Remind me, how did the last chapter end... oh yeah. Heh heh heh.
To HRH Valdmar Hesse-Kassel IV, By the Grace of God Crown Prince of the Danmarches, Lord o'er the Wends, Count Palantine of the Rhine, and Privy to the Sea.
From Andersen Sanders, an honourable gentleman though some seem like to discount the fact which is entirely unfair for when have I ever – ever, my lord – done something to deserve such slander?
My lord, I have never been more mortified in my entire life. One can hardly bring oneself to legitimise the evening by putting pen to paper. If I could trust that girl to be about in the world without completely destroying the reputation of some other innocent fellow, I would cast her out into the wilds and be done with her. I would, be she ever so honoured a guest of yours – really, my lord, she has at last gone too far.
I was having a lovely evening at this evening's ball, and had nearly managed to edge myself sideways into a moment of time with the prince and his mysterious paramour when I notice that girl was missing from the ballroom. I gave so much the benefit of the doubt that I checked first the gaming rooms in the deluded hope that she might have joined a game of whist like any natural person. When that turned up nothing, next were the grounds and fountains but they were equally empty of addle-pated visitors with less sense than the man who made a boat out of turnips. Then I noticed the lights lit outside the Staat Wing and with heavy heart I turned myself towards them.
Surely, I thought to myself in paroxysms of distress, surely she cannot have been so ill-mannered, so astonishingly naive, so catastrophically unlearned in the way of polite society, as to trespass upon a foreign power's political quarters when she had only been invited to social ball.
It might as well have saved my thoughts.
I found her not merely in one of the dozens of public and entirely innocuous gathering rooms, åh nej, not her. No, she had to be in the state room, running her fingertips over the map carved into the Tyks' table of state as though she had a perfect right, as though she owned the thing, which, my lord! – no, I must tell this in order. Arguments did not move her, her only response a slow blink of unconcern and so I was moved (and this is the only part of my actions I might possibly apologise for but I believe they were well warranted and will defend my innocence to the grave) to lay my hands upon the lady to forcibly remove her from the room.
It was at this point, that the steward of the king and two attendants burst in upon the room – though of course I don't mean 'burst' for it is their room and they were not the ones gracelessly within it – and formed entirely the wrong impression of what was going on. They insinuated – my lord, you must brace yourself for this; I can only apologise I must relay such a thing to you to give a full and honest account of what occurred – that I had knowingly plotted a secret tryst. With that girl.
I have never been so demeaned and humiliated in all the years of my existence, not even the day I declared myself a master of fencing to my two elder brothers after one and a half lessons. I was clearly not trysting but attempting to eject her - why, I was doing them a service. If there was any inappropriate behaviour, it was only because I my hand had been forced. And who in den vide verden would choose a state room for the setting of a tryst when there are many better and more comfortable nooks in the public wing, not to mention moonlit follies in the gardens? Not that I would know, but anyone with half a brain can speculate! But such logic fell on deaf and stubborn ears.
Then that girl had the nerve, the audacity, to declare she liked the table very much – which was a fair comment, for it is a very nice table; the map is really quite exquisite – but then had the sheer impudence to ask if she might have it! If they might let the noble state of Novaja Semlja buy it from them. She propositioned the Tyks' table of state having been found sneaking into their state room to 'look' at things. Had I known she wanted a tour, I could have obliged most readily but, no, this is the girl who was found outside your rooms in the middle of the night because she preferred to be there – this is the girl with no sense of propriety, this is Her Royal Highness Marie-Therese af Havet of Novaja Semlja.
And I tried to tell them, I did, I tried, to show them that this was just the sort of thing I was talking about, that I was clearly not the one at fault when faced with such obliviousness to the propriety of polite behaviour, when they accused me – me! I – of being more than four sheets to the wind. Sanders can hold their liquour, by God – yes, we can. I may not be able to catch a fish but any drink I can grasp firmly. Firmly, my lord. Like buttocks upon a maiden fair – not that I would know because I am an honourable gentleman who would not know such things!
It was one insult too many so I took that girl firmly in hand – by the wrist – and left. Swept through the Staat Wing and the gardens and yelled for our carriage for such slander cannot be borne. I demand retribution, and an apology, and anything else you can think of to make those slanderous, deleterious, calumnious, presumptuous worms crawl for having so insulted the honour of Andersen Sanders.
Oh Captain, my Captain, chair-stander and movie-watcher; I enjoyed this one.