A Conflict Born Of Exposure

“You call this thing a dress?”

Helena had opened the dress box, and one look at what lay inside made her recoil in horror.

“Even a common courtesan’s dress would carry more dignity than this.”

As if the very touch of it revolted her, she pinched the dress up by the tip of one finger.

“Ah, that is…”

Caught in an awkward spot, Katarina bit her tongue.

But it was Countess Drake herself who bade me alter a perfectly good dress that way.

To say as much aloud would have looked for all the world like tattling, so she only bowed her head and hoped the Dowager’s temper might cool.

“This child, honestly. It’s as if she won’t rest until she’s smeared filth all over the family name.”

Helena Drake was famed throughout society for her gentle nature. On the rare occasions she visited Katarina’s boutique, her kindly smile never once slipped. Yet the Helena standing before her now was nothing like the woman the modiste knew so well.

“Tell her this dress will not do. That it absolutely will not do.”

Face fierce, Helena flung the dress carelessly aside.

“B-but the ball is tomorrow, there’s no time to make another dress…”
“As if there were only that one dress in all the world! Better not to attend at all than to wear a thing like this!”

The voices carrying through the lobby drew the household’s servants out one by one.

A short while later, Gloria came hurrying out at the commotion. She studied Helena’s face for a moment before stepping up in front of her.

“Mother, is something the matter…?”

The instant Gloria emerged, hesitant, from among the gathered servants, Helena jabbed a finger at the outrageous dress and lashed out as if she’d been waiting all along for just this moment.

“My dear, you’ve come at just the right time. If you’ve a mouth in your head, then explain that dress to me.”
“Explain it?”
“Oh, would you look at her. The nerve — to widen your eyes at me like that and ask it right back, ask it right back!”

Gloria’s eyes dropped to the dress flung carelessly into the box, and right about then they went cold as ice. The box belonged to her, its rightful owner, and she hadn’t so much as opened it; now someone had gone and rummaged it into a shambles.

That old crone, honestly.

Everything the woman did rubbed her the wrong way somehow. Gloria strode straight to the box and snatched up the dress. Had the altered gown taken even the slightest damage, she might well have erupted like a volcano. Mercifully, it was unharmed.

Yes — this is the one.

The bosom it left so openly bare was more than alluring; it was downright seductive. Her eye for these things had never once steered her wrong. Her expression softening, she turned to carry the dress away, Helena’s glare boring into the back of her head, only to turn back and thrust it toward her instead.

“Mother, it only looks this way off the body. Once I’ve put it on, it’ll give quite a different impression, I promise you. Isn’t that so, Madame?”
“Ah — yes. Quite right. What one sees and what one wears are certainly two different things.”

Gloria gave a little shrug, as if to say, there, you see?

“My dear, is there something wrong with your eyes? Do you truly not know what the problem is?”
“No, I don’t. So it would be ever so kind of you, Mother, to enlighten me.”

Ordinarily, Gloria would have yielded a step to Helena. Matters like the family business or the arranging of tea parties were hardly her area. But not this once. She hadn’t even needed to try the gown on to know it would be the finest dress of the year.

And it’ll take at least this much to reel in Herman Ernst, won’t it?

Only if he were seized on the spot with the urge to throw her down onto a bed would he cast Marienne aside and come trotting after her like a dog. And for that, this dress was perfectly suited to the ball tomorrow night.

“It shows more than it covers! What noblewoman would ever wear so vulgar a thing! Every soul alive would call it a courtesan’s underthings!”
“Is there some separate dress for courtesans and another for noblewomen?”
“…What?”
“If a dress is pretty, then it’s served its whole purpose.”

Helena was so aghast she very nearly toppled over backward. What on earth had gotten into the girl, that her once foolishly meek daughter-in-law should be talking back at every turn?

“My dear, does Cedric know you carry on with me like this?”
“That, I couldn’t say. But, Mother — that may not matter in the slightest.”

Gloria said, tucking the dress snugly into her arms.

“Because nothing would change even if Cedric did know what I’m really like.”

Helena swayed as though she might faint dead away on the spot. Before, the girl had shamed them all by choosing nothing but the most tasteless gowns; now, it seemed, she meant to shame them with a vulgar one instead.

“You— you really have thrown all restraint to the wind now, haven’t you!”

Unable to bear it a moment longer, Helena let out a scream loud enough to tear her throat.

“What is going on here.”

A slow, monotonous tread came thudding down from the second floor. Cedric, who had been at his work in the study, had come down at the late-night commotion.

