Grace and Fury (Grace and Fury #1)(9)
“So you what? Thought you’d take one for yourself?” Serina’s voice shook with rage. “This is so much worse than what you’ve done before. Speaking your mind, sneaking out of the house… that was bad. But this… carrying a book through the halls of the palazzo as if there wouldn’t be hell to pay.… Did the Heir see it?” Serina’s anger turned to panic.
“No. I had it hidden.” Nomi swallowed against the lump in her throat, shame boiling in her veins. “But my impertinence was bad enough. I expected punishment, not—not this.…”
“It doesn’t matter what you expected.” Serina opened the tiny armoire next to the handmaiden’s cot and threw her shoes inside. They thudded hollowly against the wood. Nomi flinched. “You caught his attention. You are a Grace now. Congratulations.”
Nomi’s tears spilled, burning her cheeks. “I didn’t want this. This isn’t a prize, Serina. We should have a choice!”
“This was my choice,” Serina blazed.
“No.” Nomi’s heart wrenched. “It isn’t a choice when you don’t have the freedom to say no. A yes doesn’t mean the same thing when it’s the only answer you’re allowed!”
“You are so naive.” The fire snuffed from Serina’s eyes. She reached back to fiddle with the clasps of her dress. Nomi hurried to help her, releasing the tight laces of her sister’s corset.
Serina pulled off her clothes and put on one of the threadbare nightgowns from Nomi’s bag. Then she sank onto the handmaiden’s cot. “I can’t believe this happened.”
“If you can’t bear it, go home,” Nomi said. Her heart ached for her sister, but that didn’t mean she understood her. Why wasn’t she relieved? Nomi slipped out of her dress and pulled on the other nightgown. “You don’t have to be my handmaiden.” The thought sent icy spears of fear through her. She wanted Serina to stay. She needed her sister if she was going to survive here. “For once, you have a choice.”
“You see this as a choice?” Serina laughed bitterly. “I love you, Sister, as maddening as you are. I would never leave you to face this alone.”
“Father would find a wealthy man to marry you,” Nomi persisted. “You could have children.”
Serina stretched out on the cot and closed her eyes. “I won’t leave you,” she said again, with finality.
Nomi’s heart ached with fear and regret. She glanced at the bed by the window and then at her sister. More than anything in the world she wished they were back in their small room in Lanos, curled in the bed side by side. “Do you want to sleep up here with me? There’s plenty of room.”
But Serina turned onto her side, her back to Nomi. Her meaning was clear: She wouldn’t abandon her sister, but she hadn’t forgiven her either.
Nomi climbed into bed alone.
All night, her breath strained in her lungs as if her chest were bound in iron.
I am a Grace.
FIVE
SERINA
BY THE TIME dawn broke, Serina was already dressed, bleary eyed and hungry, listening to the Head Maiden talk about how to return dirty dishes, what she was allowed to request from the kitchen for Nomi, and where to find the supplies to clean the bedroom. Each handmaiden also had tasks assigned for the common areas—dusting, sweeping, sending clothes out for cleaning—the list went on and on. Serina spent the lecture staving off panic. She reminded herself that she was a quick study. She could learn to be a handmaiden, just as she’d learned to be a Grace.
The Head Maiden led Serina and the other new handmaidens to a large room filled with hundreds of dresses, shelves of shoes, and trunks of fine lingerie. “Find clothes that will suit your Grace,” she ordered. “There are a variety of sizes; anything that needs to be altered should be brought to my attention so I can schedule a fitting with our seamstresses.” She opened a door at the far end of the room, revealing a small annex lined with shelves. “You’ll find your uniforms here. You may each take three sets. Once a week, you may send them out for cleaning.”
Serina walked through the rows of fine clothes, letting her fingers drift along the silk and lace. She picked out a soft green dress that would complement Nomi’s skin tone, and a black gown shot through with silver thread. She piled dress after dress onto her arm, hugging the fine fabrics close, thinking of her mother.
Mama Tessaro had pushed Serina so hard, since the first moment she’d realized her daughter would be a beauty. She’d never allowed Serina to doubt herself or her ability to do what was necessary to become a Grace. Never let her lower her guard, raise her gaze, be anything but graceful and obedient and poised. While Mama’s focus was so tightly set on Serina, she’d missed who Nomi had become.
She’d missed Nomi’s outrage that she wasn’t allowed to go to school when Renzo did. She’d missed Nomi’s rebellious streak, her belief that she deserved the same treatment and rights as her brother, who’d been born minutes after her. Nomi had wanted to be Renzo, had wanted the freedoms of Renzo’s life. If Mama had realized, Serina wasn’t sure what she would have done. Punished Nomi privately at home or, worse, turned her in. But Mama Tessaro had only seen what she wanted to see: Serina’s beauty. Nomi’s usefulness.