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So, picture this, if you can: Emile in his room, standing before his mirror, in a spring green dress and petticoat, full-length sheer gloves, and a gauzy shoulder wrap. Oh, and feels. Low heels, but still heels. Pearl earrings – slip-ons – a gold circlet to match, the full Monty. Hard to imagine, right? Let alone believe. Well, imagine he’s looking himself in that mirror, and grimacing like we were leading him to the gallows. Even though, of course, he was the one who got himself into that mess to begin with.
Weeks before, Emile had received an invitation to a spring formal that Miss Evanshire would be hosting. Now, granted: that woman hosts parties as sure as she breathes. I don’t blame Emile for his immediate exasperation with it. But maybe he should have read the details written on the invitation before telling the butler to just check his schedule for him and reply accordingly on his behalf. ‘Cause see, if he had, he would have known with more than three days’ notice when the butler enquired what the master intended to wear to said party that the even was to be a Fools’ Gala, and that the dress code mandated everyone come in drag.
Now, you may well note that not only is three days not enough time to manufacture a plausible excuse and rescind an RSVP, but it is also not enough time to have anything custom-made. No, instead he had to settle for the best he had on-hand: my sister’s closet. There was no way he could pull off the kind of glamor his mother wore, and trying would only make it worse. But I figured he would look cute in something flouncy. And I was right.
He kept refusing to try the stuff on even just to see what fit him until the night of, so we had to spend some extra time figuring out which pieces were even options. One of the maids had been recruited to do Emile’s make-up, but she ended up having to help with the fittings as well. She was a gem.
We finally got a nice ensemble coordinated and there he was, looking at himself like he wanted to tear his own skin off along with the dress.
The maid had tied the sash wrong, so I took it as an opportunity. I said, “Here, it’s an elvish style of belt that’s supposed to be braided. Like this.”
Emile was as tense as a cat poised to scrap, but he let me adjust the sash. I put a hand on his shoulder and said, “There. You look beautiful.” He was obviously still not convinced, but he also didn’t look ready to peel himself anymore. “You’ll feel better once your makeup’s on.”
I called the maid over, Emile sat down, and in no time his eyelids had been dusted with shades of peach and yellow, his cheeks bore a blush that complimented his complexion, and the lipstick the maid had chosen somehow took his lips from thin to delicate. Got to hand it to her: she did a bang-up job with what she was given.
“Gosh,” she said with stars in her eyes, clutching the palette to her chest like she might swoon, “you’re so lucky Master Ragthorn. Any girl would kill to wear this. I certainly wish I could.” I could see in his face the silent plea, ‘Then you wear it and go in my place!’ So before he could come up with some clever plan, I got him out of the chair and on his way towards the door.
I asked him if he wanted the hangbag that went with the dress – some clamshell-shaped thing covered in pearls with a gold chain.
“A lady always needs a handbag,” the maid chimed in, and I could have kissed her.
So, of course Emile said, “Yes, Ecco, obviously I need the handbag.” I handed it to him and knew I was smiling because the chain had gotten all wrapped around my wrist while I was messing with it and now he was clicking his tongue and disentangling it from me like a very patient parent buttoning their child’s shirt. It was his way of pretending he wasn’t nervous. It was adorable.
Once he was gone, I offered the chair we’d been using to the maid, since she’d been admiring the bits and bobs and I figured she deserved a reward for handling all that so well. She hesitated at first, but I reminded her it was all my sister’s stuff, and she gave up the charade pretty quickly.
I was braiding her hair with some of the ribbons and ornaments that Emile couldn’t use with his short hair when she suddenly said, “You were amazing with Master Ragthorn. You handled him so well.” I had to laugh; she talked about him like he was an ill-tempered horse! “I mean it! I think most people in your position would have taken some cheap shots at his pride. He isn’t very popular.
I told her that if I’d teased him at all, he would have thrown a fit and refused to go.
“Not many would care whether he went or not.”
“He could use the socialization.”
“You see? You worry after him specially.”
“He looked beautiful. It would have been a damn waste.” I said with without thinking because my guard was down, but I knew I’d fucked up when she froze.
“Sir?”
“Hm?”
“It’s just, you say that rather fondly.”
I tried to brush it off. “Yeah, well. No use dwelling on impossibilities.”
“You say that just as fondly.”
I couldn’t politely dodge it at that point. “I am rather fond of him, yes.”
“I see. That’s how you know him so well.”
I shrugged. I guess she wasn’t wrong. But I’d been around Emile so long that I’d never thought I was paying him any special attention. Like, I knew by that point that I was in love with him, but I hadn’t thought that maybe I understood him fundamentally differently from everyone else. I’d been trying to just treat him normally despite my feelings, but I guess there’s no fooling the heart.
“He doesn’t do well when he doesn’t know what’s expected of him, so he needed the reassurance. Pretty standard. And I think it’s safe to say he’s in uncharted waters tonight. Well, uncharted for him.”
“’For him?’ Do you mean you’ve-“
“How do you think I already knew exactly where my sister keeps all of her things?” That gave her a giggle.
“So that’s how you knew so much about putting it all on. Did you really need me?”
“For the makeup, yeah.” I hadn’t dressed up in Illy’s things since I was little, but I let the maid have her laugh. “This is just between you and me, okay? All of this.”
She swore to keep it that way.
“Emile just needs a nudge sometimes. He does great at anything he puts his mind to. There are just certain times when he needs to know he’s got someone in his corner to make him feel safe.”
“You were so gentle with him.” Gods, I can’t say what images her tone conjured in my mind, it was so soft and wistful. I tried to deflect, told her how fine and lovely her hair was. But a maiden takes to the scent of love like a found to blood. “Did you mean it? When you told him you thought he was beautiful?”
“He is beautiful,” I said, maybe a little more matter-of-factly than I meant to. “He just needed to hear it.”
“You should tell him more often, then. If you think so.” And what was I supposed to say to that? She didn’t understand that I couldn’t. Not without having to explain way too much to Emile, who overanalyzes anything that doesn’t fit into his little set of known knowns.
So I just told her again, “There’s no use dwelling on impossibilities. I just hope he has fun at the party.”
And he did! When he got home, he told me all about it. About all the compliments he got, about how surprisingly comfortable the dress was, about how he got through the entire night without getting anything on the gloves. I wanted to kiss all the lipstick off his stupid, smug face, but I just nodded along. Really, just knowing it had gone well was enough to make all the fuss worth it to me.
Just when I thought we were done, he asked me where the dress had been made.
“Someone asked, and I had to make something obscure up on the spot because you hadn’t told me.”
So I said, “Uhh, it’s from Illiana’s coming-of-age ceremony, so… My mom probably made it. Or our grandmother.”
He stared at me like I’d slapped him.
“Your what!? I thought you said this was your mother’s wedding gown!”
“Fuck no! I’m willing to raid my sister’s drawers for you, not get murdered by everyone woman in my family.”
“Isn’t your sister, like, a giant, though? How is this hers?”
“Well, like I said, it’s from when she was 16, so-“
“You gave me a little girl’s dress!?” He’s so funny, I swear.
“Young woman,” I clarified, though I could tell the distinction didn’t mean shit to him. “And it’s the only one that fit you! Besides, you looked lovely. That’s what matters, right?”
Of course, he kept grumbling, but the deed was done. Nothing he could do about it then but jaw at me. I did have to help him out of the dress, though. Looked like a damn fox trying to claw its way out of a hunter’s sack. Pity. It really did look good on him.