Page 70 of The Truth of Our Past: Unframed Art MM Romance

This place was a dump.

A mire.

A midden.

A fish-scented prison at the far end of nowhere, a backwater to which she was arriving by literal boat.

Lady Mionet Verr, twenty-seven and widowed, stood near the prow of the ferry with her gloved hands neatly folded and endeavored not to touch anything.

A slender woman with auburn hair and gray eyes, her blue brocade gown was an object lesson on the importance of a good tailor and was still absolutely spotless, despite the long journey through rough country.

Her gloves were unblemished white; her hair was drawn up in a perfect, graceful knot, and if she had a few loose curls at her temples, it was because she had allowed them to escape.

The Roses of Segoile, sharp-eyed and even sharper-tongued, could not have identified a single flaw in her appearance or manner.

Indeed, Mionet was a veteran of those feminine wars.

And she was not quitting that battlefield, she told herself for the thousandth time, lifting her chin.

This was merely a tactical retreat.

“Handle those carefully, if you please,”

she said to the first porter that approached her luggage, a heap of matching trunks, hatboxes, and bandboxes that were as pristine now as they had been at the beginning of her journey.

Beside them were several immense crates that had been in her care all the way from Ereguil, directed to Duke Remin Andelin and no one else.

She would be glad to have them off her hands.

At the foot of the gangplank, a bald man was waiting politely for her, clearly some sort of authority in this benighted place, as he was not covered in dirt.

“My lady,”

said the bald man, with a bow.

“I am Master Gibel.

You are Lady Verr from Ereguil?”

“You are the dockmaster? I was sent by the duchess, yes.”

Reaching into her satchel, she produced her pass, stamped with the seal of Duke Ereguil.

“I sent a message this morning.

I believe there should be a wagon waiting?”

“Yes, my lady.

That’s it over there,”

said the bald man, waving toward the long row of warehouses where a box on wheels was waiting.

“We’ll have some men load it up for you, if you’d like to rest in the shade.”

“Thank you,”

she said, retrieving her pass and dismissing the suggestion in a single gesture.

“Please have a messenger sent to His Grace to let him know I have arrived, as well as the items from Ereguil.

His Grace will have been expecting them.

I am placing them in your care.

He will not thank you if they are in any way damaged.”

The mingling of herself with the precious items would ensure prompt attention.

And she had no notion of letting the porters handle her luggage unsupervised.

Beckoning them after her, she shepherded them toward the wagon to ensure the boxes were arranged in such a way that rough roads wouldn’t bounce them back out.

“Lady Verr,”

said the driver of the wagon, dropping from the box with a quick jerk of his head.

He looked little better than a porter in his dusty trousers, but moved with a martial bearing she instantly recognized.

“I am Justenin of Tresingale. Welcome.”

“Sir knight,”

Mionet replied, offering him her hand.

She might have had a commoner mother, but Lady Mionet Verr was the daughter of a nobleman and had been duly presented to society at sixteen, with her name written in the Empress’s book.

The only people that outranked her in this city were the Duke and Duchess of Andelin, Lord Edemir of Trecht, and Lord Leonin of Breuyir, the fifth son of a Tries bannerman.

Everyone knew that Tounot of Belleme had been disowned by his father.

“A pleasure,”

said Sir Justenin.

“I am to convey you to the manor, and ask you to forgive the rustic accommodation.

Duke Ereguil said you were acquainted with our circumstances.”

“I am,”

Mionet agreed, allowing him to boost her into the wagon.

“Have Their Graces been moved up to the manor?”

“Next week.

But it will be some time for the rest of us,”

he warned, leaping lightly into the wagon.

Mionet knew Sir Justenin by reputation, but would have been warned to tread carefully by those placid pale eyes.

“Master Didion and the builders are to begin work on the west wing once the family quarters are complete.

In the meantime, we will occupy cottages nearby…”

With the ease of long practice, Mionet listened with half an ear and murmured the correct responses, but her eyes were on the town as they turned onto what was no doubt the only road.

It was every bit as backward as she had expected, little better than the dusty cow hole where she had been born, as if all her life had been leading her to the furthest forest of the Empire, so she could putter about with mushrooms like her mother.

And this far forest must be ruled by a suitably rustic lord and lady, of no real significance or influence in spite of their lofty titles.

