The Original Villainess

CHAPTER 6

“I’m listening!” I promised with slurred words. “I’m just…resting my eyes.”

“Clearly, nothing here is catching your fancy,” my mother sighed.

“They’re all so…boring!”

“You’d be able to find something more custom, if it wasn’t for that fiance of yours.”

No, I’d be able to find something if it wasn’t for my current condition. I shot the boutique designer a pleading look. “Can I have some paper and a pencil, please? It might be too late to design a dress from scratch, but if I showed you what I have in mind, maybe you could take an existing dress and tailor it. Would that be alright?”

He half rolled his eyes at me as he handed me some papers.

“Okay. I’m not too picky on the embellishments,” I told him as I started sketching. “I don’t want anything gaudy, but you can decide what the overall theme will be. Since it’s spring, I can suggest flowers. I love lilacs, so think on that.” I used several sheets of paper to sketch various parts of my dream dress, one I knew did not exist in this world. “The bodice is allowed to be simple. I like ruching, but it has to be slanted.” Horizontal ruching makes me look fat, and since I’ll be almost two months pregnant by that point, I really don’t need another reason for people to question my marriage to the duke. Corset bodices will probably be a bad idea, though…

“This neckline,” the designer said, pointing at it. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s called a sweetheart neckline,” I told him. “It’s supposed to draw attention to a woman’s best assets. I saw it in a romance book once, “I lied. “It also allows for a dress to fit comfortably without the need for sleeves to hold it up.”

“No sleeves?” Mother gasped next to me, watching me sketch.

“Ridiculous,” the designer scoffed. “While most wedding dresses these days do tend to have off the shoulder sleeves, they still have sleeves.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry, Mother. I do want one thing.” I can’t draw flowers, so I used circular scribbles to include a single strap on one shoulder. “I want this on one shoulder, and that’s it. This could be flowers, or just random fabric pieces sewn together. You’re the professional. You think of something.”

I turned to a new sheet. “While I don’t mind if the bodice is a bit plain, I would like some extra embellishment on the skirt to make up for that. However, I don’t want a ballgown.”

“No ballgown?” the designer roared. “Are you insane?”

I met his eyes evenly. “No, I’m a bride, and this is my wedding. If you don’t think you can’t accomplish this in the time frame, then I will find someone who can.”

He narrowed his eyes at me in silence. Finally, he nodded, letting out a slow breath, and I smiled sweetly at him. Aw, look at how hard he’s trying not to lose the favor of the duke. It’s adorable.

“The inside fabric, I want it to cling to my hips, and then hang straight down. It’ll give me room to move, and I’ll be able to dance at the reception without tripping over the hem.”

“Reception? Brynne, sweetheart, you aren’t going to buy a reception dress, then?”

I only smiled at her. “Let me finish drawing, and I’ll explain.” I sketched some more. “The outside fabric should be light and sheer. Chiffon, perhaps. Something elegant. You can embellish this with more of the same flowers from the shoulder, embroider the hem. What have you. I’d also like a belt-like strap here, made from whatever the shoulder is made from, to tie it all together. With the slanted ruching, a slanted belt that settles on the side of my hip would look nice. Now for the back,” I continued, moving onto a new sheet of paper.

“The bodice will need to be corset-like, in order to hold itself up, but since I plan on dancing in it for the reception, then it can’t be made of steel. Something a little more flexible would be nice. It’ll also allow me to eat and breathe, so I don’t pass out at my own wedding.” Though my husband is a doctor, so I’m sure I’ll be fine. “But if we use a thick ribbon to tie it from the back, to give it that corset look, I would like that. It can form a droopy bow at the bottom of the bodice, to allow it to transition smoothly into the skirt.”

I yawned as I pointed to more parts of the sketch.

“Now, I do like a long train, and I understand it’s tradition to have a fancy train at a palace wedding. But still. No gaudiness. I despise over-embellishment more than anything else when it comes to clothing.” However, it can’t be plain. That’d be an insult to His Grace, as well as the royal family, who is paying for the dress. “So if you use the same embroidery and flower embellishments from the front and gather them on the back, near the bottom of the train, that will allow for some fancieness. Now. We still have the matter of me dancing in this dress. I can’t dance with a long train, so here’s what I suggest. About halfway down the train, hidden in a cluster of flowers, or whatnot, you stitch a small loop of fabric. It has to be big enough to strap to my wrist, so I can dance without tripping.”

I finished the last of the sketches and handed them to the designer. “What do you think?”

He shuffled through the papers, eyes wide. “What…what is this?”

“Oh, I forgot one more thing!” I turned to Regina. “I know wedding dresses for a noble’s wedding tend to be white, but do people ever use other colors?”

