Updated: 03/17/2019*
When Adella Met Charlus Bougainvillea
It was charity that I was invited and given a carriage to the Winter Ball.
Charity I may have been bestowed, but Isolation was the thing I understood most.
There were three barriers that separated me entirely from polite society.
The first, is that I had no money, came from none, and would likely die without it.
The second, was that I had no prospects. I was not very bright. I mean in the clever way educated girls perfected until their wit was something of a reckoning to both sexes. My inadequacy was not for lack of trying, but for lack of support. I had no schooling or tutoring to brag about, parents that cared more of daily living than a luxury of a beautifully written book, and in that regard, I knew and cared little for the world around me. You could find me worried more about finishing a heavy romance novel, than worrying about the political and financial crisis of the powers of state seemed to cook when War wasn't there to distract them.
The last, and perhaps most disturbing, was that I was already a burden on the family that was keeping me. I came to them in a bad way. I was already twenty years old, un-married without daring to try to remedy it, with no family ties, at least respectable ones, and above all I was frightened. Deathly frightened of losing their favor, that blessed charity. Worried over coming out in society, of the elite, and those that could see straight through my incompetence and remind my saviors of how little I was.
I had not always been this way.
I had come from the sea. Strong, loud, and wild in all it's wonder. I had been born and bred a sailor's left-behind daughter. Not a true-born. I was bastard-born. My mother came from little consequence, and was married to a merchant man with whom had been gone for a year's turn on some travels to the countryside, leaving her lonely and forgotten. My sire was a man that lusted, loved, and left many a heartbroken lady amongst his voyages to sea and return to port.
The story starts with my sailor father whom caught sight of my mother at the docks and fell fiercely in love for a summer.
The young and strapping man made a few songs for her as the tale goes, visited under her window to sing to her, rapping his fingers on a harp, and on many a night she opened her window to listen to his serande. But, when the tide and wind called, he loved the sea more, and took to his sailing once more.
Perhaps, that is what my mother saw in his eyes, the ocean, untamed, a power to be reckoned with, worshiped. Perhaps that is what drew her to him, and what made her play winking games with me as a child, so that she could remember the man that had begotten her with child, and the eyes that he had left as the only memory of him.
"You have the most beautiful eyes Adella." She would gladly say to me. "You are my ocean eyes. Wink them for me! Wink!" I did, and when I had been winking she had been getting over the fact that the man she had risked everything for, her marriage, her respectable nature, was not as steadfast as she had first thought he would be.
As a small child, I hated my true father, my lustful and selfish sire.
In the dead of night, as my mother cried. I would toss and turn, huff and puff in bed. How could he leave my mother? Who would want to? Who would dare leave her to deal with the blame and scorn alone?
My mother did not know true scorn until her husband returned.
My mother's beauty and tear-drenched apologies was not enough to hold back the disgust and rage my step-father felt at the sight of me. He beat her for it. For many years he beat her until she was a shell of what she was before, and I grew up and took her place. I had not meant to be a victim. If it was my choice, I would have left the moment I could. If it hadn't been her, I would have taken my chances, but I could not.
I was the one that took care of her.
I was the one that led my mother to the bath, washed her, made sure she was not left in her filth, that she still ate, and that someone was there to hold her hand. Even if it was a piece of her left, I loved her still. Taking the brunt of my step-father's beating meant nothing to the fear I felt at leaving her to deal with him in her state. She would not fight. She would not even speak. So, I stayed.
I stayed until one morning I woke up with her cold next to me.
The carriage door opened. "You have arrived Lady…?"
"Adella Frasier." The stage-coach master helped me down.
"Lady Adella Frasier has arrived." He announced to the door keep that let me into the housing for the Winter Ball, even if there was no Lady Adella Fraiser, and the silly smile on my face must have told him that.
I patted down my gown.
