The Agathangelou Ballroom, Florne
“I asked for the ochre silk,” Niccolette said, glancing at the door.
“Yes miss,” Agata curtsied around an armful of pale blue silk, only the gleaming of the light making it darker than white. “Master Villamarzana instructed that you wear this dress.”
Niccolette’s shoulders trembled; she breathed in as best as she could beneath the tight laced corset, and inclined her chin. She fixed her gaze solidly on herself in the mirror, and said nothing more.
Agata came closer, murmuring an apology. She paused, holding the armful of bundled silk, and they both looked at Niccolette.
“The maquillage, miss,” Agata said, quietly.
Niccolette closed her eyes for a moment, trembling. The dark kohl and the bright red lip color had suited the ochre well, she knew. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “We shall begin again.” Her hands fisted tightly in the delicate silk of her undergarments, then let go. Agata lay the dress out, carefully, over a chair; Niccolette wrapped herself in her dressing gown and sat at the dressing table once more.
Niccolette crossed her ankles and glancing down at the delicate heeled slippers, then back up at the mirror, breathing in deep. She began to wipe the crimson from her lips, steadily. Agata did the last of it, and painted pale rose on instead; her eyes they wiped clean, and Niccolette closed them as Agata brushed delicate powder onto her lips.
Niccolette did not look at her reflection when she stood on the dressing stand once more. She glanced down, finding the floor with one foot and then the other in the center of the pools of pale silk, and breathed evenly, fixing her gaze solidly on her own reflection.
“Niccolette!” Domenico’s voice roared from down the hallway.
“Chin up, miss,” Agata said, very quietly, easing the second of the heavy diamond earrings into place.
“What would you know of it?” Niccolette snapped. She strode off of the platform, her shoulders shaking. At the top of the staircase, she straightened the line of her spine, and came down, slowly, foot by foot in the narrow confines of the elegant dress.
Domenico scowled at her. “Do you wish us to be late?” He asked. “Your mother has been ready for one hour.”
“I could not care less if we are,” Niccolette snapped. Her gaze slid over Annunziata, who was sitting ankles crossed in one of the chairs by the door, her dress smooth over her lap, looking away and idly fanning herself. Niccolette looked back at her father.
“If you are impertinent tonight,” Domenico said, evenly, “you will regret it, child. Perhaps such things amused you when you were a girl. You are a woman now; you shall act it, or I shall make you do so.”
Niccolette looked away, her jaw clenched beneath the delicate make up, all the layers of pale silk trembling.
She still did not understand, not even when they sat together in the carriage, Niccolette across from her parents, her living field held separately from her father’s thick perceptive field and her mother’s light-soft physical one. She did not caprise either of them, not in the slightest, even with the closeness of the carriage. None of them spoke as they rattled over the stones of Florne.
She still did not understand, when they entered the ballroom one after the next, the heavy elaborate chandeliers gleaming overhead, the ones which were all crystals set next to other, stranger stones. The ballroom itself was a wash of white marble, with elaborate fountains set around the edges of the dance floor, burbling beneath the orchestra and gleaming in the light. Heels clacked on the floor; glasses clinked together, champagne bubbling up through them.
She understood when Domenico took her by the arm, firmly, and drew her across the floor.
“Calogero,” Domenico bowed, deeply. “It is my honor to finally introduce you to my lovely daughter, Niccolette Villamarzana.”
Niccolette bowed as well, rising up.
Calogero smiled down at her, his mustache gleamed and oiled, his thick black hair slicked back. “She is as lovely as you have said, Domenico,” he said, appraisingly.
Everything in Niccolette stiffened; she held her back very straight.
“She is a spirited girl,” Domenico said, smiling, “but I think you are a man who knows how to handle this.”
The music changed.
“May I have this dance?” Calogero asked with a half-mockery of a bow. His thin perceptive field caprised her, intruding into the edges of hers.
“No,” Niccolette smiled delicately at him; her field flexed, and forced his back out, refusing the caprise. She held it fully extended in the air around her, refusing even the polite suppression which was taught to children at such events. “I should rather not dance with you,” Niccolette went on, her gaze flickering over Calogero. “Although I suppose you could use the exercise.” Her gaze went back up to his face, and she smiled once more.
Calogero’s face went white, splotches of color standing out in his cheeks.
“I think your rouge is uneven,” Niccolette offered, evenly, looking the few inches up at him.
Domenico’s hand closed over her arm once more – not her forearm this time, but her upper arm, hard enough to crush the silk. He smiled. “Calogero, my friend – please enjoy your wine. I shall return in a few moments.”
Calogero exhaled, harsh, and shook his head.
Niccolette followed, her father’s grip hard enough that she nearly tripped over the edge of her gown in her heels. She was smiling, despite it all, even as she pulled the edges of her field inside once more.
“The contract is all but done, you stupid, insolent girl,” Domenico spat at her in the hallway, the two of them alone on the thick carpet.
“You cannot force me to marry him,” Niccolette said, her jaw set and her pink-painted lips pressed together. “You can force me to wear what you like – you can force me to come here – you cannot control what I say or do. You cannot make me marry him.”
The sound of the slap rang through the hallway; Niccolette’s nostrils flared, tears gleaming in her eyes.
“I can keep you from dressing like a woman without the sense to charge for her favors,” Domenico’s voice was low and harsh. “I cannot keep you from embarrassing yourself, it seems. You will pay for this later, Niccolette. You do wish to finish at Brunnhold, do you not?”
With that, Domenico turned and strode away, his back disappearing down the hall.
Niccolette stood, shaking, in the midst of the rich gold carpet. One hand came up to touch her cheek, gingerly. She held there a moment, and then she pressed her fingertips into the bruise, angry and vicious; her nostrils flared, and tears gleamed in her eyes, and sharp, crackling red spread out through her field, gleaming in the dim light of the hallway.