“Hmm? Well, sometimes they have a colored ribbon as a sash, or wear colored shoes, but usually the dress itself is white, or off-white, like a cream or pale yellow. Why?”

“Well, I was thinking that if this entire thing was white, it would really make me look like a cake topper.”

“Cake topper?”

“So the flower embellishments,” I added, nudging a foot at the designer. “What if we dyed them? Say, purple?”

“Purple!” he cried.

“That way, it might look like I really am wearing lilacs on my shoulders. And, it’ll help keep the embellishment to the necessary minimum, so I will still be wearing a white dress. What do you think?”

His eyes twinkled as he flipped through the pages of my drawings. “I have never seen a dress like this!”

That’s because it only exists in my world.

“I was concerned when you said you had a dress in mind, but this is better than I ever could imagine! I will work day and night every day for the next month!” he shouted, fired up. “I will not rest until this dress is envisioned!”

I laughed as I pushed myself to my feet. “Good sir,” I teased. “I do not wish for you to collapse before the dress is done. If you need extra help, please let me know. The duke will get on it immediately.” I stretched. “As for my accessories, I am rather tired today. I shall have to go shopping for them another time. But you’re the professional, so if you have suggestions, let me know.”

“It shall be done, my lady!”

I used a hand to stifle a yawn, stretching out my other one to help my mother to her feet. “Shall we have refreshments at the patissier across the street before going home?” I asked.

“That sounds wonderful. But Brynne…how in the world did you come up with the idea for that dress?”

Oops.

—

“No luck?”

Mother sighed. “It seems that everyone is trying to go home right now. Flagging down a carriage is harder than I thought.”

“We should have had our driver wait for us somewhere, instead of sending him home.” I reached down and pulled off my shoes, stretching my toes in their newfound freedom.

“Dear!”

I shrugged my mother’s warning tone off. “My feet hurt. I’m sure yours do, too. I don’t want to do anything that makes my life more difficult, including wearing uncomfortable shoes.”

“As a lady, you’ll have to get past that,” she reprimanded me. “Beauty is pain.”

“Not necessarily,” I told her. “No one else but you knows I’m not wearing shoes right now. Do I look any less beautiful?”

She c****d her head at me and smiled with a light in her eyes. “My daughter is always the most beautiful.”

A warmth filled my heart, and I kissed her cheek. “My mother is the best mother,” I murmured, resting my cheek on her shoulder. A sense of sorrow enveloped me from the inside. “I’m going to miss seeing you every day,” I admitted.

“Aw.” She kissed the top of my head. “Don’t worry. You’ll always be welcomed in our house. Your father and brother will never turn you away.”

The sorrow deepened in my heart, as I recalled a line from the novel. “You will always be my daughter, Brynne,” Regina had said after her husband passed. It was right after Brynne was beginning to show, before she miscarried. “But I don’t think I can love you quite the same anymore, now that your father is gone.”

While Zane had never doubted his sister, her stepmother’s support waned almost immediately after the rumors that she was pregnant and unwed started circulating high society.

I buried my face into her shoulder. It’s okay. It hasn’t happened yet. And since I’m getting married, it might never happen. I’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. We will all be just–

“Isn’t that Duke Langly?”

My eyes snapped open, and I saw Levi exiting a shop a little ways down the road.

Mother dragged me along, her hand like a vise on mine. “Your Grace!”

He glanced around until his gaze fell on us, giving us a slight bow and a small smile. “Viscountess Sumner. Miss Brynne.”

“Oh, dear me. What manners!” my mother giggled, and I wrenched my hand away painfully, shaking some feeling back into it. “What a coincidence to see you here today!”

“Are you shopping today?”

I blew on my fingers with cold air, slowly clenching them and releasing them until I was sure they worked normally again.

“We just finished ordering my daughter’s wedding dress. She designed it herself!”

“Did she?”

I felt a heated gaze on me, and I met Levi’s eyes hesitantly. “Not true,” I protested. “I only showed the designer some sketches of a general style I had in mind. How it turns out is really up to him.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, taking the hand I had only just freed from my mother’s grip, and raising it to his lips, “I look forward to seeing it.” He pressed a soft kiss to my swollen fingers, and I almost laughed.

It kind of feels like a mom kissing her kid’s ouchie better.

“Trust me, Your Grace,” my mother added gleefully. “It’ll be the dress of the century. No one at the wedding will ever forget it! They’ll never be able to take her eyes off her!”

“You speak so highly of the wedding dress. I suppose the reception dress will have to be twice as glamorous, so not to crush anyone’s expectations.”

