MADDOX
I sat upon my bed while Beatrice laced up my black high heeled boots which completed my extravagant outfit. Once finished, she took a step back and gave me a long stare, she was looking for something missing.
"You put together nicely, Beatrice." I said eyeing her. Her silky long blonde was brushed and styled neatly, it was a rare occasion that she would ever wear her hair down.
"Thank you, Milady." She replied.
"Ah, my dear Lady." Elliott said as he entered the room with my top hat, probably what Beatrice was looking for.
He walked over to me and placed my hat on my head and neatened my hair. "It's no dress but you do still look as delectable as ever." He said, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles. "Thank you for letting me tag along."
"You never get out of the mansion often, Elliott." I said. "I thought I might as well introduce you to the single women and men of nobility."
Elliott snorted. "To them I'll just be a servant."
"I think they'll be very interested in you." I said.
"I'll go see if Peter has the carriage ready." Beatrice said.
"No." I said standing up quickly. "I'll go see."
Elliott laughed as I left the room to go down stairs. "Dear Lady loves those damned horses more than she loves us."
I went downstairs to the kitchen, finding my cook sat by the window and smoking a cigar.
He looked over to me. "Milady."
"Cook." I said with a nod. His last name was Cook and he was a cook so I found amusement in just calling him by his last name.
"A fine night isn't it?" He asked me calmly.
"Indeed." I said as I took a red apple from the basket on the counter.
"You hate apples." He said, eyeing the one I had clasped in my hand.
"Yes but horses like them." I said.
"Aahh..." He said coming to the realization. "I see. Peter's here huh? I heard he got a new horse."
"Did he?" I inquired. "I'll have to ask him about it."
Cook (along with Peter) is one of the few servants I choose not to involve myself with sexually. I've got no clue why, because he is indeed young and handsome, but it just is. I walked outside to find Peter brushing his horse with the carriage. Peter was a funny old man, a chain smoker with a thick strange accent and barely had any teeth. He had been working for my parents and even my grandparents as a carriage driver for most of his life.
"Hello Milady!" Peter said cheerfully.
"Ah, so it is a new horse." I said, eyeing the large brown Clydesdale horse. Usually Peter had this old white and grey horse named Adelaide.
"Ah, yes." He replied.
"What happened to Adelaide?" I asked.
"Oh my Adelaide. Well... ye knows by now Adelaide's gettin' old. Figured it's 'bout time for her to put up the saddle. Right now she's at me family's farm where she can live out the rest of her days eating up our hay."
"That's nice." I said, walking up to the horse and holding out the apple. He stepped forward without hesitation and graciously ate it from my hand. "What's this one's name?"
"Cookie!" Peter said with a toothless grin. "He's a real beauty wouldn't ye say? Pretty damn cheap for a Clydesdale as well."
"Cookie." I said with peculiarity. A big horse like this one and this crazy man names him Cookie.
"Me reins comin' to an end as well." Peter said sadly. "I'm just not as young as I used to be. Servin' your parents and your grans, now you. I knew it had to end at some point. I have to start teachin' me son how to handle a horse before he takes me place."
"How old is your son?" I asked as I pet the horse.
"Ten. Tis a bit young to be workin' but that's around the age I started workin' for ye grandparents." He paused. "You look just like ye mum. You reminds me so much of her."
"I look nothing of my mother." I snorted. The only thing I had of my mother's were her bright and vivid golden eyes. But she herself was very beautiful, with curly teal hair that cascaded down to her thighs, extremely long. While my father had light blue eyes and jet black hair that I had inherited from him. Things people always said about my parents was that they were both very beautiful people, that I was lucky to have been born from them.
In my opinion I felt I resembled my father more than my mother.
"Oh that's not true." Peter said. "You've got her eyes, you've got her whole face even! You've got the same feel about you. Oh, yes indeed she was a beautiful lady. So gentle and kind, when you were but a wee lass she would take ya out to the garden and make ye some crowns made of flowers... despite how she was allergic to 'em."
My hand dropped from petting the horse's nose. Peter had known my parents longer than I have, the last I had seen them was when I was eight and even those memories were hazy.
Things like that... I tried to repress them. I tried to stuff them all inside a tiny mental box, locking them tightly and shoving them back into the deepest darkest shelf of my mind, letting them sit there to collect dust, for I would never touch them again.
Everyone seemed to understand that except Peter. He ignores all the hints and insists on telling me about them.
"I'm going back inside." I said, smoothing out my button shorts.
Peter grinned at me and nodded. "Oh yes Ma'am." Stupid old man.
I stepped back inside of the mansion as Elliott and Beatrice made their way down the staircase.
"All is ready." I said to them.
I grabbed the phone off of the wall and pressed the first floor button. "May I have Aleksandra at the main floor please." I said into the phone. "Please bring Boris as well."
"Aleksandra and Boris tonight eh?" Elliott asked.
A couple seconds later Aleksandra was there in the main floor with the rest of us. She was a Ukrainian servant of mine who was in her mid twenties. She only spoke Russian and but understood German just as well and knew very little English.
When she first started working here there was a bit of difficulty, because even though German was a language I was fluent with (along with French, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, and Portuguese) I had absolutely no idea how to understand her because she could only speak Russian, it was a learning process, and because of her I learned how to speak Russian fluently as well. She still knows close to no English, but I don't find it a necessity for her to learn it.
