I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: The Door
The Dowager made Odalys go to the dressmaker.
"If you're going to be stared at, you will be stared at in silk," she said, over her tea, as if she were commenting on the weather.
Odalys went because she had no gowns that hadn't been darned.
The dressmaker lived in a tall house on Lantern Street, and she pinned Odalys into a bolt of dark red for three hours.
She made it clear, with her mouth full of pins, that she had dressed the Dowager for forty years.
She had never once been told whom to dress.
"Her Grace sends no one to me," she said, "who isn't worth the trouble."
Odalys came home in the dark.
It was twenty minutes to moonset by the hall clock.
She took the stairs two at a time with a paper parcel under her arm.
She was in the north corridor, just outside his door, when it opened.
A woman came out.
She wore a silk robe the color of peach skin, and her gold hair hung down her back in a loose braid.
She was smiling to herself, a small, private smile.
Lady Calanthe Aldervane pulled the door shut behind her and saw Odalys.
The smile didn't change.
"Oh," she said. "Miss Marenne. How late you are."
The parcel slid out from under Odalys's arm.
"What were you doing in his room?"
"I wanted to see where I'll be sleeping at Midsummer." Calanthe retied her sash with a slow tug. "It's a very masculine room. I think I shall have the walls hung in rose. Don't look so stricken, dear. He didn't touch me."
"I don't believe you."
"You needn't. Ask him." She started down the corridor and spoke without turning. "He was rather rude, in fact. He ordered me out. I don't think he likes to be surprised."
Her bare feet made no sound on the carpet.
Odalys stood there with her heart going like a drum.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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