My pale lime ballroom gown was severely outdated. Thankfully it was covered by the very kind and generous Mrs. Evergarden's warm white-furred petticoat. She had worn the same to the last Winter Ball and complimented that it would fit nicely with my dark onyx air and my lovely sun-deprived pale features. Her good-sister had been the one to apply red-berry to my lips and cheeks, a savage red that led me to blush even more deeply, and she had finished with brushing my curls into a sophisticated curl-style atop my head. To my relief the same style that many girls my age were wearing now as I entered the Vivace Summer Palace.
I would blend in easily. Just another face in the crowd. I told myself, glad for that at the least.
"This way," they led us to a ballroom, taking my coat with them. My relief splashing over me at last and growing when I saw that Mr. and Mrs. Evergarden were already here amongst the crowd of standing guest, rimming the room of dancing partners, and large spread of tables with warm wafting food that made my growling tummy rumble and my mouth water.
Instead of going to the food, I walked to the Evergarden couple, wondering why they had not come with me, deigning to take their own carriage for reasons I did not understand. Their charity to me always seemed at lost…. Until I spotted the man they were speaking with.
"Our dear Adella." Mrs. Evergarden brought my now bare shoulders into her warm embrace, greeting me. Thankfully the only bare part of myself in the dress that had once been Mrs. Evergarden when she had been in her own twenties. "How was the carriage?"
"Very fine Mrs. Evergarden."
"My sister outdid herself, just look at you, the belle of the ball," she remarked proudly. "I told her you would clean up nicely," looking me over as if she had expected nothing less.
"You are too kind to me." I remarked truthfully. My country-side beauty was no match for the aristocratic airs of her people.
Mrs. Evergarden herself, was regal in her thirties, both in character and in vision. I felt envious that she no longer had to wear the ruffles and tight-waisted dresses that seemed to be the rage not only in her time, but in my time as well. "I am so glad you made it my dear. So glad you chose to come and enjoy the evening with those your age."
"I am glad to be here." I said as perfectly as the orphanage had molded me to say.
"I do say! Hear, hear! I do not believe you have been introduced to Charlus." Mr. Evergarden pronounced our semi-formal group. He was already in a few cups it would seem. A boastful belly, puffy red cheeks, harboring a happy smile, that look only enforced the conviction that Mr. Evergaren was a man of jolly wealth and agreeably friendly disposition. "This is my bright-eyed ward, Miss Adella Frasier, she hails from Republic of Sorbus." Sorbus. How she had already forgotten, or more like wished to forget. "She has come a long way to come and enjoy our Leiden, and this lovely evening that you have so charitably donated to. Charlus is patron of beauty and the arts you know. You don't spare expenses I will tell you that!" His laugh was jovial, using his hearty belly to rest his hand. Mr. Evergaden had an older and familiar charm compared to the tall, lean, dagger sharp man with cropped dark-black hair beside him.
This Charlus he introduced, his glossy dark hair, slicked back, was perhaps even darker than mine. I had never seen such dark hair. "This is a man." Mr. Evergaden was only starting his praise. "Very few do not know Charlus. Telesis has a handful of men that change the century, and you are in the presence of one of the many greats."
I felt intrigued. How could I not after an introduction like that?
I did not know the face, nor the name Charlus.
Perhaps that would have been best because the man that stood starkly against the jovial Mr. Evergarden, was cold and stern in his composure, as if he had been carved from stone from a very talented hand. The great man was an angelic statue with harsh lines of his own making, cut into a well-groomed soldier's uniform. A gleaming line of bright stars sat proudly on his army uniform, marking his authority I presumed. He had dark eyebrows over his colored eyes, enviably handsome, her heart stuttered at how perfect he seemed, even if she was refraining from thinking like her age she could not help the reaction. And those eyes he had… striking lime green. Girls would claw their eyes out for a chance of bearing children with those eyes.
She shook her head at the thought. Her mother had been one of those girls once.
In that moment, the man marked me critically, as if the lime green ballgown I wore could never compare to the vibrant pinks, blues, and actual emerald greens real Ladies wore. I found myself bristling under his look.