It was some consolation that soon—perhaps even today—she would get to meet Princess Ophele in the flesh.

The Exile Princess was the subject of frothing curiosity in the capital, and Mionet Verr would be the first to find out whether she was the simpleton they said she was.

Carefully, of course.

Those same gossips made Remin Grimjaw quite the brute.

“Please be careful,”

she said again when they arrived on the hilltop, and Sir Justenin dragged her baggage over one shoulder.

The whole top of the hill was a construction site, with the great shell of the manor house on the western peak and rows of cottages beside it.

Was this what was meant by wattle and daub? She had heard of it, but had never in her life expected to see it with her own eyes.

Even the peasants in her father’s cow hole built with stone.

“If you would like to settle in and refresh yourself, Lady Verr, I will send a message to Her Grace informing her of your arrival,”

Sir Justenin said, pushing open a door in the first row of cottages.

“No, that is quite all right, I have already sent a message,”

she said, resisting the urge to poke at the daub with a gloved fingertip.

“Where will you be, in case I need you?”

“For the next hour, in my quarters,”

he said, pointing out the cottage at the end of the row.

“We have two stable lads living in that one, nearest the barn, and they won’t mind helping you with water and firewood until the other servants arrive.

I took the liberty of bringing up some refreshments from the kitchen, but I will caution you against keeping food uncovered.

It will attract mice.”

“Very good,”

Mionet said politely, and went into her cottage and shut the door.

There was no point in unpacking.

There was nothing to unpack into.

In less than an hour, Mionet had washed, changed into a fresh gown of coppery watered silk, acquired paper, quill, and ink, and presented a list of essential items to Sir Justenin, which began with a mirror and ended with a promise that someone would come to collect her chamber pot.

Really, it was ridiculous that a lady should even have to contemplate such crudities.

The invitation from Duchess Andelin came even more promptly than she had hoped.

Mionet was just finishing a light tea when the duchess’s messenger arrived in the unlikely form of a small girl.

“Yes?”

Mionet said in the door of her hovel, directing her attention downward.

“Hello, my lady is in the cookhouse and says you can come see her there now if you feel like it,”

the girl said, proud of having delivered this in a single breath.

“And who are you?”

“I’m her page,”

the girl said, puffing visibly.

“Your name, child,”

Mionet said, with exaggerated patience and wondering if this was some prank.

“Oh.

Elodie.

Elodie Conbour of Tresingale, I said the oath to His Grace.”

“Elodie Conbour, my lady,”

Mionet corrected.

“Have you not learned your courtesies? Frechard! Do you know this child?”

“Oh, yes, m’lady,”

said Frechard.

The stableboy had been fetching the promised load of firewood.

“Hi, Elodie.

Her Grace send you?”

“Yes.”

The girl was glaring up at Mionet mutinously.

“She sent me to fetch Lady Verr.

Frechard, do you know if this is Lady Verr?”

“Yes…”

Frechard answered cautiously, glancing between the lady and the girl as if he had just realized he had stumbled into a den of lions.

“Thank you, Frechard, you may go,”

said Mionet, smiling gently without ever taking her eyes from the impudent little urchin.

Outrageous.

But also rather admirable, for sheer audacity.

“Elodie, please direct me to Her Grace.”

“I’m s’posed to take you there,”

the girl retorted, and at Mionet’s flat stare, added a grudging, “my lady.

But I’m s’posed to watch out for strangers just in case any bad people try to hurt His Grace, or maybe even try to hurt the lady.

She’s the Daughter of the Stars, she’s important. ”

“I am Her Grace’s lady-in-waiting,”

Mionet replied crisply, picking her way around a variety of mud puddles.

“Where is the wagon? Did someone bring you here?”

“I walked,”

the girl said, sloshing along with barefoot unconcern.

“Everyone walks everywhere.

It’s not far though.

What’s a lady-in-waiting?”

Lies.

It was far.

It was an interminable dusty distance and uphill for half of it.

Deliberately, Mionet slowed her pace to avoid any unbecoming perspiration.

She did not waste the time; a little conversation soon soothed the prickly child and Elodie was a fount of information. By the time they reached the cookhouse, Mionet already knew where the most important buildings in town were located and a fair number of the chief players, though she would take the words of a nine year-old with due skepticism.

