“Dear, let Marie help you. She has to take all your measurements. European sizing is a different scale than what you’re used to. We must start from the ground up.”
That sounded long and involved, and like something Kelsey had no intention of suffering solo. “Why isn’t Mallory here? Doesn’t she need new clothes, too?”
“Mallory doesn’t need anything from us. She isn’t a princess,” Genevieve said, her tone dripping spite. She popped up in between the racks when she had venom to spew. Like a snake, hiding in the grass until it was ready to strike. “She’s no one.”
That was probably the cruelest thing Kelsey had ever heard. Also, the absolute most incorrect. Her family—the one she’d grown up with and loved every day that she could remember—was her Achilles’ heel. Her softest, most vulnerable spot. Any attack on them was the same as dropping a match into a cylinder of rocket fuel.
She’d defend them with her whole heart, for her whole life. It was that simple.
It was also a fact far more pertinent to share with the room than her neck circumference.
Kelsey stepped away from the semicircle of outstretched measuring tapes to confront Genevieve head-on. “I realize I’m a guest in your house, which is the only thing keeping me from plowing you to the floor. But let me be perfectly clear about Mallory. You don’t ever, ever say a single nasty thing about her or to her. She matters more to me than literally every person in this country.”
Looking down her nose—only possible because her needle-sharp stilettos were at least two inches taller than Kelsey’s heels—Genevieve said, “Oh, it’s always been clear that you are the important one. Even though you weren’t here.” Without bothering to leave space, she brushed shoulders with Kelsey as she hurried from the room.
What. Just. Happened?
The duchess sighed as she patted her roundly shellacked helmet of gray hair. “Ladies, I see that we’re missing refreshments. Would you please go ask the footmen to get us some lemon water?” The stylish gaggle immediately withdrew, so she had to raise her voice to catch them at the door. “And a bottle of Riesling?”
That was…an unexpected choice. While Kelsey was more than ready for an alcoholic panacea to the day, her aunt requesting it made her wary. “We’re going to need wine for this talk?”
“I might. I’m not sure you will. I already see the strength of your spirit.” The older woman patted her hand, then used it to pull her over to one of the gilded chairs along the wall.
That was a lovely thing to hear. Mathilde seemed nice, approachable, even. So she volleyed back a little honesty. “I’m not always strong,” Kelsey said as she sat. “I wouldn’t have been strong enough to come to Moncriano without Mallory by my side.”
“You’re lucky to have had that relationship, to have someone who bolsters you. Princess Genevieve was not so lucky.”
Boo-freaking-hoo. Okay, that was immature. Insensitive. Thank goodness she hadn’t slipped and said it out loud. But her older sister’s snitty attitude made Kelsey want to revert to the childhood they hadn’t shared and just spat with her. “She’s a princess. Isn’t there a whole castle full of people for her to lean on?”
“Full of people, yes, but not the one person who mattered the most. She has always felt the hole in her life left by her missing little sister.”
This time a snort did slip out. “She’s got a funny way of showing it.”
“Genevieve has had to live her entire life shadowed by your disappearance. Every choice, every move she made was colored by the overhanging threat of another kidnapping. Many choices were taken from her, which was always explained away as a result of what happened to you, ah, Kelsey.” Mathilde leaned hard on the name, as if wanting to prove that she could say the right one.
The effort was appreciated. As much as her words themselves were not. “You’re saying it’s my fault that Genevieve’s a bitch to me?”
“Of course not, dear.” Another pat of the hand. “But she believes it is your fault. You’re just going to have to prove her wrong, show her why it is best to bury the past and move forward shoulder to shoulder, as true sisters.”
“Great. I’ll just add overcome decades of deep-seated bitterness to that schedule the grand duchess gave me.”
“That would’ve made your mother very proud.”
Um, number one? Did sarcasm not translate well in Moncriano? Because Kelsey had absolutely not been serious. And B? Pretty crafty of her aunt to administer a dose of dead mother guilt. She had to give Mathilde props for that.
…
A pillow to the face was not an acceptable replacement for an alarm.
Even when the throw pillow was a cloud of tufted silk. Being hit was jarring, period. Kelsey sat bolt upright, arms up to ward off another attack. Because this was not her first rodeo with her sister.
“I’m pretty sure these pillows cost more than our apartment’s rent. I’m also sure there’s got to be a ‘no hitting the royalty’ clause in whatever etiquette manual they live by here.”
Looked like somebody had paid attention to Kelsey’s wardrobe rant about equality among the Wishner sisters, because the same pajama fairy had visited Mallory. Her navy satin set matched the lavender set that had been laid out in waiting for Kelsey once she was finally allowed to escape back to her rooms.
Mallory dropped the pillow and climbed up—yes, using the actual tiny step at the foot of the bed—to sprawl next to her. “Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. I haven’t talked to you in an entire day. It was like they scheduled us to purposefully keep us apart.”
Leaning back against the upholstered headboard, Kelsey scrunched up her nose, because something definitely smelled off about that situation. “You noticed that, too, huh?”
“Oh yeah. For the record? That was the House of Villani’s one gimme. Due to the surprise and suddenness of having you back maybe having caught them off guard. But one day is all they get to hoard you all to themselves. I can’t help you adjust to this if I’m not by your side.”
And just that fast, something settled deep within Kelsey. She and Mallory were a team. They’d always been a team.
Going it alone yesterday had been rougher than rough. Moncriano really was a whole new world. One where Kelsey didn’t have the faintest idea of who to trust, who to believe, and most of all, how to avoid accidentally causing an international incident.
But side by side with Mallory, she’d be more confident. More discerning. More able to not just tread water, but swim amidst these unfamiliar and no doubt treacherous waters.
Basically, she needed a buddy. And if that made her sound like kindergartners crossing the street in pairs? Well, she dared anyone else to discover a whole new family and fly across the ocean to a whole new country and discover that her brand-new sister hated her…and handle it even a teensy bit better than she was.