Chapter 9
Log entry
We are playing Grosstarock, Victoria. Have you played before?” Rosemary asked. “We shall have to form teams of three and rotate dealers.”
“Uh, yes, I’ve played,” Victoria muttered into a tall bird of paradise. She shouldn’t have come and wished to leave.
“We’ll use a seventy-eight card Tarock pack,” Wilhelm said, his voice loud and horrible in the elegant glass conservatory.
“Shall we play for garments?” Rudolph, Wilhelm’s friend, and one of the men that had brought him to the castle, was in attendance at the gathering. The gathering that had been on Friday, like Victoria had remembered.
“We most certainly shall not,” snapped Johanna as she followed behind the young-looking man. “You are making Ida all red again.” She snorted as she followed closely behind the man. Victoria got the impression they must be a pair from the way she teased and followed him.
“I am not all red. Can we not have one gathering wherein the males of our party are not attempting to mount us?” Ida smoothed her black hair into place, though not a single hair had strayed from the elegant updo.
“Ida!” Sophia chastised as she waltzed into the conservatory to meet the rest of the group.
Victoria and Helena had been the first to arrive at Ida’s beautiful mansion.
In the carriage, Helena had given Victoria a bit of helpful information on the members of the group.
For prim and proper Ida, whose family was incredibly wealthy, it was that, if Victoria wished to make a nice impression, they should arrive early as the hostess absolutely begrudged everyone that didn’t follow the polite guidelines of societal manners.
This was quickly followed by informing Victoria that none of the group, including the hypocritical Ida, were truly all that strict about societal guidelines—in private.
Publicly, the group acted poised and perfect, as was necessary of their stations.
Helena said Sophia was kind, very well off, and completely consumed with the latest fashions from France.
Helena said Victoria would have to work the hardest to earn Sophia’s friendship.
Helena had no idea. With her fiancé coercing an affair, it would probably be a bit more difficult than Victoria just taking her to lunch.
Johanna was younger than the others but was arguably the wealthiest of the group.
She apparently was a princess of some distant country no one had ever heard of, so they made an exception for her despite her immaturity.
Apparently she was completely in love with Rudolph and Emerson, both friends of Wilhelm’s.
Rosemary, who arrived last, was quiet and shy, but hilarious once she opened up, at least according to Helena. She had married into wealth and status but lost her husband after only a year of marriage.
“Well, if not for garments, then we should put a thaler on the table to keep it lively,” Rudolph chirped.
Sophia passed in front of where Victoria stood with Helena and Rosemary on the way to the large circular table in the center of the slightly humid glass room filled with blooming flowers and fronds of green. “Fine with me,” she called ahead.
She paused in her steps when she passed Victoria. The color of her pink dress brightened in contrast to Victoria’s black blouse and matching skirt. Sophia’s flawless skin and sun-drenched hair made her look as if she were a beautiful oil painting come to life.
Victoria’s only piece of color was the small, ivory pin she wore with her mother’s silhouette etched out of bone; an Ouroboros circled the border of the small oval piece she wore clasped at her throat.
“Though perhaps we ought not tempt fortune when some among us can ill afford her,” Sophia added with a nasty smile aimed at Victoria.
“Sophia, behave,” Helena chided, inciting a glare from her friend.
Everyone knew, especially nobles and wealthier families, that Victoria and her father were placed in the Thousand-Sword Castle because they were in the count’s favor, and they could barely afford more than a few servants and staff for the large home.
Sophia’s stare turned wicked. “Of course you would befriend the stray. Lonely, lonely Helena. You do love caring for the wretched, mangy curs, don’t you?
” Sophia’s words turned cold and harsh, but they remained quiet enough for the others not to notice.
“Say, how is your husband all alone in France without you?” She clicked her tongue.
“I forgot; he’s not really alone, is he? How is Leopold?”
Helena’s jaw clenched as she took a step forward until the women were almost nose to nose.
Silent tension filled the glass conservatory, so heavy it finally drew the notice of the others seated around an iron and wood table designed to look like ivy was climbing over it.
“Sophia, my darling, sit next to me. The sight of you in that fluttering, soft gown teases me so.” Wilhelm broke the silence.
Sophia’s harsh stare and thin lips snapped into a smooth, evil smile.
