Chapter 10 – Hunters on the Trail #3
“I know it is hard, but it does no good to fret and worry while he’s away,” she said, selecting several dresses to offer.
“I used to spend hours with my gowns when I was first married, to discover what I liked and what was most becoming. The day is brighter when you feel beautiful. And won’t he be pleased to come home and find you so? ”
“I suppose…” the duchess replied, with mild interest.
“As you wore the pink yesterday, perhaps the blue today?” Mionet began with spirit. It was not easy to build a bridge made of gowns, but those were the materials she had to work with. “Or the violet, the lace in the bodice is so lovely…”
That was it. The single distinction between the violet and the blue was the lace in the bodice, and as she held the two gowns up, groping for something else to say, anything else, there was literally no other possible remark.
The chilly October air meant it was too cold for any of the duchess’s more ornate silk gowns, and that left them with plain violet wool, plain blue wool, plain green wool, and plain red wool.
And the duchess knew it. The thought flashed between them through some horrid, unstoppable telepathy, and the shock of embarrassment in those clear, amber-colored eyes was as explicit as if it had been written down.
“And we can have a rummage through your ribbons,” Mionet concluded bravely, but this battle had already been lost. Peri’s arrival with the cold compress just put them all out of their misery.
There had to be a way. Forging social connections was a slow, patient process, especially between such dissimilar characters.
In Segoile, there would have been a thousand diversions with which to woo the duchess into friendship: carriage riding, shopping, dances and teas, art, music, and the theater.
A hundred different salons. And though Mionet was bursting with tales of these pleasant pastimes—how else was she ever going to tempt the duchess into the capital?
—there was little opportunity to share them.
Every moment of Duchess Andelin’s day was spent in some form of drudgery.
As soon as she was dressed, she went back to her desk, to scratch away with her quill for hours on end.
At lunch, she gave lessons to a vulgar pageboy, and in the afternoons she either went to the offices above the storehouse or watched as Mionet explained sewing to an unenthusiastic Elodie.
As often as she could, Mionet tried to move the subject to Segoile and its many wonders, but the duchess always politely shifted it right back again, as if Mionet had traveled to the far end of the Empire for the express purpose of teaching embroidery to a rude peasant girl.
Who wasn’t even grateful.
“You know what we might do today,” Mionet said, as she and Elodie stood outside the storehouse, waiting for the duchess. “Perhaps we might persuade Her Grace to go into town again. I hear there are more shops opening soon, and I’m sure she could use some fresh air.”
“Why?” Elodie asked suspiciously.
“Well, I think she has been very sad, with His Grace away,” Mionet replied, leaning down in a conspiratorial fashion. “Wouldn’t you like to cheer her up?”
“My Uncle Auber went too,” Elodie said, missing the important part of the sentence entirely. She had been pacing back and forth before the office, heel-to-toe, and gave a hop as she about-faced. “They’re going to kill the devils.”
“And aren’t you sad that he’s gone away?” Mionet asked, hoping to wring some sympathy out of the little monster.
“Nah.” Hop. Elodie’s arms stretched out for balance.
“My uncle is one of the Knights of the Brede, they’re the best knights in the whole world.
And they’re going to go kill all the devils and Uncle Auber said he’s going to bring back one of their teeth for me and Pirot, and Mama will bake a chicken pie. That’s his favorite.”
“Well, the duchess misses His Grace now,” Mionet said firmly. “What if we thought of something nice to do to surprise her?”
“Like what?” Hop .
This was clearly barren soil. Elodie was nothing like the polite and well-spoken aristocratic children she had known in Segoile.
The peasant girl’s idea of a pleasant surprise was probably an extra crust of bread at supper, or finding a shiny rock.
But there were things Elodie could do that Mionet could not, excused by her youth and ignorance, and it would have been incredibly convenient to be able to overstep a few paces with the excuse of indulging the child.
As things stood right now, Elodie was more likely to look the duchess dead in the eye and disavow all knowledge of any scheme Mionet concocted.