"Is she mute?" The man barked. As if she were a soldier. "Mr. Evergarden, I have little patience for simpering maids. I assure you this will not win you a vote if you are meddling with the rabble of other less favorable countries."
Rabble? Simpering maid?
I dropped my mouth, the words coming if I liked them or not. "How dare you! You think because I poor and of little consequence that I do not have feelings? Shame on you."
"The only shame would be that you wasted a moment of my time. Believe me, it would be hardly something new for a young maid to make a scene among the genteel." He remarked with a tone I was beginning to believe was well-honed ridicule. "It would only reinforce my opinion that those of less consequence should be left out of matters they have no business in."
At his words, I forgot that he was handsome, forgot that he was anything but a scoundrel in need of scolding. "Then let this stand." I grabbed my hands before me, daring to draw close enough to see a visible and jagged scar on his neck. "If the common people knew that men like you were making the choices, you would not last, they would murder you in your sleep, and not bat an eye, and that is my opinion."
The man took it boldly. "Indeed." His eyes becoming arrows intent to meet their mark, right into my pretty open neck. "Is that a threat?" He did not advance. The war-blazoned man was not moving a muscle towards me, thankfully, except to further say. "If it is, then you best understand the consequences of such a thing."
"I speak what is true," I said with more conviction than I felt. My cheeks so hot I knew I was out of my league, spitting out words now just to stay above the rising water. "Can I say the same of you?"
He did not answer. The Evergardens and parties close were frozen until the war of intent between the man and me. When he did, he knew the gravity of his words, very forceful in his language. "Such a grave statement, for a maid so young."
Grave. He did not know the half of it. I was far worse off than grave, past the point of social suicide.
I was ruined. Ruined by a man that I had not the pleasure of speaking a few minutes to, and it was all my fault. A devilish part of myself urged me, might as well make the most of my impudence.
"Not so young to know when to stand up for myself." I blazoned forward, still not finished, not by far if I was to be made such a spectacle before him. It was men like him that had wedged a pressure of self-depreciation throughout all my life. As if one look, one conversation could break every good thing and thought that I had inside of me. He did not know the hatred and fury I had at being kept so low for so long. "Be careful what you say, oh great man of the century." I celebrated when he frowned at last, his displeasure was my satisfaction. "Your hateful words will be your downfall."
With that dramatic and overdone speech, I left the Winter Ball.
The dancing young people swallowing me as I left, my heart racing at the tempo of the ballroom's music, and my concealed armpits drenched for saying and thinking such things.
It was not until I was on some forgotten and empty balcony, Mrs. Evergarden's white petticoat over my shoulders, that I finally let the tears fall. Tears of frustration and guilt.
"I'm so stupid, stupid, stupid. Just a stupid girl, that never learns…" I would lose the Evergarden's for this. I would lose everything that I had been given in this beautiful town of Leiden. A place that had stolen my heart as well as my worries, how would I ever apologize-
"Miss Frasier, may I speak with you-"
"Not you." I mumbled, upset that the very man that had brought out the worst in me was the one to find me here. "I'd rather be alone thank you."
"You have quite the temper." He looked serene and cool, amused at seeing my red eyes and wet cheeks, and the heaviness that had hovered over him had left to something that I had no experience with. "None have spoken to me like that."
"I would guess not, not if they wanted to keep their livelihood." Or their head. I bit my quivering lip, upset that I couldn't stay quiet at least not to give him incentive to continue. Why did I feel the need to antagonize? Why did I care what he thought?"
"Hm." His eyes searched my face, finding something there. "My inferiors would be whipped for less. What do you think gives you right to speak and embarrass me as you did?"
"I didn't think a commoner like me could embarrass someone like you." I declared forcibly. Hoping that it would scare him away for good and allow me to brood alone. "If you have any decency as a gentleman you will leave me be and find some beautiful girl to further amuse you."
"Beautiful girl?" It was as if it had never occurred to him.
