Temple of the Winds

"Ah, well, she didn't. I used some magic to do it. I thought it would look better if it was just a bit longer. You don't object, I pray?" "No," she whispered. "It's lovely." Her soft brown hair was done in ringlets, with delicate violet ribbons tied into them. She moved her head. The ringlets sprang up and down. and swayed side to side. Clarissa had once seen a woman of standing come to Renwold, and she had hair like this. It was the most beautiful hair Clarissa had ever seen. Now, Clarissa's hair looked just like that.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her shape was so. . shapely. All those hard, tight things under her dress had somehow rearranged her figure. Clarissa's face blushed to see her bosom straining up the way it did. half exposed for all to see.

She had always known, of course, that women like Manda Perlin weren't really shaped as they appeared. She knew that when they had their clothes off. their shapes were not a great deal different from any other woman's, but Clarissa had never known just how much of it was due to the dresses those attractive women wore.

In the mirror, in this dress, with her hair done in such a fashion and with the paint on her face, she looked the equal of any of them. Perhaps older, but that age seemed only to add bearing to what she saw; not a spent, unattractive quality, as she had always thought. And then she saw the ring in her lip. It was gold, not silver.

"Nathan," she whispered. "What happened to the ring?" "Oh, that. Well, it wouldn't do to have you supposedly a concubine to the emperor himself and carrying his little emperor heir, and have a silver ring through your lip. Everyone knows that the emperor only brings those with gold rings to his bed.

"Besides, you were wrongly marked with a silver ring. It should have been gold from the beginning. Those men were just plain blind." He gestured in a grand fashion. "I, of course, am a man of vision." He held his hand out toward the mirror. "Look for yourself. That woman is too beautiful to wear anything but a gold ring."

In the mirror, the woman staring back was getting tears in her eyes. Clarissa wiped a finger across her lower lids. She feared to ruin the paint the woman had put on her face when her hair was being curled.

"Nathan, I don't know what to say. You have done magic. You have made a plain woman into something…" "Beautiful," he finished. "But why?"

His face screwed up with an odd expression. "Are you daft? I couldn't very well have you looking plain," He swept a hand down, indicating himself. "No one would believe a man as dashing as myself would be seen with a woman any less stunning."

Clarissa grinned. He didn't look so old to her as he had seemed when she had first met him. He really did look dashing. Dashing, and distinguished. "Thank you, Nathan, for having faith in me, in more ways than one." "It's not faith: it's vision for what others are too blind to see. Now they do." She glanced to the curtain where the dressmaker had disappeared. "But this is all so very expensive. This dress alone would cost me near to a year's wages. And all the other things: the lodging; the coaches; the hats; the shoes; the women who did my hair and face. It all costs so much. You are spending money like a prince on holiday. How can you possibly afford it?"

The sly smile oozed back onto his face. "I'm good at. . making money. I could never spend all I can make. Don't be concerned about it: it means little to me." "Oh." She glanced back at the mirror. "Of course."

He cleared his throat. "What I mean is that you are more important than petty matters of gold. People are more important than such considerations. If it was my last copper, I would have spent it with no less enthusiasm, or greater worry."

When the dressmaker finally returned with a selection of stunning dresses, Nathan chose a number for her to try on. Clarissa went into the dressing room with each, and with the aid of the dressmaker's woman, tried on each. Clarissa didn't think she would have been able to lace, tie, and button any of them by herself.

Nathan smiled at each dress she came out in, and told the dressmaker he would buy it. By the end of the next hour, Nathan had selected a half dozen dresses, and had passed a handful of gold to the dressmaker. In all her life, she had never imagined a place of such wealth that dresses were already made. It was another measure of how much her life had changed with Nathan; only the very rich, or royalty, would buy dresses this way.

"I will make the necessary alterations, my lord, and have the dresses delivered to the Briar House." He darted a look at Clarissa. "Perhaps my lord would wish me to leave several of them loose-fitting, to accommodate madam, when she grows with our emperor's child?"

Nathan waved a hand dismissively. "No, no. I enjoy having her look her best. I will have a seamstress let them out when necessary, or simply purchase others to fit her then."