Page 1 of Dragon Chosen (The Dragon Lady #1)

Fern

I was never going to fit into the dress.

“No,” I said, crossing the floor to examine the gown the maid unveiled. “No, no.”

My hands smoothed over my stomach, despairing at the swell there.

Today was the day I was supposed to meet my suitors, and Mother had been most adamant that I slim down before that day.

That if I was to have any chance of making an advantageous match, I would need to lose at least a stone in weight.

I’d lived on a diet of lettuce leaves and a small serving of poached chicken breast for weeks.

But I knew my body, knew how my own dresses fit, and this?

The dress was just so beautiful. I felt a pang as I studied it, seeing all the work the seamstresses had put into its creation.

A full skirt of soft green chiffon and satin, topped by a beaded bodice, no doubt to ‘enhance the one asset I did have’ as Mother always said, as she looked down her nose at my bust. In my head I could see myself descending from the main stairs of our home, an array of admiring men looking on from below.

But that was never going to happen.

The dress was at least a full size too small. My hands floated through the air, trying to measure the damn thing and somehow magically make it bigger.

“It’s beautiful, Lady Fern,” Agnes, the maid, said with a nervous smile, and that just confirmed my fears. “You’ll look a picture in it.”

“It won’t fit.” I hated the way my voice trembled, so I shook my head, as if that would dispel the despair I felt. “It won’t fit.”

I began to pace back and forth, my boots clicking across the floorboard.

My hands moved frantically, trying to wave more air to my face, but that didn’t help.

Tears, damn them, welled in my eyes, and that was enough to stop me in my tracks.

My eyes rolled upwards, the ache sometimes enough to stop me from crying.

Because that just wouldn’t do.

I could almost hear Mother’s voice reprimanding me for my softness when the door opened. Apparently my thoughts had summoned her, because in through the door came my mother.

“Oh, the dress looks beautiful, Agnes,” she gushed, approaching the maid, then caressing the folds of the dress.

“It will be just the thing for Fern. Not quite as elegant as Rose’s coming out dress.

” Rose was my older sister who thankfully took after our mother, being tiny and delicate.

I, of course, had to inherit my father’s far stouter frame. “But let’s see it on.”

“Mother.” I tried so hard to keep my voice even, my spine erect as I turned to face her. She despised weakness. “I am not sure it will fit. It?—”

“Won’t fit?” Watching all good feelings die inside my mother was unfortunately a commonplace thing for me.

Her eyes hardened, her mouth becoming pinched as she looked me up and down.

It felt like she was sizing me up, taking my measure and finding me wanting yet again.

“And why wouldn’t it fit? Have you been sneaking down to the kitchens at night and gorging yourself on biscuits again? ”

“What?” I jerked back as if slapped. “No, I?—”

“Because you used to do that as a child.” Mother shook her head as she turned to Agnes, as if this whole exchange wasn’t shameful enough. Apparently she needed to drag others in as witnesses. “Such gluttonous behaviour?—”

“Mother.” I didn’t dare interrupt my mother usually, but my lapse in good manners was at least enough to stop her rant. “The guests will be arriving soon.”

“Yes, they will.” Was every mother’s eyes as hard as mine as she stalked forward? “And you will come down in that dress.” Her perfectly manicured finger stabbed in the direction of the dress. “Or you won’t come down at all. Do not disgrace me, Fern.”

I thought that was the end of it. With my cheeks burning bright red, my eyelids fluttered, as if that was enough to keep back my unshed tears.

It wasn’t. If I was going to fail my mother again, then there was no way to stop a single tear sliding down my cheek.

My hands slid over my hips, my stomach, grabbing handfuls of the flesh there, my fingers sinking painfully deep.

“Get the corset on her,” Mother instructed Agnes.

“Put a boot into her spine if that’s what you need to do to winch her…

” She looked over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing.

“Into an acceptable shape. I need to go and speak to his lordship.” I watched her shake her head.

“He’s going to need to raise the price of her dowry if we’ve got a hope of marrying her off. ”

Her. She. My mother spoke of me with much the same care as she might one of her lapdogs.

My eyes burned as I stared after her, then at the back of the door when she slammed it shut behind her.

Poor Agnes looked beside herself, but she was well used to my mother’s behaviour.

Mother might be Lady Rochester, but she acted as if she was queen of this estate.

Her royal decree meant that Agnes pulled out a corset from the garments that had been delivered by the seamstresses.

“Don’t you worry, milady. I’ve winched many a lass into shape with a corset. I’ll have you wearing that dress and meeting your suitors looking like a princess of old.”

Her gentle words of encouragement forced me to smile, even as my eyes ached.

“Not Mother,” I said. “Not Rose.”

“Yes, your mother.” Agnes bustled forward, helping me out of my dressing gown.

She eased it off my shoulders, then helped me into my chemise.

“You think she maintains her girlish figure by good luck alone?” She shot me a meaningful look.

“Lady Rochester isn’t above sneaking into the kitchens for a handful of biscuits herself, you know? ’

“What?”

My exclamation was rude, but Agnes just grinned.

“Cook is always having to top up the biscuit jar for milady, and the cake tin.”

“No…”

Every single time the dessert course was brought to the table, Mother shook her head, saying she wouldn’t partake.

Behind closed doors, she instructed Rose and me to do the same.

My sister followed her lead, going pale each time a cake or pudding was passed before her, but I…

Sometimes I couldn’t seem to say no. Both of them watched me take every bite, Rose looking almost sad, but that was nothing compared to Mother’s simmering rage.