“You’ve come at just the right moment, Cedric. Never mind all that — just look at the dress she means to wear tomorrow. The sight of it nearly knocked me to the floor.”

Helena seized Cedric’s arm at once, her voice thick with tears. He took in the scene with bleary eyes, caught sight of the dress cradled in Gloria’s arms, and knit his brow as hard as it would go.

“…”

When Cedric only stood frozen like a statue, unable to get out a word, Helena could watch no longer and stepped in to drive the matter home herself.

“If that girl insists on wearing that dress after all, then I shall not attend the ball — so be warned.”
“Yes, Mother. I shall give her a firm warning.”

Cedric took Gloria by the wrist and set off for the second floor. Dragged along against her will, Gloria twisted in his grip and resisted the whole way. As she watched the retreating backs of her son and his wife, a sight the like of which she had never seen in all her life, Helena couldn’t shake a strange sense of unease.

“Have you lost your mind?”

The door slammed shut, and the two of them were alone. Cedric bore down on Gloria as though he meant to devour her whole. Gloria, her own temper thoroughly up, gave not an inch; she knocked his hand roughly aside and let her irritation come pouring out.

“What did I do!”
“What did you do? So you’re telling me you actually mean to show up at the ball in a dress like that?”
“And why shouldn’t I? What’s wrong with that dress!”
“Haah — Gloria!”

Cedric could bear no more, and shouted. Clashing with Gloria like this over every little thing wore him down, wearied him to the bone.

Not once — not once does anything ever go smoothly with her.

Clutching his throbbing head, Cedric heaved a sigh. At that, Gloria gave an incredulous snort and spelled it out for him, crisp and clear, right in his ear.

“Don’t you forget — our plan. At this ball, we have to drive a wedge between Herman and Marienne. To me, that dress is like armor. The armor I absolutely must put on to march onto the battlefield.”
“…What are you saying right now? Don’t tell me you mean to wear that dress for the sake of Herman Ernst?”

Cedric’s face reddened, little by little.

“Don’t get worked up — just listen, Cedric.”

Gloria said, coaxing him with practiced ease.

“If I’m to sow discord between the two of them, I need to get close to Herman, don’t I? The sooner we get those two divorced, the sooner we’ll be rid of all this unease.”

She ran her hand down his cheek and gave him a radiant smile.

“All that has to happen is for Herman and me to be left alone together. Nothing beyond that will come of it. It’s all for our sake. Don’t you understand how I feel?”
“Honestly, Ria. You mean to wear a dress like that to flaunt yourself before another man — what husband alive could ever permit that?”

But Cedric was no pushover either. He shook his head hard, insisting it would not do.

“You’ll be able to drive them apart without a dress like that. So wear something else, not that one.”
“Hah — you don’t even have a proper plan of your own, so why do you do nothing but object? Have you thought up some other way? You haven’t, and still all you do is object!”

When her coaxing failed to land, Gloria’s temper began to fray. She shrieked at the top of her lungs and bore down on Cedric.

“If you hate the thought of me wearing a dress like that, then you go wear something just as scandalous yourself. Muster every last means of seducing Marienne, and split up those two the papers are running stories about for being such a devoted couple!”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“It’s because you sit there gaping like a fool that I’m driven to go this far! And yet you keep throwing cold water on it? When you can’t even cheer me on!”

Cedric, unable to think of a single thing to say, clamped his mouth shut in the end. Which meant the upper hand in the quarrel had passed to Gloria. Losing none of her momentum, she pressed him harder still.

“And, Cedric — do you trust me so little as that?”
“Ria, this isn’t a matter of trusting you or not.”
“No, this is most certainly a matter of trust. And a matter of confidence, besides.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you so little confidence in yourself? So little that you’d police a mere dress, afraid you’ll lose me to Herman?”

Cedric’s brow crumpled all at once. Of all things to do, she was trying to prod his jealousy over Herman Ernst. He knew perfectly well she was needling him on purpose, and yet a strange competitive streak welled up in him all the same, until he found he could no longer keep opposing the dress to the bitter end.

Because when it came to Herman Ernst, of all people, losing was the one thing he could not stand.

“Fine. Do as you please.”

In the end, Gloria had wrung the permission she wanted out of Cedric.

Cedric watched Gloria pore eagerly over the scrap of risqué cloth, then shut his eyes tight. And of course, there was one other person who would have hated the sight of this. On hearing of Cedric’s decision, Helena took straight to her sickbed, and true to her word, she really did end up unable to appear at the ball.