The duchess was standing in the open doors of the cookhouse as they approached, with two men in armor on either side and a tall boy before her, gangly and big-handed.

It was fortunate that the guards were there.

Her dress was so plain, Mionet would have thought her a servant otherwise, with her masses of hair contained in a simple plait and not a single jewel in sight.

When the duchess’s gaze flicked to Mionet, that lady noted both the startled flinch in her golden eyes, and the self-effacing hunch of her shoulders.

“Lady Verr?”

she asked timidly.

“Your Grace,”

said Mionet, with a deep curtsy.

“I am Lady Mionet Verr, and am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh, rise. Please,”

said the duchess, in a voice so soft it was nearly inaudible.

“I’m glad to meet you…journey…difficult…”

“Not at all, Your Grace.”

Mionet made her best guess at what the duchess had said and straightened, smiling.

“I’m pleased to finally be here.

Tresingale appears a proper beehive, it is most exciting.”

“There’s a…before winter.”

The duchess’s hands gave an anxious flutter that instantly set Mionet’s teeth on edge.

“These are my guards.

Sir Leonin.

Sir…vi…and this is Jacot, he is…”

It was with difficulty that Mionet restrained herself from moving closer simply to hear better.

Surely, she must have heard wrong; that could not be Leonin of Breuyir, the son of an earl, serving as a guard for this little mouse? What a comedown for a nobleman.

“Lady,”

muttered Jacot, who was clearly as common as cobblestones and eager to be gone.

“You can take the book with you, and please finish the chapter,”

the duchess said a little louder, and the boy offered a single jerky bow and departed.

“Have you eaten, Lady Verr?”

“I have, Your Grace, thank you.”

It was natural to offer hospitality first, but Mionet did not fancy torturing a conversation out of this creature.

“Duchess Ereguil gave me a little guidance before I departed.

I gather you have no lady to manage your wardrobe or bath at present?”

“No.

There is a bathhouse…”

The duchess’s hands moved toward several of the worst crumples in her gown as if to hide them.

“Most of my clothes…storehouse.”

“Well, if you are not too tired, my lady, then perhaps we might begin there while we get to know one another,”

Mionet said brightly.

“It is such fun to look at gowns, is it not? And then we may talk about the things you like, and see what ravishing costumes we might put together.

Shall we?”

“All right,”

agreed the duchess, as Mionet had been almost certain she would.

The maneuver served to separate the duchess from her guard dogs, who could not be hovering while they were discussing something so intimate as the lady’s clothing, though Elodie clung determinedly to her mistress, like a guard dog of the toy variety.

“It is a good range of colors,”

Mionet remarked as gown after gown was drawn forth in the dim confines of the storehouse.

It was really the only thing she could say in their favor.

Inwardly, she was shocked and appalled as drab gown after drab gown emerged, many of them draggled, stained, blotted, crumpled, or otherwise defaced.

There were only two of any real significance at all.

It was a serious problem.

She had very little here to work with.

And that included the duchess, who had barely spoken a dozen words.

“I was three years with Lady Carolen Sallen,”

Mionet said, giving no sign of any of this.

“She is the wife of Duke Ereguil’s second son, and the last ensemble we planned was for the opening of the Gold Leaf Theater.

She is famous for her patronage of artists, you know.

Her gown that night was a champagne-colored silk with accents in pink and melon, with tourmalines.

It all looked like a sunset together, and quite smashing on a blonde.”

“There isn’t anything like that here,”

said the duchess, looking both apologetic and intrigued.

“Yet,”

said Mionet, with a little mischief.

“But with your hair and eyes, my lady, I think perhaps…”

In a trice, she had selected a half-dozen gowns, mostly in pretty, muted colors because the lady was not confident enough for flash.

Even as she chattered on, Mionet eyed her like a sculptor sizing up a likely bit of clay.

The duchess had a figure to die for, and good tailoring would make a world of difference even to these drab gowns.

Good hair, or at least a great deal of it, and her eyes were really rather spectacular, so large and distinctive in hue.

She might be quite a smasher, if she would just stand up straight and stop flinching.

It was an unforgivable waste that she did not dress to her station, especially since everyone knew the Duke of Andelin was richer than many nations.

