I wrote this chapter ages ago, and i feel like it's been ages since i posted so i'm adding it now. enjoy!
As the ball begins to dwindle down to the last few partygoers, I make my excuses and head back to my suite. I am drunk enough to be seeing double, and I find great fun in trying to avoid both sets of walls as a stumble back to my room.
Jonathan finds me as I finish climbing up the staircase that I fell down with Gary earlier. I've hitched up my skirt for easier climbing, and even in my drunken state I hear his sharp intake of breath as he catches sight of my slender white thigh.
I drop my skirts and smile up at him adoringly. "You got some brandy, Jon? I need some brandy."
"No brandy for you Delia," he declares. "You've had enough. Let's get you back to your room."
"I don't want to go back to my room," I protest. "It's so…lonely. Unless you come back with me? I could use some company." I break down in a fit of giggles at my suggestion.
Jon shakes his head regretfully. "Delia, you're drunk. If you woke up in my bed tomorrow morning you'd easily be entitled to go to a priestess for rape-"
I don't pay attention to what he's saying, instead studying the double image him and trying to determine which one is real and which is an illusion. Taking a guess, I throw my arms around his neck and latch my lips onto his.
He cuts off abruptly and deepens the kiss, bending down so that I don't have to stand on the tips of my toes. I'm too drunk to marvel that my first kiss is with the prince of Tortall. Instead, I allow my lips to part softly, like the women do in the penny-dreadfuls that Cythera kept stashed under her bed at the convent. His tongue touches mine tentatively, and his hands slide around the back of my bodice. Without thinking, I take a hand from around his neck and begin to fumble with the top button on his shirt.
Jon breaks away when he realizes what I'm doing. "Delia, we can't do this now. You need to go back to your room." He moves his hands up to my shoulders and guides me to the door to my suite, opening the door for me when I lunge for the doorknob and miss. Like a gentleman, he refuses to step in to the room.
"You be careful who you run into when you're drunk, Delia," he warns. "Not everyone in this palace will turn down an offer like that when you're too drunk to know what you're saying."
I blow him a kiss as he turns and walks down the hallway. I think I'm in love.
The hangover I have the next morning is the worst I've ever had. I can't remember what I'd had to drink the night before, but it's stronger than anything Cythera ever stole from the guards at the convent. I resolve to stay in bed all day.
A knock at the door in the late afternoon shatters my plans, and I stumble up from out of bed without bothering to put a robe on over my nightdress. My hair sticks up at odd angles and my breath is rank and stale, but I am in no mood to impress.
It is Abigail carrying two dresses over her arm. She smiles as she surveys my disorderly appearance.
"Well, if I didn't know any better I'd say that the Lady of Eldorne has her very first serious hangover," she chirps. I glare at her and collapse onto a couch, closing my eyes. I'm quite certain that I'll never have alcohol again.
The woman has the nerve to laugh at me. If I weren't depending on her for assembling a wardrobe, I'd have fired her already. As it is, I grab a pillow on the sofa and bury my head under it to block out the sound of her voice.
She pulls it away. "Delia, the prince has invited you to a dinner party tonight. You have about an hour to prepare. I suggest you get used to walking when your head feels about two hundred pounds, because you'll be eating at the same table as the King and Queen and you wouldn't want to give them the impression that you're an alcoholic."
Either Jon is a cruel man under his noble façade, or he hasn't realized that even after a good night's sleep and half a day lying in bed, my wicked hangover continues to bother me. With an effort, I stand up.
"Good work," Abigail commends sarcastically. "Now, lucky for you I've fixed up an evening gown that you can wear to dinner. It should be a bit less scandalous on the number you chose to wear last night." She brandishes an ivory satin dress with an empire waist and pink trimmings. I hardly recognize it as the dress that I bought in my third year at the convent.
Abigail helps me dress, tying my corset tight enough that my breathing is reduced to small, shallow gasps, and helping me slip into two petticoats and finally the gown. As she begins to tackle my hair, a question occurs to me.
"Why are you doing this? Helping me, I mean? Any normal servant would be demanding a fair sum for the work you're doing."
She stops brushing my hair and looks through my hairpieces, debating between a jeweled pink flower and a pink satin ribbon. Selecting the ribbon, Abigail brushes my hair back tightly as she answers.
"I owe a favor to your mother. And how do you know I'm not going to charge you for this?"
"What kind of favor? When did you know my mother? What did she do to make you owe her?" The questions come tumbling out of my mouth.
"That's between your mother and I, Delia," she says as she fastens the ribbon around my hairline to cover up the roots of my hair that have become oily from not bathing. "Now pick out some shoes and get yourself to the royal chambers. Lateness is hardly a quality admired by the royal family."
I don't ask any more questions, but I determine to write my mother a letter about the woman before I accept her as the godmotherly woman she's trying to be. If I've learned anything from being an Eldorne, it's to be careful where I place my trust.
The supper is held in a private chamber of the royal family, but the table seats at least fifty people and each seat is filled. I have been placed far down on the table while Jonathan sits next to his father, but the knight beside me is easy to converse with. The cruel grip of the hangover has begun to weaken, and I find that I am enjoying myself.
"Do you know how refreshing it is to meet a man who can keep his eyes on my face?" I ask him. I find that it gives me a thrill to say things that we have been expressly told not to at the convent. "Every man I've met at the palace has eyes only for my bosom."
The knight, Alexander of Tirragan, laughs dryly. "You aren't my type. I like a more voluptuous woman, myself." He smiles at my mock horror, and then confides: "Well of course, I'm under the strictest orders not to flirt from His Highness. His orders were to be as boring as I could be, but as you can imagine it's been rather hard for me. Being boring just doesn't come naturally."
"You ought to train at the convent," I suggest. "You'll pick it up from the Sisters in no time."
"So I would suspect, from the conversational skills of the other ladies who come here from the convent," Alex comments. "So what happened to you? Why aren't we talking about bonnet fashions right now?"
"Just a fluke," I supply innocently. "I think I must be some kind of a mutant. That's what they told me at the convent, anyway."
"Nonsense," Alex says. "On the topic of things you shouldn't be discussing as a lady, have you heard about that extraordinary man from the city who claims to be pregnant?"
It's so nice to have a proper friend again.