they say you're a saint, you're a whore, you're a sinner
After a brief discussion (ahem) in Martel's offices at the palace earlier, Maryani managed to tug him along to the dressmaker's with her. Nourelle's adulthood had been kept off long enough, and she'd requested and had tailored a dress to suit her daughter's age. Most people kept thinking Maryani was the girl's sister, not her mother, which would've been flattering to any other woman. In Maryani's case, she just tended to look kind of shifty about it; it's not hereditary luck that keeps her looking this young, exactly.
"Hers is the red one," Maryani tells Martel with a casual gesture, "They keep trying to get me into one like it--and that's fine and all, but I've got enough ladylike dresses. Mine are much more comfortable, and it's not as if I'm trying to be proper like Nourelle."
Who is really only proper (ever) for the sake of being kind of a sneak. It's something of a terrible, almost-mean joke between Nourelle and Maryani, the hiding Nourelle's ethnic background. They think they're funny. Meanwhile, Maryani is going to tuck herself against Martel's side, because these people think they're married and can't yell at them for it. They've got other reasons for disapproval.
That's another one of those private jokes she likes, but she's not sure Martel is quite as fond of it.