There was one other possible opportunity. The next day, Mionet worked assiduously to maintain a friendly atmosphere, aided by the appearance of a dozen dainty éclairs sent up from that odious cook. She would never have imagined that he was capable of such work.
“From Wen?” Duchess Andelin said, taking the basket with surprised pleasure. The cook might have made them, but Lady Verr had already read the accompanying note that made it quite clear that the Duke of Andelin had forced Wen to disgrace himself as far as choux pastry.
The pleasant mood persisted through Sousten’s visit that afternoon, intended to discuss the décor of the dressing rooms. Sousten Didion was the only person in this benighted place that could speak fluently about the capital and its many diversions, and Mionet seized every opportunity to entice him to stay and do so.
“No, the first time I came to the capital was for my debut,” she replied the next time he visited, having successfully maneuvered him into asking the question.
“I was sixteen, and the nearest large town to my father’s country house was half a day away.
I had never seen anything so thrilling. We arrived two months before the start of the season, but it still took weeks to find a seamstress for my gown.
Have you given any thought to your debut, my lady? ”
“Not really,” the duchess replied, glancing between them. “His Grace said we aren’t going to Segoile next year.”
They would see about that, Mionet thought, but outwardly offered only a beaming smile .
“It’s just as well, for you would never get everything done in time,” she said. “Can you not imagine the splash she would make, Sousten? The debut of Princess Ophele, Duchess of Andelin! They would all go mad for you.”
That was all it took. Sousten’s imagination went off like fireworks.
“My stars, it would be an earthquake!” he exclaimed, turning toward Duchess Andelin with shining eyes.
“We are too pent in this valley sometimes, but Lady Verr is right, Your Grace, you ought to begin planning straightaway. Your gown, your jewels, your house in town, your presentation to the Emperor! Oh, what a spectacle that will be!”
“Why would it be a spectacle?” Duchess Andelin asked, and Mionet and Sousten all but tripped over each other in explaining the delightful festivities, the necessity of finding the perfect atelier, and the thousand and one other details that it would be social suicide to overlook.
The duchess listened with rapt attention.
“You will be fêted within an inch of your life,” Mionet said with satisfaction.
“Every noble House in the city would be fighting for your attention. To say nothing of the artists and clothiers and jewelers—oh, you will need a secretary to manage them all. And the patissiers, and the vintners offering up their rarest wines and spirits…I once had a honey wine from the south that was so light and sweet, it was like drinking sunshine. I wonder if it could be found again.”
“From Khartamu? I had it at a banquet, quite the perfect finish for the evening,” Sousten agreed. “Earl Yvenot’s wife discovered it. She always was such a skilled hostess, I never missed one of her events.”
“Why do you say she was skilled?” Duchess Andelin asked, with a guileless flick of golden eyes that prompted Sousten to expound at length about the qualities of a truly exquisite banquet.
“If you would like, my lady, we could begin planning your debut together,” Mionet suggested when the time was right, and the duchess agreed so readily it felt almost too easy.
“What was your debut like?” Duchess Andelin asked, with that same innocent interest, and soon Mionet found herself struggling to remember details she hadn’t thought of in years, everything from how the musicians had been selected for her presentation ball to what color the tea roses had been.
“Oh, no, most noble houses have their own dancing master,” Sousten said, in answer to another question, and Mionet found herself eying the duchess and wondering how they had gotten on this subject.
“The dances change every season, you know. But once you have mastered the basics, it’s only the matter of learning a different combination. ”
“Did you learn them after you went to Segoile?” Duchess Andelin asked. Sousten was the son of a wealthy merchant and had been educated accordingly, though his rise to fame had been on his own merit.
“No, indeed. I began learning when I was eight,” he said jovially. “Dancing is one of the high arts of the Empire, I should be ashamed to step onto the floor otherwise.”
“Do you enjoy dancing, my lady?” Mionet asked, angling her head toward Duchess Andelin. Somehow it felt as if she were circling in the vicinity of…something.
“I do,” the duchess replied, her lashes veiling her eyes. “But I haven’t gotten to very often. Did you begin early as well?”