“I have done my best, Mama—”

“Hah! What is that, I wonder? Look at you. Look at your gown. Out of style. No decolletage at all.” She reached out and yanked at Pheresa’s bodice, but the silk did not tear.

Gasping in alarm, Pheresa pulled away from her. “This is my best gown.”

“I know—I paid for it. You were supposed to wear it at your betrothal ball.  Instead, I see you parading around in it, and your maid says you have worn it several times. Bah! It is a rag now. Useless! And wasted.” “I had to wear it. I came here with my wardrobe unfinished, and you have not sent money for more.”

“What do you need with more?” her mother asked scathingly, showing a complete lack of logic. “You have not managed to do anything with what you have.” She swooped upon Pheresa and snapped her long fingers under her daughter’s nose.  “When they laugh at you, girl, they laugh at me. They laugh at your father. I did not think I raised such a pudding as you.”

“Gavril has been so busy, Mama,” Pheresa said, hearing the defensiveness in her voice and hating it. “I have barely seen him, and there is never an opportunity to speak to him alone.”

“If you had spent your time here at court making yourself into a fascination, so that everyone adored you and did nothing but talk of you, Gavril would have come to your side within an hour of his arrival,” the princess said.  Pheresa frowned. “I have been busy keeping my reputation intact.”

“No doubt. You look prudish as well as out of style.”

“That is unfair!”

“I should never have listened to your father. His insistence that you be educated in a nuncery was a complete mistake. No doubt you would rather go back to the cloistered life.”

“No!” Pheresa cried. “I have tried to conduct myself properly. You know what is required of me.”

“I know that you have botched it. If Gavril has not claimed you by now, he never will,” the princess said in a withering voice. “I have done my best to persuade my brother to interfere, but Verence will do nothing. Therefore, it is over.  Finished. We are done here.” She shrugged, then pointed her finger at Pheresa.