Chapter 865: Date With Martha [II / Bonus - ]

Chapter 865: Date With Martha [II / Bonus Chapter]

Martha’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.

’U… u… u….’

Her brain had blue-screened as every neural pathway dedicated to speech, motor control, and basic human dignity had been rerouted to one single, all-consuming emergency broadcast loop.

’He said girlfriend… He said it to a stranger… In a boutique and he didn’t even blink.’

She wasn’t a young woman but still, it shook her quite a lot as she averted her eyes to the side.

“E–erm…”

The blonde lead clerk’s professional composure cracked into a wide, genuinely thrilled smile.

She pressed both hands together in front of her chest, and the two clerks behind her exchanged a rapid giddy glance.

“His girlfriend!” one of the younger clerks whispered to the other, barely containing herself.

“He’s even more handsome up close…” the other whispered back with her cheeks flushed.

Martha finally found her voice though it came out as a thin desperate wheeze.

“I-I-I’m not his… we’re not… I’m his housekeeper!” Martha stammered, waving both hands in front of her face so fast they blurred. “His maid! I clean his floors! I cook his meals! This is a professional… a professional relationship based on domestic service and mutual respect for laundry schedules!”

Silas leaned his shoulder against a display rack, crossed his arms over his chest, and watched her unravel with satisfaction.

’She’s too easy…’ He thought.

The blonde clerk looked at Silas though Silas raised one eyebrow and said nothing.

The clerk looked back at Martha, whose face was so red it was practically emitting heat, whose eyes were darting everywhere except at Silas, and whose small hands were clutching the air where her handbag used to be.

The clerk smiled warmly.

“Well, miss,” she said, with the diplomatic grace of a woman who sold luxury garments for a living and could read a room like a novel. “Housekeeper or girlfriend, you deserve to look your best tonight… Lord Graves is right, you’re a beautiful woman, and we’re going to find something perfect for you.”

Martha opened her mouth to argue, but the two younger clerks had already materialized on either side of her like well-dressed flanking maneuvers, each gently taking one of her elbows.

“Right this way, ma’am!”

“We have the most wonderful new collection…”

Martha was herded toward the dressing rooms before she could form another syllable of protest with her heels clicking against the oak floor in bewildered surrendering steps.

She cast one desperate pleading glance over her shoulder at Silas, who simply smiled and waved two fingers at her.

’Traitor…’ she thought.

Silas settled into a plush leather armchair positioned outside the changing area, stretching his long legs out and resting his arms behind his head.

The chair was clearly placed there for exactly this purpose, for men who brought women to this store and waited while the magic happened behind the curtain.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled lazily through nothing in particular.

’This is going to take a while,’ he thought, a faint grin tugging at his lips. ’But it’s going to be worth it…’

Behind the heavy velvet curtain, Martha was having a crisis of the highest order.

The dressing room was enormous, bigger than the parlor of her old tenement flat.

Three full-length mirrors lined the walls, soft ambient lighting made the space glow, and a small pedestal stood in the center for fittings.

The blonde clerk had set up a rolling rack beside the mirrors and was pulling garments from the display floor with swift expert hands.

Martha’s eyes locked onto the first outfit the clerk hung up… a sleek black sheath dress with a high collar and long sleeves.

Her heart leaped.

’Oh, that one,’ Martha thought, reaching for it with instinctive, eager hands. ’That looks perfect. It’s modest, it’s dignified, it’s black…’

She held it up against herself in the mirror. The fabric was beautiful, but the silhouette was unmistakable… It looked exactly like her maid uniform without the white apron.

“This one,” Martha said firmly.

The blonde clerk tilted her head as she glanced at the dress, then at Martha and finally at the curtain behind which Silas was waiting.

“Let’s… try it on and see what he thinks,” the clerk suggested diplomatically.

Martha nodded with brisk confidence and changed into it behind the curtain, smoothing the fabric carefully and adjusting the collar.

She checked her reflection and felt a surge of righteous satisfaction… This was proper and dignified.

’Hmph… He’ll like it very much.’

This was exactly the kind of dress a responsible self-respecting woman should wear.

She stepped out through the curtain, holding the dress against her frame with both hands.

Silas looked up from his phone.

“No…” he said.

“But it’s very tastef—”

“It’s a maid uniform with a zipper… Next…”

Martha wilted back behind the curtain, hugging the dress to her chest like a wounded soldier retreating from the front line.

She grabbed the next outfit from the rack herself… a long charcoal wool skirt with a matching blazer.

“This one is good…”

It was the kind of thing a school headmistress might wear to a disciplinary hearing.

Martha soon stepped out and Silas tilted his head.

“Martha, you look like you’re about to fire someone.”

“That is a perfectly respectable…”

“Next.”

Martha retreated again.

’Two rejections,’ Martha thought, her competitive streak flaring. ’Fine but the third one will be undeniable.’

She tried a third option… a severe navy blue dress with brass buttons running up the front.

It was elegant, but the cut and the buttonwork made her look like the captain of a passenger vessel.

SWISH!

She stepped out and posed stiffly, her chin lifted with defensive determination.

Silas squinted.

“Are we setting sail?”

The two younger clerks behind him pressed their hands over their mouths, trying not to laugh.

Martha’s face burned crimson. She spun on her heel and marched back behind the curtain with her jaw set.

’These clothes are perfectly fine!’ she thought, yanking the navy dress over her head with more force than the zipper deserved. ’Master Silas simply does not appreciate classic and properly structured tailoring! He is a young man… What does he know about fashion?!’

She paused, catching her own flushed indignant face in the mirror.

’He knows he looks devastating in a leather jacket, that’s what he knows…’ a traitorous corner of her brain supplied.

She spotted a price tag on the next outfit before the clerk could grab it.

