Chapter One
Briony looked in despair at the velvet green gown on her bed, and then she looked at her sister. “Seanan, please, can't I just stay here tonight? I really don't need to go to the party, do I?”
Seanan lanced her with that look, and Briony knew it was useless to argue. She had been on the receiving end of that look far too often to think there would be any sort of give to it at all.
“Oh come on, it'll be fun!” Seanan said. “There are going to be all kinds of exciting people there, so many people to meet and network with. You never know, little sister, this might make your career.”
Briony scowled, but Seanan took no notice. She never had. It would be utterly infuriating if Seanan didn't clearly have Briony's best interests at heart.
“I work in the admissions department of a not-so-great university,” Briony pointed out. “What good is Italian networking going to do for me?”
Seanan tossed a careless wink over her shoulder. “Stop being so doubtful! You just never know.”
It was in moments like this that the differences between the two sisters became obvious, Briony thought with bemusement. They were both of medium height with chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, and they both had low-pitched voices that were pleasant when speaking and slightly hopeless when singing. However, where Seanan's practiced smiles and warm air made people around her feel automatically comfortable, Briony always felt as stiff as a stick and twice as boring. Everyone who saw Seanan thought of her as a bombshell, and that combined with her acting talent had made her one of the breakout Hollywood stars of the last five years.
Of course, Briony knew better than most that “breakout star” meant weeks and months and years of auditions and tiny parts and networking and contacts, and she had sat up with her sister more than once over that lost job or that failed callback.
It warmed Briony like the sun to see her sister excel, and when Seanan tugged her over to the dreaded velvet dress, Briony went with only a little resistance.
“Is it so very awful being here?” Seanan asked, her voice sincere, and Briony had to sigh.
“You know it's not,” she said with a shrug. “Florence is beautiful, and we've both always wanted to go to Italy. I'm still so glad and so thankful you invited me.”
“Can it,” Seanan said briskly. “There was no one else I would have rather had with me. But see, it hasn't been so awful, has it? The party tonight, it'll be fun, just like the museum was fun, like the orchestra was fun...”
Briony sighed, and Seanan could read her acceptance in the sigh because her face lit up with that thousand-watt smile.
“Perfect. Now let's get you dressed. I need to take care of my own kit, and I won't have all that much time.”
Briony almost sent Seanan away to take care of her own dress, but she was soon relieved that she hadn't. She could already tell the dress was heavy and lovely, more a tailor's item than anything you could buy off of a costume rack, and as Seanan lifted it over her head and tugged it down over her shoulders, Briony started to feel just a little nervous.
"Seanan, is it supposed to be this low cut?"
Her sister's laugh was oddly sly, making Briony even more nervous.
"Seanan, what's going on? Why are you laughing at me like that?"
"Oh shush, sweetie, you are far too nervous about everything. Here, bend forward so your boobs swing down, and I'll get you tightened right up."
"Wait, why do I have to do that...?"
Briony yelped a little as Seanan pushed her to bend over at the waist. Under Seanan's directions, she scooped her breasts forward as Seanan tightened the laces at the back of the dress. When she stood up, Briony had a shocked moment to think about how very much cleavage she was revealing, and then she gasped as Seanan tugged the dress even tighter.
"Oh my god, is there steel in this dress?" Briony asked in shock. It felt as if she was being bound up, cloth and metal wrapped around her torso.
"There is," Seanan said cheerfully. "Don't worry, you get used to it. I had to wear corsets for four months straight, sometimes in the pouring rain for this shoot."
Seanan was the second female lead in An Ancient Beauty, the movie the party was celebrating. It was set in Renaissance Italy, and judging by the first screening that had taken place just a few days ago, it was going to be a hit. Of course, Briony was happy for her sister, but that didn't mean she was happy to be laced down into some kind of strange Renaissance torture device.
"All right," Seanan said, stepping back with a smile. "Walk around, get used to it."
It was on the tip of Briony's tongue to say that was impossible, but as she did as Seanan said, she realized there was more give to the corset than she had thought. She could walk and bend, sit, albeit stiffly, and she looked at her sister dubiously.
"I'm going to topple into the punch bowl," Briony said. "I'm going to trip, fall, be unable to right myself, and tumble right in..."
"No, you're not," Seanan said firmly, and then to Briony's surprise, Seanan reached out to cup her cheek.
"Seanan?"
"You're going to do just fine, I promise," she said. "And if you hate it, you can come right up here and go back to reading your books, okay? It's just..."
"Just what?"
"It's just that I've finally achieved my dream. I know there's still a long way to go, and that what I've won myself is more work and harder work, but this is amazing. This is what I was meant to do. I just thought that maybe if you got out of your shell a little bit, you would find out what you're meant to do as well."
There was genuine worry in Seanan's eyes, and Briony relented.
"I'm doing just fine. And maybe my dreams are different from yours, Seanan. I hate the thought of being in the spotlight, even if I know it makes you so happy. I'm not going to find my happiness out there tonight." At Seanan's look of consternation, Briony sighed. "But I'll try. How's that?"
"That's all I ever wanted," Seanan assured her, and with a little kiss on her forehead, she headed out the door. "Oh, don't forget your mask!"
There was a domino mask hanging over the clothing hook on the wall, but Briony ignored it, looking instead at her reflection in the mirror. The dress pinched her in at the waist and pushed her round, full breasts up until they were almost directly under her chin. Below her waist, her hips billowed out.
Seanan, what the hell have you done to me, she thought haplessly, and then with a wry chuckle, she realized the answer. She made me beautiful by making sure I don’t look like myself at all.
It wasn't just the pinched waist. The steel in the corset made Briony stand up as straight as a yardstick, and the posture made her look proud, perhaps even haughty. Where Briony spent most of her time hunched over with her nose buried in a book, this stranger in the mirror looked like she could challenge a king or a prince and win.
Well, she said if I didn't like it, I could come back here, Briony thought, but bubbling underneath was a new feeling of daring and freedom, one she was not sure she had ever felt before. She simply looked so different.
Experimentally, she pulled the mask from its hook. It was a simple rectangle with an elastic band that was meant to hold it to her head, but it was heavy in her hands. It was made of a light leather rather than paper mache or plastic, and for a moment, Briony simply caressed it with her fingers. When she finally tugged it over her face, letting it settle over her eyes and most of her nose, it felt right somehow.
She turned again to the mirror and gasped. With her face covered up and her body bound by the green velvet dress, she looked like someone entirely new. Briony thrust her chin up as she had seen Seanan do in her movie, imagining a half-dozen cringing noblemen come to kiss her hand.
"No, I won't have you. I fancy something far finer," she said, imitating Seanan's line as best she could. She had done it before, of course, in the past and with different films, but this was the first time she had ever thought that she sounded convincing. In the mirror, she might have been another Florentine courtesan, commanding love like an army.
Maybe tonight wouldn't be so bad after all.