“No.”
“Yes.”
“My father owns it.”
Caleb finally turned his head slightly but kept his eyes on the fireplace.
“No.”
Elena looked again.
Her mother’s signature.
Witness marks.
County seal.
The letters blurred.
Her lungs hurt.
She reached instinctively beneath her dress.
The corset seemed tighter than before.
Caleb’s voice cut through the spinning room.
“Elena.”
She shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
“You are not.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re about to faint.”
“I have not fainted.”
“Yet.”
The practical certainty in his voice angered her.
Good.
Anger was easier than fear.
Elena grabbed the scissors.
Caleb faced the wall fully again.
“Cut the laces if you can’t reach the knot.”
“I know how scissors work.”
“All right.”
She tried reaching behind herself.
Pain tore through her side.
Elena gasped.
Caleb’s body tightened, but he did not move.
“Do you want help?”
“No.”
“All right.”
The absence of argument made her more determined.
She twisted until she could slide one blade beneath the first stretched lace.
Snip.
The cord broke.
Nothing happened.
She cut another.
Then another.
The corset loosened perhaps half an inch.
Air reached somewhere in her ribs it had not reached all day.
Elena’s eyes filled instantly.
She kept cutting.
The laces fell apart behind her.
The hard pressure around her middle released.
Her body expanded naturally beneath the dress.
She drew one full breath.
It hurt.
Not because anything was wrong.
Because she had forgotten what a full breath felt like.
She inhaled again.
Her chest rose.
Her large shoulders relaxed.
Another breath.
Then Elena began crying.
Quietly at first.
She put the scissors down.
Caleb’s voice came from the fireplace.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Do you need me?”
“No.”
He remained where he was.
Elena removed the ruined corset herself.
It came free beneath the wedding dress and dropped heavily onto the floor.
Whalebone.
Steel clasps.
Cream fabric.
A garment meant to make her look smaller.
A garment that had nearly taken away her ability to breathe because other people had decided breathing mattered less than appearing acceptable.
She stared at it.
Then looked at Caleb’s back.
“You can turn around.”
“Are you dressed?”
“I’m still wearing the wedding dress.”
He turned.
His eyes went first to her face.
Not her body.
“Better?”
Elena inhaled.
Deeply.
“Yes.”
Caleb nodded.
“Good.”
She looked at the blue dress.
“Why did you bring another?”
“Because I saw what your aunt did when you came into town last month.”
Elena stiffened.
“You were there?”
“At the blacksmith.”
She remembered a large bearded man across the street.
She had not known he was watching.
“Aunt Beatrice only tightened it because the old one no longer fit.”
Caleb’s expression went hard.
“She pulled until you grabbed the hitching post.”
“You saw that?”
“Yes.”
“And did nothing.”