A Vampire's Life Book 3

Chapter Twenty-two - Scarlett

Gabriella stands at the end of the lounge and clears her throat. I lower the magazine and look at her, several maids behind her.

"We are having very important guests for dinner. Very important." she says in a very heavy tone. "I have been sent here to get you ready, to be dressed appropriately according to our standards not yours." She flicks her hand to the side of her shoulder and the maids lay the clothes out on the bed, a selection of clothes that look rather formal.

"You will also be on your best behaviour tonight Scarlett. No childish antics, no annoying Lucas, no bad attitude, no offensive language."

I roll my eyes in a very dramatic fashion and return to my magazine. Bad mood Gabriella is back. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her turn on her heels and look through the clothes the maids hold out for her. She huffs as she looks at the dresses, obviously not finding anything she likes. One of the maid's nods at her and leaves the room returning a minute later with more clothes. Gabriella pulls a dress out and calls me over to her.

"What do you think?" she asks the maids as she holds the dress up to me.

They shake their heads at her.

"It's the hair isn't it?"

The nod at her.

"Maybe her hair could be styled to hide the green."

She pulls a deep jade dress from one of the maid's arms.

"This will do. You, shower and scrub yourself, I want you smelling like roses."

"The soap is lavender." I mutter as I languidly walk into the bathroom.

I think that if I had given Gabriella the chance she would have one of the maids in here making sure I was clean to her standard. I wandered out of the bathroom, seeing her waiting for me in the robe. When she discovered that I hadn't washed my hair I was sent back to the shower to try again. Ten minutes later I returned to my room, the maids waiting to do my hair. My god, it must be someone important. They poked and prodded, my hair being pulled every which way as they did god knows what to me. Once they had finished with my hair, they set about doing my makeup. In that time, I had plenty of time to think, none of them offering to get my magazines for me. Not a very good hair salon snippety whines.

"Gabriella."

"What?" she snaps stopping her pacing.

"I've never been to a formal dinner."

Her face drops as she looks at me.

"I know nothing of it, I mean I know that there is lots of cutlery but that's it."

"Ok." she sighs turning to a maid. "Go and fetch a full setting of plates, cutlery and glasses, bring them here."

She nods at Gabriella and hastens out of the room. When she returns the two of them place everything on the coffee table in front of me. Lou opens an eye, looking at what is going on around her. For the first time in several hours she was awake. Rest was obviously very important to a turlosi; she had been in the one position for some time. The other eye opened and she turned to watch her granddaughter teach me about polite dining.

"Right." Gabriella kneels on the other side of the table. "We will start with the cutlery, work from the outside in. We have the soup spoon, fish knife, meat knife." Her fingers glide across the cutlery, gently touching them as she passes them. "Fish fork, meat fork, salad fork, desert spoon. Got it?"

Her eyes widen as she looks at me.

"Yep."

"Outside in, you will be fine. Now the plate underneath is known as a service plate. If you were to have a bread roll or similar a butter plate it would be here with a butter knife. But we won't be having any rolls tonight."