This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(55)

How bizarre, she found herself thinking, that elements so essentially different could ever sound the same.

Alizeh had been waiting several minutes while Miss Huda tried on yet another dress, but she did not entirely mind the wait, for the fire was good company, and the evening had been pleasant enough.

Miss Huda had certainly been a surprise.

Alizeh heard the groan of a door and her eyes flew open; she quickly straightened. The young woman in question now entered the room, wearing what Alizeh could only hope was the last gown of the evening. Miss Huda had insisted on trying on every article in her wardrobe, all in the pursuit of proving a point that had already been made hours ago.

Goodness, but this gown really was hideous.

“There,” Miss Huda said, pointing at Alizeh. “You see? I can tell merely from the set of your jaw that you hate it, and how right you are to disdain such a monstrosity. Do you see what they do to me? How I am forced to suffer?”

Alizeh walked over to Miss Huda and did a slow revolution around her, carefully examining the gown from every possible angle.

It had not taken long for Alizeh to comprehend why Miss Huda had granted an unproven nobody such an opportunity with her attire. Within minutes of meeting the young woman, in fact, Alizeh had understood nearly all there was to understand.

Indeed, it had been a relief to understand.

“Am I not the very picture of a trussed walrus?” Miss Huda was saying. “I look a fool in every gown, you see? I’m either bulging out or pinched in; a powdered pig in silk slippers. I could run away to the circus and I daresay they’d have me.” She laughed. “I swear sometimes I think Mother does it on purpose, merely to vex me—”

“Forgive me,” Alizeh said sharply.

Miss Huda ceased speaking, though her mouth remained open in astonishment. Alizeh could not blame her. A snoda was a mere tier above the lowest scum of society; Alizeh could scarce believe her own audacity.

She felt her cheeks flush.

“Forgive me, truly,” Alizeh said again, this time quietly. “It is not my intention to be discourteous. It’s only that I’ve listened silently all evening while you’ve disparaged yourself and your looks, and I begin to worry that you will mistake my silence as an endorsement of your claims. Please allow me to make myself unambiguously plain: your criticisms strike me not only as unfair, but fabricated entirely from fantasy. I would implore you never again to make unflattering comparisons of yourself to circus animals.”

Miss Huda stared at her, unblinking, her astonishment building to its zenith. To Alizeh’s great consternation, the young woman said nothing.

Alizeh felt a flutter of nerves.

“I fear I have shocked you,” she said softly. “But as far as I can tell, your figure is divine. That you’ve been so thoroughly convinced otherwise says only to me that you’ve been injured by the work of indifferent dressmakers who’ve not taken the time to study your form before recommending its fit. And I daresay the solution to your troubles is quite simple.”

At that, the young woman finally released an exaggerated sigh, collapsed onto a chaise longue, and closed her eyes against the glittering chandelier overhead. She threw an arm over her face as a single sob escaped her.

“If it is indeed as simple as you say then you must save me,” she cried. “Mother orders identical gowns for me and all my sisters—merely in different colors—even though she knows my figure is markedly different from the others. She puts me in these horrid colors and all these horrendous ruffles, and I can’t afford a traditional seamstress on my own, not with only my pin money to spend, and I’m afraid to breathe a word of it to Father, for if Mother finds out it’ll only make things worse for me at home.” She heaved another sob. “And now I’ve got nothing at all to wear to the ball tomorrow and I’ll be the laughingstock of Setar, as usual. Oh, you cannot imagine how they torment me.”

“Come now,” Alizeh said gently. “There’s no need to be overwrought when I am here to help. Come and I will show you how easily the situation can be mended.”

With dramatic reluctance, Miss Huda dragged herself over to the circular dais built into the dressing room, nearly tripping over her abundant skirts in the process.

Alizeh attempted a smile at Miss Huda—she suspected they were nearly the same age—as the young woman stepped onto the low platform. Miss Huda returned the smile with an anemic one of her own.

“I really don’t see how the situation can be salvaged,” she said. “I thought I’d have time to get a new gown made in time for the ball, for I assumed the event would be weeks away—but now that it’s nearly upon us Mother is insisting I wear this”—she faux-gagged, glancing down at the dress—“tomorrow night. She says she’s already paid for it, and that if I don’t wear it it’s only because I’m an ungrateful wretch, and she’s begun threatening to cut my pin money if I don’t stop whining.”

Alizeh studied her client a moment.

She’d been studying the young woman all night, really, but Alizeh had said very little in the three hours she’d been here.

As the night wore on it had become abundantly clear, however, through a series of offhand comments and anecdotes, that Miss Huda suffered a great deal of cruelty and unkindness throughout her life; not only due to her improper birth, but for all else about her that was judged uncommon or irregular. Her pain she unsuccessfully cloaked in a veneer of sarcasm and poorly feigned indifference.