Dressing for the Ball: A Steampunk Story

If only I could close my eyes again and open them to a different ceiling. Anything but the luxurious blue of the Hotel Victorosius, today. Even just to wake up and have this already over. I curled up on my side, ignoring the silken dress lying in splendor on the gilt chair.
It did not help.  No choice remained.
I must dress for the ball.

"Change." He had not bothered to glance up from his papers. "We are leaving." I'd frozen and turned, schoolbag still on my shoulder.  
"May I ask where?" The hand hidden by the school bag strangled the tartan skirt of my school uniform.
"Bellaris." The Dark Town.

To think, some girls like balls. I groaned, mirthless as I pulled the nightgown up and over my head. Some maneuvering was demanded to not brush any painful spots on my shoulders. An unfair comparison, I suppose liked balls well enough. Just, not today.
Next, a clean chemise tugged over my head. Ouch, I gingerly touched my jaw which had caught on the neckline. That would need make-up.  Pantalettes, next.

"Use the son to get into the house. Find the best positions." Given his telegraphic communication, his short temper could not take many more questions, but I had to dare another even in this public of a train car. He did not approve of "making up" your own orders.
"Who do I contact for the actual…clean up?"
"Contact yourself. " The mustache twisted into a sardonic grin that matched the rising black eyebrow.
"What?" The word simply slid out. Both arched eyebrows snapped down while his mouth flattened. He leaned forward, all black top hat and cloak. Quivering, I held very still.
"I am?" I breathed.
He turned abruptly back to his files."Do not be a ninny, Amaryllis. You are more than old enough."
"No." Another word escaped.
His book snapped shut. "What?"

I stared down at the silk stocking. My hand shook too much to slide it on my foot. "I did try." I whispered. More than once.
The silk stockings clung to the sticky, bloody blister on the back of heel from my excursion the night before. I tried to peel the threads away, but it only ripped at the little scab that had begun to form. Blood spotted through. I hated these types of shoes pointed with heels that sunk into thick carpets and grass making it impossible to run. Give me a pair of solid school boots any day that stayed on even in the thickest mud when the girls, I went roaming in the woods. As if it mattered. My opinion never did. I shoved one foot in as the other curled into the carpet. Now the other.
It hurt to bend over to tie the black shoes.
Snap. One corset busk. Two, three, four— my eyes watered. Tugging viciously on the crossed lacings, I wrenched till it closed to the prescribed seventeen inches. At night, I went without it as often as I dared, but he always seemed to know when I could not close it to the proper fashionable width. After all, I could have no servants to help pull my laces. They would see things they ought not.
Young Lord Dartmoor saw them last night.

"My God, Lady Amaryllis, what happened to you?"
"I was, "shaky gasp and half sob, "attacked."  At my own hand, actually. Five minutes in the alley behind the club to wipe off the cosmetics to reveal marks I'd hidden in the first place, tug the shoulder of my dress off, and muss my hair.  At four in the morning in these clubs, being set upon wasn't that unusual a thing to happen- even to a lady if she left her male escorts.  
The young aristocrat's face darkened, and his friends, the ones not too drunk after four hours hard drinking, gasped.
"Where? Who?" Lord Robert Dartmoor demanded with righteous rage slicked by alcohol.
"Robbie," I reached out shaking, "please," and touched his arm before carefully fainting on his feet.

Poor, stupid boy.  He'd liked my company at the stifling dinner party. I slid the dress over my shoulders and over the frame of the sweeping skirt. This wasn't quite as low as the one I had worn that night. I tugged at the lace, adjusting. Well, maybe it was.
  He did not know how I'd maneuvered him into asking me to the Clubs, or that I had spent the night recovering from my "attack" by wandering around his ballroom collecting information as ordered.
I tugged the scarlet ribbons in the back until the gown curved to match my chest and slim waist. The cascading folds of the dress swept in a long train behind me. I stepped to my side table and draped the diamond and ruby necklace around my neck, sliding each matching earring into place. Finally, I picked up the revolver and slid it into the pocket of the long train.  
All of this, just to kill his uncle.