The Belles (The Belles #1)(37)



“I wouldn’t make someone see-through.”

“Right, but you’d experiment.” She grins at me, then pops a strawberry into her mouth.

The front doors open, and the Beauty Minister is announced. She strides in, her hair fashioned into a tower made of blond strands and blue flowers. She has to hold her head very still. “Good morning, Camellia. Glad to see you’re already up,” she says. “Good morning, Elisabeth.” Attendants trail behind her, holding stacked towers of dress boxes. Her eyes flutter over Ivy as if she’s a piece of furniture in the room. “Please set out the peach dress for Lady Camellia.” She ushers the attendants into the apartment’s dressing salon.

Du Barry is announced next. She rushes in like she’s being chased. “Camellia.” She wraps me up in a frenzied hug. She smells like home—Belle-roses and marzipan crème and the bayou. She leans close to my ear and whispers, “Now that Ambrosia has put us in a precarious position, you must fix it. You have to do what you’re told. You have to be perfect.” She pushes my shoulders back and stares at me with panic in her eyes.

Her words curl inside me and make my heart race.

“Tell me you’ll do what needs to be done,” she demands.

“Yes, Madam Du Barry.”

The Beauty Minister returns. “Ana, let’s have her bathed and dressed, then make introductions before she has her tour.”

Du Barry squeezes my shoulder. She paints on a grin and turns around to face the Beauty Minister. “Of course, Madam Minister. As you wish.”

The Beauty Minister steers me to the apartment’s dress salon.

Ivy’s chair is now empty. “Where did Ivy go?”

“No need for you to worry about her, little darling. Go on and change. The staff await you in the bathing chamber.”

“I’ve already washed up.”

“You can never be clean enough, pretty enough, or smart enough.” She pinches my chin and pats my back.

Servants draw me a bath. I soak in the steaming tub and close my eyes. Today is my first full day as the favorite. This is everything I’ve ever wanted. I wait for the excitement to fill me up, but all I think about is Amber. Her long lashes fringed with tears, her red cheeks flushed with anger and upset, the sound she made when she fell that night. Where is she? What did she really do wrong? Is she all right?

I dunk my head into the frothy water and try to let the warmth wash these thoughts all away. I wait until my lungs threaten to give out before surfacing.

“Camellia, time to get dressed,” Bree calls from outside the bathing chamber door.

“Yes, just a second.”

I step out of the bath and onto a prickly object. The rug is covered with thorny dead roses. Shriveled petals leave a rotten scent throughout the room. How did these get here?

An emerald-green post-balloon hovers in the corner. I grab a towel and wrap it around myself. I kick away the roses and make my way to the balloon. There’s no house emblem or compass on the side of it. I snatch the dangling ribbons and fish out the card.


Dearest Camellia,

Congratulations on being named the favorite.

I’m sure you deserve whatever comes your way now.


I think of Amber’s desk next to mine in our lesson room at home: her quill, ink pot, and handwriting ledgers. I think about the curling g’s and c’s she was so proud to mark on her pages and show Du Barry when we were little. In my mind, I see her clearly, sitting at a desk in her new room at the Chrysanthemum Teahouse, writing this letter.

I ball my hand into an angry fist, crumpling the note with it. I throw it into the tub and watch as the water eats away at the parchment, and the ink bleeds until it disintegrates into nothing.

“Lady Camellia.” The door slides open. “Are you ready?” The servant looks at all the dead roses on the ground. “What happened in—”

“I’m fine. Everything is fine.” I storm from the room.





18


Servants help me into a bustling day dress that is a creamy blur of whipped frosting and sweetened milk sprinkled with gossamer ribbons. My wet hair is sectioned and combed through with a cinnamon-scented hair cream before being twisted up into a Belle-bun.

I walk down the corridor to the main salon. Ivy steps inside from the solarium.

“Where did you go?” I ask.

“You look lovely,” she says.

“Someone put dead roses in the bathing chamber.”

Her nose crinkles. “Strange. Why would someone do that?”

“Is Amber still here? Please tell me the truth.”

“She’s been sent to replace you at the Chrysanthemum Teahouse. Stop asking about her.”

“Why?”

“It’s time for you to focus.”

“She’s my sister.”

“She’s your competitor.” She pivots and strides toward the main salon.

I hurry after her.

A young man kneels beside the Beauty Minister, head down, sword at his waist.

“Camellia, the queen has assigned you a personal guard.” The Beauty Minister reaches out a hand to me. “This is Rémy Chevalier, son of Christophe Chevalier, and a member of the Minister of War’s First Guard.”

He stands, towering over us with broad shoulders and muscles that strain the seams of his uniform. The hard angles of his face have the deep richness of a black calla lily. His lips don’t betray the faintest hint of a smile; rather, they’re frozen in a perpetual scowl. A scar hooks under his right eye like a crescent moon, and I wonder why he hasn’t allowed a Belle to erase it for him. Dark hair is cut closely to his scalp with a single silver stripe down the very center, marking him as a soldier from the House of War.

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