I grasp your right ankle and wrap it in a long length cord, securing it also to a post of the patio covering. With another cord, I quickly fasten your...left ankle to the metal ring sunk into the concrete of the pool. When we had the rings installed, it was to ensure that we had some way to fasten down the pool cover during the winter months. I wish I had thought of them sooner for this alternate purpose.Fastened so, your legs are spread obscenely wide, almost to the point that I know would be. “I don’t want to go to Highever at all. I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen what happened. I remember those people, even though they never met me. I saw the blood and the bodies. It would be like inviting Kallian to a party at the Arl of Denerim’s estate!”There was nothing he could say to that, and we both knew it. Nothing was going to make this trip less awful – not even my husband.“What’s involved in a Wintersend celebration anyway?”I’d received an invitation – or summons, really – by courier from. .." Cassie straightened up, no longer bending at the waist, but not standing completely upright either."In fact, you should think of yourself as a soldier, Cassie. Stand at attention, shoulders back, stomach in, chest out. I believe that corset will start to feel even better if you do that."Her body responded by snapping into the classic soldier's pose, her back straight as a rail, her stomach muscles pulling inward. As I thought it would, the lingering pain from the tightness of the corset. "He was not mine when you did that." But he is now?" asked Penny.Cynthia looked over at her."My words were true," she said. "I will do anything if I can live with my father." If your father can live with you," corrected Lady Penny. "You will be the wife, and Louis will be the husband, and it will be in your cottage that the forest warden rests his weary bones between his patrols."Cynthia's face lit up, and her shame and embarrassment fled, as if they had never existed."Yes!" she yipped.Then.