Embellished With Lies

Chapter Thirteen

"I can't wait to get dressed for the ball!" Tessa exclaimed, running around the room in circles and flapping her arms up and down like she was a bird. "I want to put on a really fancy dress."

I nodded, but I didn't say anything. My energy was completely gone. How was I supposed to attend a ball if I could barely keep my eyes open?

"When are Emma and Ingrid coming?" Tessa groaned in a whiny voice. "When are they getting here?"

Rolling my eyes, I replied, "Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that you need to settle down, alright? You're giving me a headache."

"So? You can't tell me what to do."

I hated it when little kids said that. I mean, seriously? That can't be your comeback to everything. I'm older than you, and that's enough reason for me.

We were interrupted by a single, loud thud on the door before it opened up, revealing Emma and Ingrid in the door frame.

"We're here!" Ingrid exclaimed, extending her arms out wide. "We're ready to make you both beautiful!"

Feeling rather uncomfortable, I coughed.

"Matthew," the old woman began, "I'm going to take you to a room downstairs, and Emma is going to stay here with your sister. Is that alright?"

Although I did feel slightly disappointed, I nodded my head. "Yeah, sure." It's not like a I had a choice about the matter anyway.

Emma grinned with satisfaction. "Okay, well, we best be getting started. I mean, if we wait much longer, we won't have enough time."

Ingrid nodded in agreement before she faced me. "Come along, Matthew. I have so many magnificent ideas for your attire. It'll be marvelous!"

Even though I wanted to, I didn't look behind me as I followed Ingrid out of the bedroom. She was having a discussion with me the entire time that we were venturing across the building, but I wasn't paying her any attention; I was too busy peering around at the interior of the castle. I had never been in the 'west wing', as Ingrid had called it, and there was so much to see. Although the color scheme and decoration was much of the same as the rest of the castle that I had seen, I was still baffled by the size of each and every room that we passed. The library in particular was larger than any library I had ever seen, with books on shelves that stretched over every wall floor to ceiling.

Caitlyn would have loved it.

Ingrid led me to a room at the very end of a long hallway, and when we entered, I wasn't shocked. In the middle of the decent sized space was an small, circular stage, and behind that was a golden folding screen.

As if she could read my mind, Ingrid clarified, "This is Cinderella's alteration room. She stands on the stage, and Emma and I make changes to the length of her gowns."

I nodded, but it wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before. It was kind of like Say Yes to the Dress. My mom and Tessa liked to watch that all the time, and sometimes I couldn't help but watch. Any guy would probably say the same thing.

Well, hopefully they would say the same thing.

"First what I'm going to do is pick out a couple of suits for you to try on, and you can pick the one that you like the best." She paused, then pointed. "Actually, I'll pick one because I'm not sure that you can handle making a decent decision. And afterwards we need to do something about that mop that you call hair."

I instinctively ran my hand through it. "Why, what's wrong with it?" Although I hadn't done anything with it this morning, that didn't mean that I didn't want it to look good.

She rolled her eyes in response. "It's a monstrosity!" She paused again. "What did you do?"

I rolled my eyes and didn't respond. I didn't owe her an explanation, so why should I have given her one?

"I'm going to dress you in brown trousers," she informed me, looking through wooden racks in an exclusive, large closet. "A brown suit jacket as well would look nice with it..."

"And for under that?" I asked, looking down at my cream nightgown.

"I was thinking maybe a blush color."

That sounded like a foreign language to me. "And that would be..."

"Pink."She clapped her hands. "Oh, a white tie would look brilliant, I must say."

Oh.

After handing me the clothing, I didn't move; I stared at her.

"Anything else?" Ingrid asked me, tilting her head way to the side.

I nodded. "Yeah, uh, can you, maybe, turn around or something?"

She looked confused. "Uh, sure. If you would like to use that changing screen, you may."

"I know. I was going to. I just feel uncomfortable with you, you know, looking in my direction while I have no pants on."

She turned around and crossed her arms while I changed my clothes, and when I looked in the full length mirror once I was done, my jaw dropped.

It was a little better than last night, but not by much. While practically anything was better than tights, I still looked rather odd.

"You look so handsome!" Ingrid complimented me as I stood on the low stage. "Oh, I did such a nice job..." She paused as she frowned. "However, you trousers look a little saggy on the bum."

I resisted the urge for my eyes to widen. She had no right to be looking at my bum. "Uh, that's a nice observation, but do you think that you could maybe fix that little situation?"

She nodded confidently. "Oh, most definitely."

I nodded. "So... Do you need me to, you know, take them off or something?"

She looked at me with another odd expression. "No... Of course not. You can stay right where you're at, and Ingrid will make everything look as pretty as a picture."

I was worried that she would stick a needle into my bum, but surprisingly she didn't.

And when she began to do my hair, it felt like I had been getting ready for hours.

I was so over this.

-----

Hey! Thoughts? I know it's kinda boring but that's only because I wanna get to the ball!!

What do you want to see happen in the next chapter?

Bye! I hope you enjoyed!

❤️❤️❤️