Page 9 of Queen’s Gambit

I was practically bouncing around my room as I waited. Every Friday at nine o’clock, Eddie and I video chatted. It had become our ritual, and I made sure that I looked fabulous.

“You look stunning,” Frida said, and I smiled at my friend.

Frida was two years older than me and hired by my mother to be my handmaiden. She had moved into the room next to mine, and her official duties included helping me get ready for meetings or studying when I was struggling. In reality, Mother just felt bad that I spent most of my time alone. Frida might have started as a paid friend, but we’d grown close over the last year, and now I couldn’t picture my life without her.

“Do you think this is okay,” I asked, smoothing my dress.

My parents would never let me out of the house wearing this outfit. I was thirteen and not a child anymore, but makeup or anything revealing got me sent right back up to my room to change and wash my face.

My father once told me that I looked like one of the streetwalkers when I came downstairs in a dress that was shorter than my knees and had a low scoop front. I’d never cried so hard and hated him for saying that.

“What man will want you if you parade yourself around like that? A man wants his wife to be a virgin, untouched by another man. Do you understand?”

“Vadin, she looks beautiful. We’re going out to a family dinner. She’s not going to a party. I think she looks perfectly grown up.”

“It doesn’t matter. My daughter will not leave the house looking like that.”

I stared down at the dress that my mother and I had shopped for and both loved.

“But Father, it doesn’t show anything. I don’t understand,” I said, and he turned his angry gaze on me.

“Don’t talk back to me, Yulianna. You will do as I say. Go upstairs and take that dress off right now, or you’ll remain here.”

I balled my hands.

“Then leave me here. I’m a prisoner in this house anyway. Why would I care if I have to stay in this stupid place another night? I hate you,” I yelled and ran off before he could hit me. I was in for it when they got back.

My father hadn’t spoken to me for an entire week and then grounded me when he did. We never saw eye-to-eye on anything and hadn’t for as long as I could remember. When I was younger, I wanted to run around outside and train with my father’s soldiers to fight, but that was unladylike. I wanted to ride horses, but it was too easy to get hurt. Instead, I learned the piano. The one thing I refused to give up was my art, and at least to date, my father hadn’t found a reason to stop me from painting or sculpting.

“I really do. It’s a stunning dress, and I love the raspberry color,” Frida said, and I had to agree.

It was a sweater dress with a large fluffy collar that folded down and showed a glimpse at the very top of my breast. The charm that Eddie had given me the last time I saw him was visible to the camera on the dainty chain. The silver snowflake glittered with diamonds and a tiny blue stone in the center that he’d said reminded him of my eyes.

The butterflies in my stomach were all over the place as I began to pace.

“Would you like me to do your hair? I could braid it for you.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m too excited to sit still for longer than a minute.”

Frida laughed.

“You do look like you have ants in your pants.” My cheeks got hot when the laptop started to ring on the bed. “Okay, I’ll go and give you the signal if your parents are heading this way.”

“Thank you, Frida. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I said as she slipped through the adjoining door that led to her bedroom.

Sitting down in front of the screen, I opened the chat program and there he was. I was barely able to contain my smile.

“Hi,” I said, and he ran his lip through his teeth.

“You look beautiful, Ana.”

I rolled my eyes. I’d continued to pretend that the nickname bothered me, but I loved hearing him call me that. No one else did. It was our special thing.

“Thank you. You do as well,” I said, and I wanted to slap a hand on my face as Eddie laughed.

“I’ll take being beautiful. Are you still coming out here next month for the meeting?”

My smile fell, and I shook my head. “No. Father says that he will only be there a couple nights and then he is flying to another meeting that would be too dangerous. I begged him and said Frida would come with me, but he wouldn’t budge.”