Deatrice was freed from her thoughts by the sound of a fussy voice. She lifted her chin that rested on her palms and looked towards the door to see the face of her aunt entering the room, her face filled with dismay.
“You’re wearing a wedding dress! How can you sit like that?!”
Victoria hastened her steps and quickly pulled the bride into a more upright position, “Don’t you know how difficult it is to straighten out a wrinkled wedding dress?”
Deatrice let herself be dragged upwards as her aunt’s voice increased in volume. A short second later, she saw Charlie More dressed in a pink dress stepping inside the room and standing behind her aunt.
She greeted Deatrice with a light glance.
Victoria quickly had her attendant straighten her dress and the latter subsequently began patting and slapping the dress. She was aghast and quickly shouted, “Don’t hit it that hard! Do you have any idea how expensive this fabric is?!”
Her daughter took a seat, unmindful of her mother’s nagging because at this point, she was used to it. But her eyes were sparkled with interest in this marriage.
“So, how far did you go, Deatrice?”
The conversation hadn’t even completely started and yet Deatrice felt tired already. She had foreseen that, throughout the preparations of this wedding, she will be tormented by Victoria’s nagging and the dull-witted Charlie More’s stupid questions.
Which was why she tried preparing for the wedding by herself as much as possible, but Lucius had a tight schedule so he couldn’t help out much. There was nothing she could do, and there was a lot that needed to be organized.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
The designer stood in front of Deatrice, who currently had a gloomy countenance, and spoke.
“We’re adjusting the silhouette of the dress, miss.”
“Really?” Then she took a quick survey of her dress. “Well, it does look a little old-fashioned. Have you decided on the style yet?”
“Yes, miss. We’ve decided that the overall theme of the bridal gown would meld seamlessly into an even more gorgeous dress if we added in hints of southern style influence.” he added dramatically.
“Then… let me see what you have in mind.”
This was the beginning. For a traditional Galaba wedding dress, if they weren’t careful enough, just the slightest movement might cause some of the accents to fall off because of how delicate the materials were, and they didn’t want that.
Deatrice rose to her feet as she watched Victoria talk with the designer whom she was supposed to make arrangements with, not her aunt. What took place was that they argued on their differing opinions, like the one they’re currently going on about how the fabric should be pleated.
“…if you fold it like this, it will give off such an elegant vibe!”
“No, no. We should go for a more ethereal flair by folding it this way…”
“…make the neckline even lower, and the sleeves—eh? How about this piece of cloth…” Victoria walked through the rows of accessories and fabrics. Then she exclaimed, as if suddenly remembering to consult her decisions with the person who was actually going to be wedded instead of deciding things on her own.
“Oh, right! Deatrice, Charlie, what do you think of this?” she held up a cloth in her hand. As Victoria turned to look behind her, Charlie was a little slow on the uptake.
“Hm…? Oh! Of course! My mother truly has an eye for beautiful things!”
“Really?” her mother grinned, feeling proud of herself. “Although, this other one looks the best to me…”
Victoria picked up a different fabric and based on that, the designer quickly guided them to something else.
“If you are going to use chiffon material, it would be best to wear a lightly-adorned necklace. It’s all the rage in the South these days and was even featured in fashion heralds.”
Intrigued, her aunt impelled, “Really? Did you bring a sample?”
“Of course, madam.”
The designer brought out a chic-looking box and showed what’s inside to both Charlie and Deatrice.
It was a unique looking necklace—intricately thin and lustrous that it almost seemed like a transparent silk thread. She reckoned it would definitely look even more beautiful once it finally rested between a woman’s delicate collarbones.
But seeing such an exquisite craft, and even hearing Charlie’s soft cry of admiration, did nothing to dispel the gloomy feeling that was welling up inside Deatrice.
While her aunt was choosing figures to be embroidered, which thread was most suitable for it, and picking beads and sequins to further decorate the dress with—Deatrice felt alienated from it all, as though she was preparing for someone else’s wedding and not her own.
“But…”
A voice slipped inside her head.
The tone was so soft… yet so indifferent at the same time.
“I don’t think that you didn’t mean what you said. After all, people tend to show their real thoughts and emotions in those kinds of situations.”
The words he spoke echoed within the corners of her mind yet again. She clenched her fists, feeling as if she was transported back in time to when she was still going home with him in that suffocating carriage.
Eventually, she was unable to bear it.
Deatrice took off the heavy fabrics that wrapped around her body and some of the bobby pins holding them in place fell to the floor. She sat down on a sofa, hugging her knees.
Charlie More chose this moment to come and sit beside her, as if she was waiting for that exact same moment to emerge. “I congratulate you on your marriage, Deatrice.”
“…yes. Thank you.”
“The story about his marriage proposal is spreading among the masses and it sounds so romantic! I heard he waited for you outside the temple for a long while and then proposed to you in front of the gates, is that true? He wasn’t even embarrassed even though a lot of people were watching.”