Simple.
Why had she never thought of that? She had added bows and lace, chains and jewels, but had never removed them before. It had been quite effective, too. The girl had looked ridiculous in the original dress, like she was swimming in an ocean far too deep for her. But a few snips of the scissors and rips of the cloth and…well, it had been a stunning transformation.
Sarah grinned to herself and clutched her notebook tightly.
It would be all the rage, soon as the girl was seen at the night's gathering. Which dress would she wear? Not that it mattered. They were all quite plain, and yet, somehow, when she wore them, they seemed to come alive.
***
Vetinari leaned against the stairs. Anyone passing by would have overlooked him and continued on their way, totally oblivious to his existence. He was brooding. It wasn't a pastime he indulged in often, but some situations called for it, and this appeared to be one of them.
He remembered when, as a small boy, he had inadvertently made a comment about poison – something to do with slugs in the garden – and his mother, hearing the last part of the statement, had come into the room and caught him up in a smothering embrace, proclaiming how happy she was that he had chosen his vocation so soon in life. Two days later, he'd found himself on a coach to the Ankh-Morpork Assassin's Guild.
This time, he realized, things needed to be stopped rather before events reached that point and he found himself standing in front of some local priest with Ienska, slipping a ring onto her finger. Which would be, if his mother had any say in the matter, much sooner than later.
How long did it take to sew up a few old dresses, anyhow? He was quite aware that the Ienska coming out of that ordeal would not be in the best of moods, but he needed to speak with her anyhow. And pray that he still had a life to live afterwards.
A soft step on the stairs caught his attention.
"It's about…" he started, and then stopped when he found himself face to face with a charming young lady he did not know. Probably one of the many people his mother had invited over to aid in wedding preparations. She frowned, dark hair falling rather fetchingly into her green eyes. "I'm sorry, my lady…" the sentence died in the air as he found himself faced with a much colder and sarcastic version of the green eyes.
"If you ever call me your lady again," said Ienska evenly. "The results will be painful and long."
"Of course, my apologies," he said, looking her up and down. He realized that he had never seen her in anything but the tunic and trousers she usually wore, and the winsome white sundress she currently wore was about as far from that as a liquid eyed mouse was from a cat that was rather free with its claws. The light material seemed to outline some things he had never really noticed before, bringing a few other things to the forefront of attention. And were those slippers?
"Are you quite done, then?" asked Ienska acidly.
"Quite," he said, placing his eyes firmly on her face. Even then, the reflection of the white fabric seemed to highlight her features in a very pleasing light. "I take it my mother and the other ladies are finished with you for the afternoon?"
"Apparently," she glanced up the stairs, "but I wouldn't really count on it."
"Shall we retire to the garden, then? I believe we have a few things to discuss."
She sighed and he carefully kept his eyes on her face. Ienska was probably one of the few girls on the Disc that didn't know exactly what a sigh did to the fabric of a dress. "I suppose we do," she said.
The two strolled out through the large entryway doors and into the peaceful green of the garden. Vetinari breathed deeply. It was good to be home again. He hadn't really had much time to appreciate the gardens the day before, it had been rather too loud at the time, but now he felt their soothing familiarity surrounding him.
"Pardon?" he said, realizing that Ienska had been speaking to him.
"When can we get out of here?" she asked.
"I imagine the sooner would be the better," he said. "Although I'm currently at a loss as to how exactly we will do that, short of a carriage with cans tied onto the back and a 'Just Married' sign tacked on." She froze beside him. On reflection, he decided that the joke had probably been in poor taste.
"Is that so?" He turned to face the girl who was standing, hands on hips. Or, rather, hands exactly where she was used to sword hilts being, which just happened to coincide with the general vicinity of her hips, which he was most certainly not staring at. "I rather think the chances of that are as good as the chances of it raining sourdough bread anytime soon." She paused. "Forget I said that.* It's just not going to happen."
[* The two had recently departed Ankh-Morpork, after all, where rains of everything from small mammals to large kitchen appliances were quite common. No one would comment much if it rained bread, and certainly no one would complain about edible precipitation.]
"Of course not," said Vetinari. "I merely meant that, at the current point in time, we seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place."
She rolled her eyes. "Why can't we just tell everyone we're not engaged at this party tonight?"
"They wouldn't believe us," he said. "Even if they did, it would make Mother look bad."
"And we mustn't have that, must we?" she said sarcastically. "The woman is trying to get us married! Show a little common sense, will you, and stop thinking like a gentleman."
"If I must remind you, I am a gentleman," he said evenly. "And my mother is doing nothing that she doesn't believe is in our best interest. It would be terrible form to discredit her in front of her friends, and I will not have it."
"Oh, yes, my lord," said Ienska sarcastically. "It's amazing what a few feet of rock wall and some silk will do to a person's sensibilities."
"You're not being reasonable," he said calmly.
Her eyebrows slowly ascended, casting her features into a look of pure incredulity. "I'm not being reasonable? Oh, how foolish of me! Of course, every reasonable person knows that it's perfectly all right to be forced into marrying someone by his eccentric mother who arbitrarily decided that they were already engaged. How foolish of me to see it differently!"
Vetinari patiently waited out her rant, noticing how she flushed slightly. "Are you finished?" Her eyes blazed and he prudently moved on. "As I was about to say, we will have to deal with this quietly."
"Because that's worked so well thus far."
"We are about to be, if you haven't noticed, the center of rather a lot of attention," he continued.
"Yes, I'd noticed. And, if you don't remember, I prefer to be unnoticed and unseen," she said.
"As do I, you'll recall. However, I do not think that is an option in this case."
"Right, and what are our options?"
The question hung in the air. Leaves rattled, a breeze wound through the gardens, somewhere a bird chirruped.
"At the moment," Vetinari said finally. "Our only option is to play along."
"Or we could leave."
"How, pray tell?"
She looked at the immense gates and appeared to shiver. "You can't get them open?"
"I am afraid not," he said. "Father was very discouraging of movement either in or out of our walls without his knowledge. There are only two keys, one belonging to my mother and the other currently in the possession of Witrow."
"We could jump the butler," she said hopefully before catching his eye. "Only joking," she added sulkily.
"I should hope so."
"And when exactly will these other options open up? Sometime before the honeymoon, I expect?" she said acidly.
"I should think it would be too late by then," he said.
"Rather."
"But I will tell you as soon as I am aware of them," he said. "Meanwhile, I believe I will pay a visit to the stables and see if there are any horses we may be able to…liberate, when we do make our exit."
"Stage right," she muttered.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing," she said.
***
Exit, stage right.
That about summed up the entire thing, didn't it? It was like some sappy old play written by some dead poet, Ienska thought bitterly. Except, at the end, the hero and heroine would not end up actually falling in love and going through with the wedding, and the tragic heroine would not kill herself, either. At least, she certainly hoped not, though it wasn't too far from the realm of possibilities lately.
She tried to reach the laces on the back of her new green dress. Finally giving up, she padded over to the door and opened it a crack.
"Is my lady willing to accept my assistance in lacing her dress, now?" asked Rachel rather smugly.
Ienska sighed. It was going to be a long night, most likely devoid of poison and daggers. But you never knew.