The Hidden Route Picked the Friend novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Fitting
The fitting room smelled of pressed wool and beeswax.
It was a long narrow chamber at the top of the sewing wing.
A raised wooden dais stood in the middle, beside a tall mirror in a gilt frame.
Along one wall stood a wardrobe as big as a cupboard bed.
The seamstress had a pin cushion on her wrist and a cheerful, brisk way of talking that never stopped.
"Down to your corset and petticoats, Miss Ashdown, and step up on the platform.
The green is still being pressed downstairs.
I'll fetch it myself, it won't be a quarter hour."
"Thank you."
"Don't be shy.
I've seen every lady in the palace in her stays."
The door shut behind her.
Her footsteps clattered away down the stair.
Briony stood alone on the dais and listened to the room.
Somewhere in the wood behind her, a floorboard ticked.
She did not turn around.
"I can hear you breathing," she said.
The wardrobe door opened half an inch.
One grey eye looked out through the gap.
"How long have you been in there?"
"Since dawn.
I wanted to see the room before you stood in it."
"And?"
"Two windows, one stair, no hidden doors," said Sevrin.
"The Regent's page is watching the stair from below."
She could hear his voice shaking, very slightly, at the edge.
He was a man who had been shut in a dark cupboard all morning, smelling beeswax and lavender and her.
"The Regent knows about us," Briony said, still facing the mirror.
"Yes."
"She's watching the door of my room."
"Yes."
"Then she can wait for a quarter hour."
She began to undo her collar.
She did it slowly, with her eyes on his single eye in the mirror's reflection, and she watched it widen.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Hidden Route Picked the Friend are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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