If there was one thing Mionet Verr detested, it was to see a thing done poorly.

“Are there any colors you especially like, Your Grace?”

she inquired, setting the least terrible dresses aside for further attention.

“Oh.

Um, green?”

The duchess’s fingers brushed over a green silk gown, probably the third best of the available dresses and still heartlessly plain.

“His Grace likes me to wear green.”

Mionet made a mental note.

And also noted the flush in the lady’s cheeks when she said it.

“And you, yourself?”

“Pink? Light pink,”

she qualified nervously, as that color spread to the tips of her ears, and she looked down at her feet.

Mionet generously shifted her attention to give the duchess room to recover.

“What do you think, Elodie?”

she asked, turning to the girl, who had been in raptures to be included in such a grown-up pastime.

“What gown do you like best on Her Grace?”

“Oooh, this one,”

Elodie said instantly, with no shyness whatever.

She held up a wine-red gown with a pretty embroidered bodice.

“This one’s my favorite.”

“Oh, it is?”

The duchess asked, much easier with the child.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to keep the girl close at hand, at least in the beginning.

“Yes, it’s so soft, and makes you look so sweet and dear that I want to give you a hug,”

Elodie said artlessly, with a triumphant glance at Mionet as Duchess Andelin exclaimed and immediately offered one.

“It is a lovely color, especially for the season,”

Mionet agreed, adding it to the small pile of acceptable gowns.

“Is there a tailor in town, Your Grace?”

“No, not yet.

There is one coming from Belleme.

Sir Tounot’s mother recommended him.

Master Tiffen.”

It was easier to hear the duchess’s soft voice at close quarters.

“It is quite a long journey from Belleme.”

“You might be surprised what we can manage in the meantime.

I have an idea,”

Mionet said, tapping a fingertip to her lips.

“Perhaps you will allow me to make a trial of you one morning, and surprise His Grace? I think you will like the results.”

“I suppose so,”

Duchess Andelin replied nervously.

It would mean a lot of tedious sewing and a late night or two for Mionet, but sometimes sacrifices were necessary.

As they looked through the gowns and Mionet spun delightful visions of the possibilities, she also gleaned a great deal of information about the lady, the bathhouse, and the duke.

The man himself appeared in the door of the storehouse a little after sunset, and Mionet was so surprised when he burst through the door, she almost dropped her armload of gowns.

“Ophele?”

he asked, his black eyes narrowing in the dim light, and as the duchess hurried to his side, Mionet had to take a moment to gather herself.

Stars, they spoke often enough of Remin Grimjaw in Segoile, but they only blathered on about Supreme Sword this and Valleth that and had he really needed quite such a bloody conclusion to the war.

Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that the man was spectacular? While masculine beauty was no virtue to Mionet Verr, it would have been nice to be warned.

Rising, she set the gowns aside and waited to be introduced.

“…helping with my gowns,”

the duchess was explaining.

“Your Grace, this is Lady Verr.

She arrived today.”

“Your Grace,”

Mionet murmured, sinking into a flawless curtsy.

“Lady Verr.”

His hand flicked an order to rise.

“I am pleased by such diligence.

You will serve Her Grace well.”

Mionet heard the unspoken or else.

“It will be my pleasure,”

she said, eying him.

He looked quite forbidding, and it would likely be exceedingly dangerous to get on his bad side, but unless she was much mistaken… “The duchess was showing me her wardrobe,”

Mionet explained, moving a few paces into the light and deliberately smoothing the skirt of her silk gown, which was finer by far than anything the duchess owned.

“There is a tailor named Tiffen on the way to the valley?”

“Yes.

There has been little need for finery,”

he said with a flash of those opaque black eyes.

“But she will be as well-dressed as any woman in the Empire.”

It was all there, so clearly it might as well have been written down.

Under Remin Grimjaw’s regard, the duchess bloomed into startling beauty, all that anxiety vanishing as if it had never been.

And though his face did not alter in its stern lines, there was no mistaking the look in his eyes when he looked down at her.

Between them, almost hidden by the lady’s skirts, Mionet spied their fingers touching.

“Yes, Your Grace,”

she said, bowing her head to hide a smile.

“Her Grace is quite lovely.

It will be a pleasure to see her more so.”

How very interesting.

* * *