Betrayal in the Tudor Court by Darcey Bonnette

Cecily’s eyes were treated to an ensemble of saints and statues the like of which belonged at the chapel. She could not imagine why Mirabella needed the convent with all this about her.
    Cecily’s thoughts were drawn from the décor to her own estate. Acorset. Her shoulders slumped. She had not been looking forward to that. “I won’t be able to breathe. How will I play with Brey wearing a corset?”
    Mirabella laughed, but it was full of affection. “Poor girl, you can’t
play
with Brey anymore, not like you used to. No rough-and-tumble, no children’s pastimes. You are to be reared as a lady now and if my mother chooses to remain too incapacitated to guide you then I shall have to.”
    Cecily’s throat went dry. Her timid smile reflected a mingling of gratitude and dread. “I thank you,” she said in small tones.
    Mirabella rose and in a flurry of black skirts went to her wardrobe. “Now! Let me see what I have. You’re such a willowy girl … but I think I have some things you can get by on until we have you measured.”
    Mirabella smiled at the girl, pleased that she had come to her. She was happy to have someone to take under her wing. Now that Cecily was unable to be coddled as a child she would have a proper ally. Mirabella rifled through her wardrobe until she arrived at some corsets she had grown out of and had failed to give to the poor. God must have meant for her to save them for Cecily.
    “Here,” she said. “We should put it on you.”
    “Now?” Cecily asked, eyes wide. “Today? But I am not going anywhere today.”
    “It doesn’t matter if you’re going anywhere,” Mirabella explained patiently. “You must always be a lady, modest and goodly as God intends.”
    Cecily grimaced as she allowed Mirabella to dress her. The stiff shafts of wood that would confine and shape her body could be felt through the linen and they dug into her hips. Her breathing was restricted and her cheeks flushed as she struggled to modulate it.
    “You’re thinking about it too much,” Mirabella said, resting her hands on Cecily’s shoulders. “Just breathe. You will grow accustomed to it. If you think about it, though, you will swoon.”
    Cecily closed her eyes. Specks of light danced against the backs of her eyelids, or wherever her eyes went when she closed them. In, out, in, out. “It’s too tight,” she told Mirabella.
    “It certainly is not. You will get used to it,” said Mirabella. “Just as we all have to.”
    Cecily took a step with caution. Everything was different, from sitting to walking—she could not imagine what it would be like to ride a horse. She wanted to slouch, but the corset held her upright. She regarded Mirabella, who seemed perfectly adapted to wearing this torture device. At eighteen, Mirabella filled out her gown with a figure Cecily had caught the male servants gawking at. What could be glimpsed of the breasts peeking out over the top of her neckline revealed a fullness Cecily envied; the Gypsy-toned skin was soft and flawless. Her black hair, though pinned up in an unflattering chignon under a stiff black gable hood, was shining and splendid when she let it fall down her shoulders. In addition to her figure, Mirabella’s face bore a full sensual mouth, small, straight nose, and intense green eyes that shone with determination. She could have any man she wanted and still she chose God, Cecily thought wistfully.
    “I know what you are thinking. Stop looking at me,” Mirabella demanded.
    “What are you about?” Cecily countered.
    Mirabella bowed her head. “You are thinking, ‘What a waste, Mirabella going into the Church when she is so beautiful.’ ”
    Cecily gaped at her. She hadn’t wanted to be so transparent.
    “I hear the servants laughing at me, the piggish things the men say,” Mirabella told her. “You are just like them. You do not understand. I will be the bride of Christ, someone who will not paw at me and gape at me like some starved animal. Someone