighs, “Your father won’t like it.”

“My father divested his authority over me when he signed those betrothal papers. Now I need to make absolutely certain that my husband doesn’t think he’s been invited to play the role of father.”

“Good point,” Layla says. “Do you suppose that the age difference between myself and your father has led him to consider me a child?”

I roll my eyes. “Has it never occurred to you?”

That seems to penetrate. Layla tosses the green dress back onto the bed. “I have just the gown for you. Mary, please return to my chamber and ask Trotter to give you the claret silk. This is a sacrifice, darling,” she says, turning back to me. “I thought to wear it myself tomorrow evening, but I think I have the greater need.”

She walks over to the window.

“Don’t you dare take out a cheroot,” I order.

“That tone must have been a direct inheritance from your father. Just as well, since you’ll need to give an order now and then when you’re running a castle.”

“I’m practicing on you. No more smoking anywhere in my vicinity.”

“I’m trying to give them up,” Layla says, leaning against the frame and staring out the window. “Your father doesn’t like it, and we’re sharing a room while we’re here.”

I consider asking how that unaccustomed proximity is working out, but just then Mary reappears with a pile of iridescent silk in her arms.

“Here it is!” Layla crows, turning about as the door opens. “That color is called China rose. Isn’t it the most delicious thing you ever saw? Darker than cinnabar, more saturated than claret… well, close to claret.”

Within a moment, Mary has stripped me to my chemise.

“It’s designed for a chemise, but no corset,” Layla notes, wandering over.

Mary drops a waterfall of claret-colored silk over my head. It feels marvelous against my skin.

Layla adjusts the bodice herself. “You look beautiful. Ravishing. Do you see all the ruching here, just under the bodice?”

I turn to look in the glass. The silk falls in just the right folds to reveal most of my cleavage. A narrow set of pleats comes across each shoulder, gesturing toward a sleeve without bothering to form one.

I look lusciously uncovered on top, and then the silk falls in pleats and ruching from the waist, and is tied with a bow in the back.

Mary kneels and guides my feet into Layla’s matching high-heeled slippers.

“It doesn’t seem fair that our feet are the same and our hips so different,” Layla remarks.

I turn to look at myself in side view. This gown has sent me entirely in another direction, from Classic Virgin to Classic Layla. It makes my breasts seem large and my legs long. It isn’t a bad combination. “Do you think he’ll like this?”

“Any man would like that,” Layla says, her tone brooking no argument. “You are ravishing. Now, lip color to match. Come back over here to my dressing table.”

The unaccustomed heels on Layla’s slippers do something to my balance. When I was ill, I drifted across the floor. Tonight I won’t drift; I will wiggle. I look as if I am swaying from side to side, like a moored boat in a gale.

The effect is quite feminine, not an attribute I often achieve. It certainly isn’t feminine to cradle a big stringed instrument between my legs and coax music out of it. If a true miss insists on doing something as outré as to play the cello, she turns her legs to the side, balances on one hip, and plays sidesaddle.

I can do that, but I never see the point. I’m not stupid enough to think that I can have a career. As the daughter of an Alpha, I play solely for my own pleasure, which means I might as well sit in the most natural position.

The fact that my father loves the cello, and that I had inherited his child-sized instrument, and then that he has bought me a Ruggieri for my sixteenth birthday... none of that overcomes the fact that I am a miss.

There is something of an unspoken bargain between myself and my father. I have delayed my debut as long as possible, but we both know that I will marry whomever he selects. It is a promise, and I always keep my promises, spoken or unspoken.

Now I wiggle-waggle my way back over to my dressing table and sit down. Earlier this afternoon Mary curled my hair into the proper kind of ringlets, the fancy kind that aren’t as untidy as mine naturally are.

Layla darts forward and begins playing with my curls, tousling them into a studied disarrangement.

“You’re ruining all of Mary’s hard work,” I protest, as Layla adjusts another ringlet.

“No, I’m making you look a little less perfect. Men are terrified by perfection. Now a touch of lip pomade.”

Painted red, my mouth looks twice as large, especially my bottom lip. “Doesn’t this look a trifle vulgar? I’m fairly certain that Father won’t approve.” I look disturbingly unlike myself. In fact, I feel as if I’ve veered from feverish saint to feverish courtesan.

“That’s exactly right. Your father has never understood that a little vulgarity is a good thing.”

“Why is it?”

“It wouldn’t be if you were still looking for a husband,” Layla explains. “But now you need to impress upon Montrose the fact that while he may have married you… or rather, he will marry you… he will never own you.”

I turn, catch Mary’s eye, and nod toward the door. As the door closes behind her, I say, “Layla, darling, isn’t that technique you just recommended rather a failure when it comes to you and Father?”

“What technique?” Layla has her hair up in an artful nest of curls threaded with emeralds. She stands before the glass, coaxing a lock to fall with disheveled grace over one shoulder.

“Making certain that a man feels he will never own you, or at least own your loyalty. I think it may have led to some of your marital difficulties.”

Layla frowns. “I would never be unfaithful to your father. He should know that because he knows me.”

“But if you are constantly telling him, albeit silently, that you will never belong to him... It just strikes me from watching the two of you that men are rather primitive, at least Father is. He looks at you with pain and possessiveness, all mixed up together.”

“But I’ve assured him that I didn’t sleep with Gryphus. He should believe me unconditionally. I am his mate.”

“Perhaps he needs you to assure him that you have no interest in sleeping with any other man.”

“That would be to give him too much power,” Layla says instantly. “He already thinks he owns me. Last night he demanded that I give up smoking cheroots!”

That doesn’t surprise me. “What did you say?”

“I refused, of course. Although I haven’t smoked any today.” Layla’s mouth droops. “Marriage is more difficult than you think, Rapunzel. If you do nothing but try to keep your husband happy, you’ll drive yourself mad.”

I give her a kiss. “Forgive me if I say that I’ll be in good company? You are far too kind to my grumpy dad.” I pick up my gloves and a wrap of gossamer taffeta. “Let’s go down to dinner. I’m quite curious to know what my fiancé looks like.”