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Chiara stepped further into the room and picked up Frankie’s discarded leather jacket from the floor. She folded it neatly, but before she could raise it to her face, seemingly to smell it, Frankie enveloped her in a massive hug and took it out of her hands.
“My wife has come down from her royal throne to lay down the law. Mere mortals, bow down to the Queen of Paris. I saw that article in Poise the other day, speculating how the once-reigning royalty of the catwalk is nowhere to be found these days. They even hypothesized whether you are feeding the hungry and the homeless now, Your Majesty.”
Vi could see Aoife ball her fists. The article had come out as part of a ‘Where Are They Now?’ series about former mega-stars of the fashion industry, be it models or designers, who had vanished from the public eye. Vi thought it hadn’t been very well-researched for such a massive publication. Chiara, after all, wasn’t even hiding.
It was surreal that nobody knew she was, in fact, the genius behind every Lilien Haus creation, but she wasn’t exactly cloistered either. If that wasn’t enough to anger Vi, Frankie’s ridicule and her mocking words in evident jealousy of the title the magazine had bestowed on Chiara were enough to set her teeth on edge.
But Chiara didn’t seem to be affected, merely walking up to Aoife’s workstation and tracing a line of stitching on the gown draped over it as she spoke. “Well, Ms. Courtenay deserves to have a meal.”
And now both Vi and Aoife watched the ongoing conversation as if they were watching a tennis match.
Serve. Parry.
“Ms. Courtenay,” Frankie almost sang the name, mocking Chiara’s inflection, “is a member of a royal family who can feed herself, surely. Dress herself, too. But I’m told you’ve been mostly undressing her these days.”
Vi flinched.Backhand across the court.
She wanted to disappear, her earlier desire to make herself scarce returning tenfold. So Frankie knew about their modeling sessions. And mocked those, too. She felt like the Queen Anne dress, stomped into dirt by Frankie’s massive boots. Moments she treasured, moments she cherished, were smeared with mud, with malice on that sneering face.
Chiara, however, seemed unperturbed.
“And her standing in as a model has ensured the collection was finished in record time. I can only thank her for her dedication and largesse with her evenings, for which we are not paying her nearly enough.”
Another parry, coming much faster and diagonally, Frankie scrambling to keep up.
“Well, she has my thanks then as well.”
An appeasing cut to the net.
“And yet, all you do is eat her food. When mymusegoes to Rome and comes back from Milan, I’m grateful for any and all assistance the Universe provides. You should be too, my love. It’s your name on the facade, after all.”
And with that devastating forehand to the back line, Chiara exited the studio, taking set, game and match in one strike.
9
ONCE UPON A SILVER GOWN
Genevieve Courtenay was not very good at sitting still. Especially not when her father was monologuing. Particularly not when he was monologuing about their place in the history of European Kings.
But the Earldom of Rae and hence the entire Courtenay lineage, Vi always wanted to counter, weren’t kings of anything. She knew better though. In fact, she had known better since he’d grounded her for saying just that years ago. She’d spent the next two Christmases at the boarding school for being a ‘disrespectful brat.’
However, it was still nothing but the truth. Her mother had been the king’s sister. Since King Aleric had heirs, there’d been close to zero chances that Vi’s mother would ascend to the throne. And then her death at childbirth took care of that particular dream for Charles.
Her father himself, as the current Earl of Rae, was a descendent of William the Conqueror, but then who wasn’t? The man had more descendants than Genghis Khan. Okay, that was an exaggeration on her part. But many. The man had many. Most British nobility deemed themselves to be in some way connected to the ginger menace. And so were the Raes.
She blew her too long, ginger bangs out of her face and couldn’t suppress a smile at her own train of thought, then quickly schooled her features, but it was too late.
“And what exactly is so funny, Genevieve?”
Her father was glaring at her, her stepsisters were elbowing each other in expectation of an evisceration, and her stepmother just turned the page of the issue of Poise Magazine she was perusing and read on.
“Ah… Nothing, father?”
“And yet you were acting foolishly. Care to explain yourself?”
Vi scrambled for something,anythinguseful to throw her family, who were out for their pound of flesh, and came up short. Her father stood, and she closed her eyes.
Here it comes.
