Page 22 of My Fae Lady

“Now you see why we must be very careful in the human realm, I hope. It’s a complicated game with many rules that we’re playing at. One wrong move and we could lose.”

“We won’t lose,” I said sternly. House was mine and no one else's. I’d play the perfect gentleman, pristine and proper. Darkness take me, I’d pretend to be a Seelie dandy and dance in the most wretched of heels and talk in that silly drawling accent if it got me what was mine.

It was a short walk to the hotel to rent rooms and hire a team of horses and a coachman for the day to pull the carriage from shop to shop. She kept her word and took me first to the confectioner’s, where I attempted to load my trunk with every delicacy on the shelves. But Giselle demanded that I leave room for the blasted clothes.

Exactly how many times would I be expected to change my clothing during this wedding? I’d never seen such an assortment of fabrics and buttons and threads.

The tailor had a human accent so thick Giselle had to translate. His partner was a Seelie man who drawled at Giselle about the fashions of the season.

“That color suits you, darling,” he kept repeating any time Giselle glanced at a certain cut of fabric too long. “I can make you a dress in that, and you’ll be all the rage this season.”

The turn of phrase made me scoff, but I hid the derisive noise with a cough.

She seemed in her element as she deflected his sales pitch. Giselle ordered me into various poses and draped me in silks and tweeds while I tried not to suffocate. The perfumes they sold overwhelmed my sensitive nostrils. I had to breathe in short drags out of my mouth.

The lady seemed not to notice.

She bought me three shirts, two dress suits with matching waistcoats, several belts, two sets of undergarments, numerous other ornaments I knew not how to name, and a mound of silk cravats. Most of the items would have to be delivered to the hotel once they were ready, but the rest were loaded into the trunk by the tailor’s workers.

I hurried outside to fill my lungs with fresh air. Giselle joined me, breathing deeply, sounding winded.

“The perfume got to you too?” I guessed.

She rested a hand over her breast. Her cheeks puffed. “It’s as if the humans can’t smell at all, and they drench every blasted thing with the stuff.”

I chuckled. “It’s just the frilly sort of scent that the Seelie would like, I thought. What with all those cloying smells you bathe in.”

She shook her head, and the stray curl I favored bounced against her neck. “Not this Seelie. I prefer the natural scent of . . .” Her eyes dragged over me, the irises shot through with that funny violet color that preceded her hunger. It was well past the lunch hour, and she’d promised earlier that the hotel had excellent dining.

“You were saying?”

She swallowed delicately. “Oh, never mind. I’ve forgotten what it was.”

Ten

Giselle

⊱❀⊰

Sitting next to Sylvan on the ride back to the hotel was hardly better than being trapped in the overly-perfumed shops. I still had to take care not to inhale a large whiff, but now it was because the scent was too appealing rather than toxic. Sniffing my fiancé was not proper, no matter how breathing him in reminded me of the comfort of home.

That’s all it was. Sylvan carried Faerie with him into Alidra in a way I didn’t. I wished I could, but not only was my magic too weak to linger in any way past the border, Seelie traits had also always blended in more among the humans.

I turned away from Sylvan as we rolled down the streets of Isthmuston, and tried to regain a sense of equilibrium. No thinking about how he’d looked as he’d tried on various clothes for the tailors to modify. Those thoughts wouldn’t have been so terrible if they hadn’t also been joined by the observation that Sylvan was the only person—besides Caro—who asked me questions when I started rambling about my magical experiments instead of tuning me out or changing the subject.

The Unseelie wasn’t as uncivilized as I had at first believed. Or perhaps he’d made me realize that civilized behavior didn’t truly appeal to me. Too bad civilization wasn’t something I could afford to ignore. My attention should be on when and how best to introduce Sylvan to Mr. Hilferty.

We had three days to convince the old Seelie to support our marriage, get a license, and make my claim on my dowry official. Then it was off to Windonbury to inform Cousin Douglas that he couldn’t take Rook Manor, no matter what happened with the title.

The coach slowed, and I turned back in Sylvan’s direction, spotting our hotel just ahead. When we came to a complete stop, I waited for the Unseelie to get down and turn back to offer me a hand—he’d learned to do it without prompting by the third shop that afternoon.

But this time, his arm stretched out, blocking me from exiting. “There’s an Unseelie waiting in there.”

I pulled back, too aware of the strength of that arm, and fell into the Seelie hauteur that carried me through every visit to the human realm. “Is that any worse than the Unseelie right here?”

Before he could answer, the oddity of his comment struck me. I might have imagined that Sylvan carried Unseelie across the border—it was easier to swallow that his power held me mesmerized rather than his body—but the truth was magic couldn’t leave Faerie. My eyes narrowed. “How can you tell? We are in the human realm; all fae magic is inert.”

“I can see her wings,” Sylvan answered dryly.