My excitement at the prospect of the dress died down, and I bit my lip as I looked at my mother for help.

Her eyes were pained, almost, but she continued to smile. “I suppose that will have to remain to be seen, Your Grace. We only discussed the wedding dress today.”

Great. I wanted to dance in that dress. But even Levi is expecting something twice as glamorous for a reception dress. Maybe I ought to rethink my decision.

Levi’s brow quirked upwards, and I followed his gaze to my other hand, still holding my shoes. “Are you…barefoot?”

“Hmph. My feet were hurting.” I looked away from him.

He scooped me up into his arms, and I squealed before clamping a hand down over my mouth.

“May I offer you ladies a ride home in my carriage?”

“That would be wonderful!” my mother clapped gleefully.

I buried my face in my hands, refusing to look at anyone, even as I felt him step up into a carriage. I attempted to squirm away from him, but he held onto me tightly, keeping me in place on his lap. I glared at Regina, who sat on the other bench, with a pleased smile on her face.

“Doesn’t it hurt when you go around barefoot?” Levi asked softly, one hand brushing aside the hem of my dress so he could see the damage to my feet.

I kicked his hand away, tucking my feet closer to my body before he could thoroughly examine them. “Shoes hurt even more,” I pouted.

He peered down at me thoughtfully. “Hm. Shall I call a doctor for you?”

I blushed and curled my body inward, even as he held me tighter against him. His chest rumbled under me, and I shut my eyes in embarrassment. He’s definitely laughing at me. Rude. So rude.

“That would be a good idea,” Mother suggested. “Her father’s physician comes around once a week, so we can ask him to take a look at her feet, to make sure they’re okay.”

“That sounds like a good plan…Mother.”

“Oh, my! I rather like being called that by such a handsome young man!”

I hit a fist against Levi’s chest, my face still buried in his shoulder, his hand running up and down my arm slowly, as if tracing something into my skin. The motion was calming, but I still refused to look at him.

“My dear wife is quite brutal,” he teased.

“She’s been a lot more vocal in her displeasures these last few days. You must forgive her. I think the sudden engagement has stressed her out.”

That’s not what’s stressing me out! I wanted to scream, but I knew if I did, I’d have to tell my mother exactly what was the source of my stress. Just let her keep thinking that. I nuzzled into Levi’s chest. He smells good. Strange. Most things smell unpleasant since I got pregnant. But not Levi.

“Oh? It looks like she’s finally warming up to you,” Mother teased, and I groaned, the sound being muffled by Levi’s coat, even as he laughed loudly. “To be honest, I was a little worried when we first got your offer of proposal.”

How so? I snipped at her silently. You were so excited, you cried!

“Worried, how?” the duke asked politely.

“I was so happy that someone of your caliber would even bother to glance in Brynne’s direction. Don’t get me wrong, Your Grace. My daughter is very precious to me, and your breeding is more than any mother could ask for. But we have, indeed, raised her to be sheltered and spoiled. So when she pointed out that you were her best option, it made my heart ache, as her mother, knowing that I had not truly taught her what it meant to love.”

I sighed loudly, and shot Regina a sharp look. I’m still here, you know! I can hear you!

She ignored me.

Levi’s hand trailing along my arm froze for only a moment as she spoke, but I still felt it.

“I see.”

“But that is why I’m so grateful to you! Seeing her act like this…it’s such a relief to know that she does not simply view you as such anymore. I can see she is very comfortable in your presence, You Grace, and that makes me very happy. As her mother, it would break my heart to learn she wasn’t happy. So Your Grace. I beg of you, as my future son-in-law. Please make my daughter happy.”

His voice held a trace of a smile in it as he spoke, and I couldn’t help but shift in his arms so I could see his expression. “I promise to do everything in my power to make that happen,” he vowed.

I pressed a hand to my heart, feeling it patter urgently under my ribcage. Why didn’t Brynne fall in love with this man? He’s already proven to be ten times the man Carson ever is in the entire story.

The carriage stopped and my mother opened the door. A footman helped her down, and I attempted to slide off Levi’s lap again, but he continued to hold me in place. He climbed out of the carriage, still holding me, and followed my mother inside and into the sitting room, where he finally set me down. “We need to talk,” he whispered, taking my shoes from me and placing them on the floor next to the sofa.

My eyes darted to my mother at the door of the sitting room, and I nodded once. “Come find me after your next visit with Father.” I have a few things to tell him, too. Like, stop making my heart beat so quickly.

“Yes, my lady.” Levi pressed a kiss to my forehead before he straightened, and left the room.

My fingers traced the warm spot, even as my mind zoned out, my mother’s cheerful giggling surrounding me.