“Sometimes your mother gorges herself until she’s sick.” Agnes said that almost guiltily. “If you listen to what her chamber maids say. Now, if I can get her waist down to the same size it was before you and your sister were born, milady, I’m sure I can get you into that dress.”

But at what cost?

Many young women eschewed corsets now. Mother was sure this was a sure sign of the collapse of civilisation, but as the country had moved from being ruled absolutely by the king to a constitutional monarchy, social mores had changed.

Even all the way out here, at Father’s estate, news filtered through of the changes to society, the law, and of course, fashion.

Women had started wearing different dresses, inspired by the former king’s bride to be, or even pants and tunics, like the royal dragon riders.

I’d broached the idea with Mother, only to be met with withering disdain.

“A woman’s role is to be decorative, pleasing, and to bear her husband children,” she told me. “What man would find pleasure being with a woman that looks like a man?”

I didn’t have an answer, because my heart’s response would have got me in even deeper trouble.

Whatever she wants, that’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t dare.

That same acceptance of my fate was what had me stepping into the corset now.

As the first laces tightened, as I felt the whalebone and stiff fabric close around me, I tried to stuff it down.

Fear, pain, resignation, and last of all, anger.

It was the feeling I never dared express, because if it fought its way free, it would burn this whole estate down as surely as a dragon’s flame. That need to stay quiet, still, compliant kept me pinned to the spot as Agnes began to grunt, pulling the corset tighter and tighter.

I can’t breathe! That was my first panicked thought, but this was the way I always responded when I wore a corset, so I stayed silent, only for the corset to winch tighter.

My mouth was forced open, not to say a word, but to suck air in greedily, but soon that was a luxury I could no longer afford.

My ribs, my diaphragm moved with each breath, and if they couldn’t expand, I couldn’t fill my lungs.

A burning sensation started in my chest. This is just fear , I told myself.

Calm down and you’ll be able to breathe fine.

Just calm down . Slower breaths. Slight inhale and longer exhale and then ? —

“I’m going to have to put the boot into it.”

Agnes sounded apologetic, didn’t she? I could barely hear her over the frantic throb of my heart.

It was being terribly disobedient, beating faster and faster, so my breath tried to keep pace.

Then I felt Agnes wrench on the laces, something hard and unrelenting landing on my back.

I wanted to beg her to stop, but I couldn’t make a sound, not when I was fighting for breath.

This will be fine.

It was the same thing I’d told myself every night as I went to bed with a stomach aching with hunger.

It was what I told the maids, the footmen, when they saw me falter, feeling suddenly dizzy.

It was what I told Father when he came to my rooms to discuss his concerns.

It was fine, because it had to be. Father tried to tell me that there were men out there who would like me for who I was, that he was perfectly content for me to stay in the house until I found a man worthy of being my husband.

That he didn’t want to see me married off to someone who wouldn’t make me happy.

He’d winced then, an almost imperceptible thing, forcing me to wonder if he meant Rose’s marriage or his to Mother.

But he understood the world from the perspective of a man.

They could toss aside rank, class, family, everything in pursuit of their own happiness.

There would be consequences, but none as harsh as those for women.

Men did what they wished and women… We supported them on that endeavour.

If I couldn’t find a man of the same rank or better to marry me, then what?

I’d become an old maid, cared for by my father until he died, then forced upon Rose, to lurk in her house, unwanted and unneeded. A burden she was forced to carry.

I didn’t want that.

Put on the dress, walk downstairs, and…

My fingers moved of their own accord, my blunt nails raking across the corset. The fabric was tough enough that I left no damage, and that was heartening and terrifying at the same time. I couldn’t ruin this very expensive corset.

But I also couldn’t escape it.

“Agnes…” I could barely hear my own voice over my rapid heartbeat.

“Nearly there, milady!” she grunted.

“Agnes…!” I threw my head back, as if that would help me breathe better, but it failed to do anything to relieve the burn in my chest. “Agnes, I can’t?—”

“You can… milady.” Another grunt. “You’ll be…pretty as… a picture.”

“No…” I barely rasped that out, the two of us now stuck in a tug of war.

I yanked at the front of the corset, desperate for just a little more air as she pulled the laces tighter.

“No, Agnes…” Then some animal instinct kicked in.

My arms had felt like rubber noodles the entire time I was on this ridiculous diet, but all of a sudden, all my strength returned.

My hands gripped the bodice of the corset, dragging it forward and with that tiny gap I sucked in a breath and then shouted, “NO!”

Agnes stumbled back and I felt a flush of shame at her startled expression. I’d make amends afterwards. One yank, then another and the laces started to give. Air, precious air, was sucked in my lungs, and then my head finally started to clear.

“Milady, I’m sorry…” Agnes held her hands out as if to ward me off. “I thought…”

“You…” I swallowed, my mouth bone dry. “You did nothing wrong. I…” The corset finally fell to the ground and I stepped free of it. “I can’t. I just can’t?—”

“Understood, milady.” She bobbed a quick curtsey. “But you must understand…”

How would my mother react? That was what went unsaid. What would Agnes be held responsible for?

“Go,” I wheezed, gesturing to the door. “Go and inform Lady Rochester that I can’t…

” No, can’t was too weak of a word for it.

“I won’t be wearing a corset or that dress.

” My head swung from side to side. “If that means becoming an old maid, then so be it.” Our eyes gazed into the others.

“Blame me, because the punishment she deals out for me will be far milder than one she inflicts on you.”

“Thank you, milady.”

Agnes dashed out of the door, leaving me to try to work out what the hell to do next.