Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(85)
A familiar whir sounds in my ears and I turn to see two small cleaning-bots busily collecting crystal shards and misting purple cleaning solution over the smear of lotion. They’re far from the only bots in this room; I also have two dressing-bots devoted to me at any given time of the day. Does my schedule include a private visit from the royal modiste? Two more will be sent in to assist. Even when I lived with my parents, I usually had a bot to myself. I never thought of it as a safety precaution—in fact, I often found it exceedingly annoying.
But if Molli had had one…
I stop looking for porcelain or glass and just start throwing everything I can get my hands on. Shoes, jewelry, bedding, pillow after stupid, pointless pillow. Sealing wax and pens. My writing tablet, which makes five dents in the wall before the screen finally cracks, showing at last the rainbow shards that mean it’ll never display an intelligible word again. When there’s nothing else to throw, I grab the edge of my dressing table and lift with all my might. The spindly-legged table doesn’t stand a chance. It tips precariously, then falls, its curlicue-edged mirror exploding against the golden rail with an earsplitting crash.
In the wake of that cacophony the room goes utterly silent. But then the sound of the whirring bots invades my ears again; time hasn’t stopped.
Molli’s still dead.
My knees crumple beneath me, and the boning in my corset jars against my already-bruised ribs as I fall to the ground. I welcome the sensation. Sobs shake my body; my mother would have been mortified by the sounds escaping from between my gritted teeth.
I don’t know how much time passes before I feel warm arms steal around me. I thought I’d be ashamed to see Saber after failing him so completely last night, but I grasp at whatever comfort he’s willing to offer. He holds me cradled against his chest, rocking back and forth like I’m a child. He’s saying something, but it’s neither English nor French, and in the end, it’s not the words he’s saying that matter nearly as much as the fact that he’s saying them.
I close my eyes and press my face into his shirt and howl against him, liquid agony pouring from me. He smooths my hair from my face and continues to murmur, but he never shushes me, never tells me to stop. Never tells me it’ll be all right. He knows life too well to believe such lies.
It feels like hours before my body gives up, too weary to sob any longer. My muscles feel like jelly, and I slump against the first slave to work in Versailles in centuries and somehow, impossibly, the least bitter human being I know. I feel a light tugging at the back of my dress and dimly realize that Saber is unhooking my sodden gown. Slowly, I straighten to give him better access. My arm muscles are sore; I wonder just how hard I’ve been clutching him.
Once the fastenings at my back are undone, Saber pulls me to my feet. His deft hands peel the soaked bodice down my arms and ribs to my waist, untie my panniers, then wrench the whole mess past my wet underskirt until it crumples to the floor. He strips away my damp layers, even though he knows he could ask for mechanical assistance. Soon I’m standing in a silk shift and my stays and stockings. Saber pivots to stand behind me, and I feel him start to untie my laces. “Don’t,” I say, turning to put my hand on his.
“You need to sleep.”
“I sleep in my stays.”
“I know, but they’re too tight.”
Tighter than ever. And still it doesn’t help. I thought I was too weary to cry, but tears slide soundlessly down my face. “They have to be,” I whisper. “Everything feels wrong when they aren’t tight enough.”
He gives me a probing look, but after the first few seconds I can’t meet his eyes any longer and I close mine. “At least let me loosen them,” he whispers.
I can’t speak; I just hang my head in defeat.
His fingers are quick and nimble, and it occurs to me to wonder where he learned the intricacies of a woman’s corset; then I decide I don’t want to know. At first the loosening is a relief, but he keeps going, and soon the corset hangs and I fight the urge to vomit and faint. Gasping, I lean forward and reach for the edge of the bed.
“Are you okay?”
I shake my head, not ready to speak.
“Don’t move.”
I can’t tell where he’s gone; I don’t have the strength to focus on anything beyond staying conscious. A few more breaths and I’m able to stand upright again, albeit with one hand on the edge of the bed to support me.
Saber emerges from my dressing room with a stack of dry white linen. But I also catch sight of one of my pastel-blue embroidered corsets. “Here,” he says. He reaches for the busk in the front of the sodden one and unfastens the six pins. It drops to the ground with a weighty thud, and I know I’ll never be able to bring myself to wear it again. “I’ll be fast,” Saber says, holding the clean, dry shift ready to cast over my head.
I’m not ashamed. I peel the wet cap sleeves off my arms and let the shift drop, the wide décolletage easily skimming past my hips. Saber’s ready with the new slip, but as he works it over my head, his eyes drop and then widen.
“What happened?” he asks, one finger touching the dark bruising around my ribs, striped with indentations from the wet boning that has pressed against them for hours.
I reach for the dry shift and he seems to snap back into caretaker mode, settling the garment around my hips and covering me up again. He grabs for the blue stays but hesitates. “Can’t you take a break?”