GLANCE.

Her eyes went wide.

’Forty-eight thousand credits?!’

The room tilted as Martha grabbed the edge of the mirror to steady herself with her vision swimming.

“For a blouse?!” she hissed. “That’s more than I earned in four months at my previous work…”

The blonde clerk calmly plucked the price tag off the garment and tucked it into her pocket.

“We find it’s best not to look at those, ma’am,” she said smoothly.

“But I must know the cost!” Martha protested, her housekeeper instincts screaming at the financial recklessness of the situation. “It’s irresponsible to try on clothing without understanding the budgetary implications…”

The clerk looked at the curtain, then back at Martha, with the patient smile of a woman who had worked commission retail for six years.

“Ma’am,” she said gently, “Lord Graves purchased an entire wardrobe last time he was here… He paid the bill without reading it so I don’t think the budget is going to be a concern tonight.”

Martha stared at her.

The clerk reached over and discreetly turned the next three tags face-down on the rack.

Out by the armchair, Silas glanced up from his phone at the sound of another hanger rattling behind the curtain.

He was giving her time, the same way he gave Lia time with her books and Nito time with her complaints… Silas was quite patient when it counted.

The montage continued.

A flowing emerald green wrap dress came next.

Martha tried it on, and while the color was lovely against her skin, the plunging neckline and thigh-high slit made her look like she was about to walk a red carpet at a film premiere.

She stepped out with one arm clamped across her chest and the other pressing the slit shut at her thigh.

“Absolutely not,” Martha squeaked with her face scarlet. “This is… this is a gown for a woman who is actively trying to cause traffic accidents!”

Silas tilted his head, his eyes drifting over the outfit with an appraising look that made Martha’s blush reach her hairline.

“That one’s actually pretty…”

“NEXT!” Martha shrieked, and she vanished behind the curtain so fast the fabric billowed.

A soft blush-pink chiffon blouse with wide sleeves came after that, paired with cream trousers… Martha put it on and turned to the mirror.

’Hm,’ She thought, examining herself.

The fabric was lovely and the fit was gentle, but something was off.

The colors, the cut, the airy, youthful silhouette… it looked like something Harper would wear.

Martha stared at her reflection and saw a thirty-one-year-old woman trying to dress like an eighteen-year-old woman.

She took it off without stepping out, folding it neatly back onto its hanger with a quiet sigh.

’Nothing fits,’ Martha thought. ’What’s my problem…? I’m supposed to be spending time with Master Silas but I can’t even make a decision.’

The blonde clerk watched Martha carefully, and something changed behind her professional eyes.

She was starting to understand this woman’s problem… It was not that Martha had bad taste, or that she was difficult. It was simply that Martha had no frame of reference for herself.

She’d spent so many years in black and white that she’d forgotten what her own colors looked like.

The clerk stepped away from the rack.

She walked to a different section of the floor, past the trendy displays and the flashy evening wear, to a quieter corner where the garments hung with a kind of understated grown-up elegance.

She came back carrying a single outfit on a velvet hanger.

“Try this one, ma’am,” She said softly. “…I think this is you.”

Martha took it from her hands and held it up, tilting her head.

There was no flash of sequins, no plunging neckline and no bold statement trying to prove something.

It was a charcoal cashmere wrap tunic, slate grey with a faint smoky warmth to the weave and the fabric was impossibly soft between her fingers.

’Mm?’

It came with simple tailored black trousers, fitted at the waist and falling in a clean straight line to the ankle.

’I like it…’

It was modest, it was elegant and it was made for a woman, not a girl.

“L-let me try it on…”

Martha carried it behind the curtain, stepping onto the fitting pedestal.

Martha pulled on the trousers, she slipped the cashmere wrap over her head, adjusting the soft cowl neckline until it draped naturally across her collarbones and she smoothed the fabric over her hips.

“It doesn’t stress me out to wear as well…”

Martha then made the mistake of looking up at the mirror and she stopped as her hands fell slowly to her sides.

The woman looking back at her was not the frantic blushing maid who’d been diving behind curtains for the past twenty minutes… She was not the exhausted widow who’d sold every dress she owned to buy her first uniform…

She was someone else, someone she hadn’t seen in a very very long time.

“Wh-what…?”

The charcoal cashmere draped across her petite frame like it had been sewn for her, following the natural curve of her waist without clinging, giving her a silhouette that was soft and undeniably feminine.

The color brought out the rich chestnut tones of her hair, the gentle warmth of her brown eyes, and the pale smooth glow of her skin.

The tailored trousers made her legs look longer, and the modest neckline framed her collarbones with a quiet understated grace that needed no jewelry.

…She looked beautiful.

Well she was definitely not Harper-beautiful or Sera-beautiful nor did she have the polished intimidating beauty of a young heiress or a battlefield warrior.

She looked like Martha.

…A thirty-one-year-old woman who was, for the first time in longer than she could remember, simply allowed to be herself.

Her vision blurred.

’When did I…’ she thought, and the thought broke apart before it finished. ’When did I stop looking at myself? When did I stop seeing… this?’

Between the lean years, the hunger, the husband who worked himself into a hospital bed and never came home, the uniforms and the kettles and the endless scrubbing… somewhere in all of that, she had simply stopped.

Martha had stopped looking in mirrors.

She had stopped buying herself anything that wasn’t black, or white, or useful, she had stopped caring what she wore, she had wrapped herself in black and white and told herself that was all she was, all she needed to be, and she had believed it so deeply that she’d forgotten.

She was thirty-one years old so she was young, not old…

A single hot tear slipped down her cheek and caught the light as the blonde clerk stood behind her in the mirror and though she said nothing, she understood.

’Thank you Master…’

Martha stared at the woman in the mirror, and for a moment she didn’t recognize her.