Emma lay against the headboard, sovereign even in her abandon. The cream summer dress — pale silk scattered with muted florals — had fallen open across her body, bunched at her waist where her thighs spread wide. The fabric clung in places, damp and darkened, but elsewhere it slackened, spilling away to bare her fully. Her breasts, heavy and pendulous, had slipped free of the buttoned front. The pale weight of them dragged the loosened silk aside, their fullness gleaming faintly in the lamplight. Each rise of her breath shifted them, flesh dragging at the fabric as if the dress itself were no longer equal to holding her. Below, the parted skirt framed the thick darkness of her hair, musky and alive, her hips tilted forward with effortless authority. The dress, once domestic, was now utterly transformed, sovereign garb and ceremonial unveiling, as though the fabric itself existed only to frame what she revealed.