Aleksandra is a slender and beautiful woman, with dark brown hair and crystal blue eyes. She is very stolid and uncomplaining, I would say she worships the very ground I walk on for helping her like I did. Someone who likes to act the very second an order is given and very devoted. Sitting on the floor next to her was Boris, a large tiger which she had a small chain that she used on him as a leash.
Boris has been Aleksandra's pet tiger since he was a cub, Aleksandra has a talent for taming and training animals of all types. When she moved to England she had to smuggle Boris onto a ship that delivered tea and flour and she posed as a worker there. Once I hired her I had to pull a few strings with the Queen and the law in order to have Boris legally be owned by Aleksandra.
"Aleksandra." I said to her in Russian. "You and Boris will be on guard shift, I am not expecting any guests while I am gone, if Samuel shows up then tell him in English 'Lady Kaylock is gone, you must leave.' Understood?"
She nodded her head. "Yes My Lady." She replied.
"Good." I said giving Boris a quick scratch on the head. "Let us leave then Beatrice, Elliott—"
"Master." Aleksandra said.
I turned back around to face Aleksandra, she was looking at me with expectant eyes. "Ah, yes I almost forgot." I sighed as I walked over to her.
She got down on one knee and I held her face in my gloved hands, bringing my face down to hers. She lifted her face to mine and kissed me ravenously, her tongue exploring my mouth.
I slowly pulled away from her, wiping my lips. "If you do a good job I will reward you later tonight when I return." I said.
Aleksandra nodded. "Thank you."
"Now let us go before we're late." I said, turning to Elliott and Beatrice. "Wouldn't want Count Roy to have a hissy fit now would we?"
Once there at Roy's ridiculously over the top party, I began my routine of mingling and socializing and charming. As I surround myself with many other nobles, chattering about nonsense that I didn't even care about with people I didn't even care about, I helped myself to the continuous supply of alcohol and cigars. Beatrice stood close beside me and I had set Elliott loose to flirt and drink and do as he pleased.
I decided to take a break and leave to go get another glass of wine; at this point I don't even recall how many I had already.
"Lady, please drink responsibly." Beatrice urged as she followed close behind me as I made my way to the wine tower.
"Drink responsibly you say." I snorted. "Drinking is the only thing that's keeping me going, having to talk with those pack of half-wits all night. I could swear on someone's life that Nobles are probably the most idiotic types of people on the planet."
What I lacked in normality and tradition I made up for in charm. Even though I don't enjoy talking to people I take pride in my social skills, image is everything after all. How can I rise in ranks if I can't even talk to people? Laughing at jokes I don't find funny and putting on fake smiles is just part of what I have to do as a noble.
As I reached for a glass of white wine I felt a shiver run up my back, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand and goosebumps arising from my flesh. My hand tensed around the glass as my eyes darted around the room, searching faces.
"What is it Milady?" Beatrice asked, noticing my sudden unease.
"There's someone... watching me." I whispered, clenching my teeth. "I can feel it."
Beatrice placed her hand on my back and got protectively closer to me, searching around the room.
As I scanned the faces of the people around me, I had found my bright golden eyes had locked onto a pair of ice blue ones, staring straight at me.
I froze, feeling myself internally flinch as I had found the person that was watching me so closely. I broke eye contact almost immediately, because if I made eye contact with people for more than four seconds I would then be looking deeply into their mind. But I still stared at his face. It was a boy who looked around my age, with blonde hair and long lashes. He was tall and had a slender build to him, next to him standing was a butler with dark brown hair, who had dull yellow eyes covered by the glare of his glasses.
I had relaxed a bit and took a sip of my wine, thinking to myself that he wasn't bad to look at.
He gave me a look a of amusement, his lips curving up into a mischievous smile. I couldn't help but smirk as I took another drink of my wine. His looks had caught my attention, I found him very... pretty. I decided I was going to go over there to talk to him. Taking a sip from my glass I mulled over what I should say to him. Before I had time to even think of something I felt a tap on my shoulder, Beatrice was standing next to me with a grin on her face and I turned to see what it was.
Low and behold, goldy locks had made the first move. Not bad.
"Care to dance?" He asked, holding out his hand towards me.
I nodded and took it as he lead me to the dance floor. Meeting him up close, I found him a bit strange. The way he acted was suspicious, like he was hiding something. And the way he carried himself was very... sexual. He had a natural seduction about him, even as we danced I found that he could even make the waltz seem so lewd. I found it alluring but very strange.
He bent his head down, his cool breath brushing my ear, and whispered to me.
"I have something that belongs to you."
I stopped dancing and looked up at him. I stared into his ice blue eyes for approximately five seconds, which was just enough for me to see into the fringe of his mind.
I now knew who he was. Alois Trancy, I looked far enough to know that that was not his real name but not far enough to know what it actually was. Sixteen years old. Born on November 5th, 1875. His butler was a demon named Claude that he had made a contract with. He was the one who had broken into my factory and stole the files.
"Really?" I asked, deciding that I would not out him so quickly. "And what might you have that belongs to me?"
He smiled and shrugged. "Oh I don't know." He said. "You will just have to figure it out."
He began walking towards a door on the other side of the room while I had stayed put on the dance floor. His butler followed him, he turned and gestured for me to follow him before he opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. I looked over to Beatrice and signaled for her to come with me as I made my way to the door.
I'm going to kill that boy and his damned butler.