Ashes of the Valdori

On the day of my Recognition, I wore the late first wife's white dress by mistake.

The husband who had stood beside me for ten years regarded me with flat indifference. "A poor imitation. Unfit for the title."

The ceremony ground to a halt. The princess I had raised for a decade turned on me with open disgust:

"I knew it! You've been trying to take my mother's place all along! I will never let a scheming woman like you get what she wants!"

She hurled the sachet I had spent half a year stitching — lavender and rosemary, every thread placed by hand — into the fireplace, then beat her small fists against my body.

A child's blows carried little force. But they shattered my heart completely.

I looked at her and spoke, word by word:

"What I wanted was never to replace anyone, and certainly never to become La Donna."

…

The sun blazed overhead, but no amount of light could melt the prejudice frozen in their hearts.

The white dress, discarded to one side, seemed to mock my carelessness and my stupidity. Isabelle's relic. I had touched it, and the household would never let me forget.

I paid no attention to the prying stares and whispered ridicule around me. All I wanted was to leave this place as quickly as I could. The capos' wives watched from the terrace with their espresso cups held just so, their silence louder than any accusation. Somewhere behind me, a bodyguard shifted his weight and said nothing.

But Eloise Valdori seized my arm. "You say you never wanted to be La Donna. Then why didn't you refuse when I brought you Mother's dress?"

"You say you never wanted to replace her. Then why were you so happy when Father agreed to give you the Recognition?"

"You promised I'd be your only child. So why did you give birth to Rosalind!"

Eloise's eyes were rimmed red, brimming with what looked like a thousand grievances. Her left hand drifted to the inside of her wrist, pressing there without knowing it.

But I did not step forward and gather her into my arms the way I always had. I simply looked at her, expression blank, and said nothing.

My unblinking gaze made her flinch. Her eyes darted sideways.

She tried to hold her ground, lips trembling around the words: "Why are you staring at me? Why won't you explain yourself? The Recognition didn't go through. You must be furious!"

My voice came out flat. "Eloise, since this is what you wanted to see, then consider it done."

Three days ago, the dress that had been prepared for the ceremony by the household staff had been stained with paint by Eloise during one of her drawing sessions. The pigment would not wash out.

I had been about to request a replacement, but Eloise dropped the hostility she usually wore around me and came to me with a bright smile, offering an apology.

She even produced an exquisite gown of her own.

It looked slightly worn, but anyone could see it had been meticulously preserved. The silk still held the faintest trace of a perfume that was not mine, not anyone's who still lived in this house.

Something felt wrong. I sent my handmaid to look into it.

The gown turned out to be the white dress Isabelle Valdori had worn at her own Recognition — the day she was presented to the allied families as the Don's wife. It had been kept in a cedar-lined wardrobe in the east wing, wrapped in acid-free tissue, tended by Margherita Solano herself as though it were a sacrament.

Knowing it was a line I could not cross, I tried to make Eloise take it back.

But she burst into tears, sobbing that she had cared for me as her true mother after ten years together, and that was the only reason she wanted me to wear Isabelle's dress.

Then she demanded to know whether I looked down on it simply because it had been made for an alliance bride's rank, not La Donna's.

Those words happened to reach Cassius Valdori as he walked through the door. His gaze darkened, and he told me in a low voice to honor the child's wishes. He even remarked that I had worked hard, caring for Eloise day after day for ten years. His thumb rested on his wedding band — Isabelle's ring — and did not move.

That evening, Cassius and Eloise dined together with me in the main dining room. He even agreed to bring Rosalind back from the upstate property where she had been raised.

I was overwhelmed. I believed that years of devotion had finally earned me a place in their hearts.

But the cold contempt Cassius and Eloise had just shown me tore that delusion to shreds.

I should have known long ago. Warm your hands against ice and all you get is water. You can't hold it, and you can't make it stay.

I gently pried Eloise's fingers from my arm.

"You were afraid I'd rise to the rank of La Donna. Now my Recognition has been halted for the offense of wearing the late wife's dress. Nothing like this has ever happened in this Family's history. From this day forward, I will be ridiculed and suspected by everyone. You've already gotten what you wanted. What more could you possibly be unsatisfied with?"

Eloise bristled like a cornered lion cub, teeth clenched, voice rising to a snarl. "I'm not satisfied! Not even close! Unless you go to the Don yourself and ask to be sent to the Gate House, you're just saying all this to trick me into feeling sorry for you!"

My gaze settled on her face. That small, childish face, barely bigger than my palm, was written over with nothing but fury aimed at me.