“Victoria, come; you can sit on my other side. Helena, could you be an absolute angel and fetch me a tankard of Dunkles Bier?” Wilhelm added jovially.
Sophia’s smile fell as she stared at Victoria.
Helena’s intelligent eyes passed between Sophia and Victoria curiously. “Get it yourself,” she replied in a low, friendly tone, though her face relayed nothing of the sort as she watched the two other women exchange stares.
Laughter spilled from the table.
“Let me,” Ida said as she leaped from her seat at the table, likely eager to leave the tension that had filled the corners and high ceiling of the beautiful glass room. Rosemary followed close behind.
Victoria, feeling horrid for Sophia, did her best to take a stand, clearly on the woman’s side.
“If it’s all the same, I think I’ll sit this one out.
Sophia is right; a wager would make the game far more fun, and she is also right to assume I would not partake,” Victoria choked out.
It was odd and uncomfortable speaking in front of so many people.
So many eyes, perceiving and judging her.
She did her best not to interact beyond the bare minimum of expectations at social events.
Lately she found she didn’t want to do anything but work on the cadaver.
It gave her such comfort and purpose to patch and repair the dead man.
She found that all she wanted to do was be near him.
It was amazing the companionship that accompanied her time working on him.
How much his cold, dead hand in hers felt like home.
Another secret for her to keep, at least this one was not alone.
“You are trying to repel any potential suitors that might be desperate enough to give you a second glance. You still haven’t any friends despite being deposited in the most influential circles. You shouldn’t burden your father any longer.” Dr. Paranthal’s words curled into her brain like a spectre.
“Nonsense,” Wilhelm stated firmly. “I insist. I’ll advance the stake—you may settle with me later.” His eyes skipped briefly over Sophia to latch on to Victoria’s uncomfortable stare.
“Come on, come on!” shouted Johanna. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Let’s get on with it,” repeated Rudolph.
Sophia pressed her lips together until their border blanched. Her dress lifted in the air in a whirl of light pink as she spun away from Victoria and took her seat next to her fiancé.
A shadow trapped against a lively backdrop of plants, Victoria hesitantly moved to the table. The flowery scent of jasmine and honeysuckle drifted through the air as she brushed past outstretched branches and moved to sit in the chair across from Wilhelm.
“Pardon, that’s my seat,” Rosemary interrupted politely as she returned and set two pewter tankards of beer on the table in front of Wilhelm and Rudolph.
“Of course, excuse me,” Victoria apologized, standing back up.
Reluctantly, she moved around the table and took the only available seat next to Wilhelm.
His hand moved firmly over Victoria’s thigh under the cover of the table. “All right, the talon lies ready. Who dares it?” Wilhelm exclaimed, marking the beginning of the game.
Her thigh slammed into the bottom of the table with a jolt. “Forgive me.” The liquid in the glasses settled, and everyone’s eyes returned to the game.
Sophia’s eyes snagged on the movement, but she recovered quickly, letting out a forced laugh and leaning into Wilhelm’s shoulder. “The daring is yours by habit, my love; however, winning is not.”
Victoria tucked her elbows in and tried to keep her shoulders tight as she attempted to remove his hand from her thigh.
She could feel her cheeks heat and blotch with embarrassment.
What if someone saw? What would they think?
They would think she was a whore—word would get back to her father, who would be devastated.
She would be forced to tell him that Wilhelm knew everything.
She’d be forced to tell her father what she had done to keep him from talking.
“Victoria?”
Helena’s voice broke into her racing, panicked thoughts.
She shifted her focus to see Helena sitting diagonally from her, looking directly at Wilhelm’s hand on her thigh.
A cool lightness pressed into Victoria’s abdomen, feeling as if all her insides had fallen away with the blood that drained from her face as her eyes met with Helena’s.
Helena’s head tilted to the left as her thick black brows pinched together. “Victoria, be a dear and trade me seats, would you? I need the light from the window to see my cards better, and the jasmine in this corner is making me sneeze.”
Both women exchanged silent glances of understanding.
“Of course.” Victoria gathered the fabric of her skirt and, with a nervous look at Wilhelm, scurried to take Helena’s now-empty seat.
Wilhelm cast a hard look at Helena as she moved around the table and took the seat next to him. “Funny, I didn’t hear you sneeze once.”
Her eyes examined his face for a moment. “You must’ve been preoccupied.”