"I'm sure it would not be hard for the likes of you."
"No," was his smug reply, "it wouldn't."
"Then go, be on your way."
He made a step to go, and at the last second chose not to. "I don't think I will."
"Why ever not?"
My blossoming outrage was tempered by anxious surprise when I felt him come all too close and trap me in his arms, his wild smile was as frighting as it was beautiful. "I think I found her."
"Oh please, let me go." I struggled against him, not in the mood, or had the strength to break the hold of such a man as him. If someone found us like this. I truly began to struggle.
He shushed me, the look on his face changing, more intent on my mouth. His voice dropping, and his arms entrapping me into a steel-like hold, all to familiar to the hold of my step-father, "you have no need to worry, you are safe with me Miss Frasier. Even with your ludicrous words and devilish appetite to seeing me scorned I will not let the wolves eat you. Trust me, despite my words, I am much better company than them, especially now that you have won my attentions."
"What wolves?" I was almost done with freeing my arm. Almost. I need only distract him some more. "I see no wolves but the one before me. "He caught my arm as it raised to hit him once more, and I snarled in his smirking face, those lime eyes smirking with him. "You haven't given even given me your full name? Why should I trust you... Charlus?" Saying his name felt wrong on my lips, I bit the repulsive feeling on them, wondering why he was staring there of all places.
With savage finality, and ungallant grace Charlus swept in and latched his lips with mine. A vicious dance of lips and tongue, he smartly moved away before my teeth could bite, forgetting that I had hands and legs to hit him too. Which I did, most severely, and he took no objections to them, only holding me more tightly to his chest. Squeezing the life and fight from me, until I could scarcely breathe.
"How dare you kiss me! You scoundrel! Fiend of the cruelest nature!"
"It's Lord Charlus Bougainvillea if you care to remember it," he remarked with the first true smile, enjoying the feeling of her squirming as much as I hated it. "I am sure you can tell your lady friends how well-"
I slapped him soundly with my free hand, being released, and storming away before he assaulted me in any way ever again. "Never have I been thus treated in my entire life!" I ran away from him, intent on never seeing the scoundrel again, or any of the Leiden aristocracy for that matter. I would not mind being walled up in the Evergarden home for the rest of my days, isolation was not a cage, it was a haven from the likes of him. My fear of being lonely at the farthest reaches of my mind, it was now swallowed for hatred of the power the perverse Lord and General seemed to wield at his pleasure.
The unexpected hand and arm on my back frightened me beyond belief, "you aren't getting rid of me that easily Miss Frasier."
"I'll scream if you touch me."
"I doubt it." He dared me, his wolfish grin growing when I did scream in rage, raising an octave when his hand found my lower backside, a dangerous territory of reckoning, and squeezed to my horror.
"You SCOUNDREL!" I punched his arm, eliciting some sounds of shock and horror. My cheeks flushed, mortified. I
"You enjoy it." He remarked as I caught wind of my guardians, his steps stalking with mine, his head bending to my retreating one. "I thought you were braver than you appear? Why are you running from me?"
I twirled on him. "When a woman says no she means it. The most bottomless worms understand that her word is what she means, and that is final, but you are more animal than man." I growled back. "I don't know why I expected anything more from you."
"You haven't met the animal Miss Fraiser," he corrected me, daring my ire. "But I could show you."
"Absolutely not."
"We'll see."
"We certainly won't."
"Remember Miss Frasier. The more you reject me, the more ammunition you give me."
He could not be serious... but the arrogant smirk he had perfected said it all.
I had met the devil, and his name was Charlus Bougainvillea.
This is Dietfried and Gilbert's parents, and I could stop writing until it was finished. This serves as a Companion Piece for: To My Beloved Major, and I am very happy with the outcome! I hope that you enjoyed this little backstory, I find it so sad that none of this is explained in the TV show. Thank you thank you and I hope you guys have a wonderful day!
Love always,
Odeveca