“Lovely,” she finished. “Positively lovely.”
I looked to Flora and grinned. “Flora has really outdone herself this time.”
“The dress is magnificent,” Silvia added from where she stood next to my mother.
“As magnificent as the wearer,” Flora said with a wink while she walked around me, looking for adjustments. I’d already tried it on three times over the past week though, so there wasn’t anything to adjust.
The dress itself was simple at the core, but then was adorned with layers of detail and extravagance. The dress was pure white, the top layer woven with lace and sparkles. There were two tiny straps at least, but they were hardly there. I hadn’t wanted a poofy dress because of my stature and the firm belief I looked like a troll while wearing them. So this dress was instead form fitting until the waist where it flared out. But since a long train was the traditional wedding attire for a royal wedding, Flora had made a long train of lace and tulle; it just attached at a thin belt around my waist. It was detachable, thankfully, so I didn’t have to lug the train around the entire night. I thought Flora might possibly be a genius for having thought of the idea.
“Let’s check the train again,” Flora added. “Before the prince returns.”
I smirked. “Like we haven’t been married already.”
Silvia shook her finger at me. “No, no. He didn’t get the surprise of seeing you in the dress because the two of you just walked out to the meadow last time. This time, let him be surprised.”
Surprised yet dreading the ending of the night and what it would bring. “Okay,” I relented, “let him be surprised.”
For twenty minutes more, they situated the train this way and that. In the morning meeting before the ceremony, I would have one practice round on the stairs I would have to climb in the chapel of the castle.
I hadn’t even known there was a chapel, and I’d been living in this castle for months. Yet there was. One I had to climb a set of thirty steps to get into.
“Okay,” Flora admitted. “I am finally happy.”
That was saying something, because if she had been unhappy with so much as one sparkle or sequin, she demanded the other designers swap it out or fix it. It’d been quite the process to get this gown to its final stage. But I supposed with the entire country watching, Flora had every right to be as picky as she wanted.
“Me too, and just in time,” my mother added. “We have lunch with Krew and Jorah in twenty minutes.”
Soon enough I was changed back out of my gown, and we were waiting on the food.
“Will you stay and eat with us, Silvia?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed. “Whatever for?”
“Lunch?” I asked gently. “Flora is staying too. So please stay?”
“I—” she cut off and put her hands on her hips. “Are you asking as my princess right now?”
I grinned. “No. No demands. Just asking as your friend who wishes you to stay. Your friend who may have already informed the kitchens that you would stay for lunch.”
Silvia swallowed, and I thought I might have seen something resembling tears in her eyes as well. “Well, fine then. Manipulate me into it, why don’t you?”
Flora snorted. “Because it was so very hard to do so.”
Silvia coughed a laugh and then we were all laughing.
Krew arrived just before the food. “Ladies,” he greeted as we sat at the table normally used for The Six.
Granted there were only four of us, but this was my version of The Six. We may not have been trained in subterfuge or killing, but the women next to me were the women I trusted most in the realm. Add Renna and Molly, who had arrived yesterday for the wedding, and I was well on the way to having my own version of The Six.
Krew brushed a kiss to my forehead as he sat down next to me. “They have decided to prep the gardens for overflow room because of the number of people who accepted their invites.”
Flora smiled slowly as if glad.
“So I would avoid the gardens, otherwise you all might be put to work,” Krew added.
“I adore those gardens,” Silvia said as the food cart arrived at the door with a knock. “So I don’t mind.”
“We should help too,” my mother urged. “Now that Flora has the gown ready.”
