Eric & Fernanda, 1219-1220 CE

by The Modern Typewriter

Eric de Clermont has spent the last fifty years overcoming the losses of his human life and coming into his own as the young son of Hugh de Clermont. Back in the 21st century, Addison has spent the last six months trying to make sense of her mind and the world around her. Finally getting back on her feet, the last thing she wants or needs is a trip to 13th century Spain.

7. Winter, The Lady's Maid

Chapter Seven: Winter, The Lady's Maid

"The de Clermont has long served as a pillar of balance and power for those of us who are members the civilized world. It is an institution, built to stand the test of time. Here, in these lessons, you will learn what it means to be tied to such an establishment. This will not be two sessions or three. What any new entry – what any human entry – into this family needs to learn could hardly be covered in two hundred sessions at the very least, but alas we will strive to find a way. Under my tutelage, you will memorize the name of every member of the de Clermont family, and their roles within the institution, as well as your own role in association with them. You may be the new Lady Fernanda Gonçalves, but everything you say and do will be perceived by others as a direct reflection on the de Clermont."

Bourgine de Prudhomme was a stern-faced woman, with a sharp nose, and pursed lips. Addison sat in a high-backed chair in the middle of the great hall. The massive table, built to seat fifty guests at one time, had been moved to the side of the room by a handful of grunting, straining servants under the watchful eye of her new tutor and lady's maid.

Addison woke to the sound of swift footsteps clicking across her floor, the heavy thwack of curtains being ripped open, and her thick blankets being torn from her body with a loud snap.

"It's time to wake, my lady," came a foreign voice, older and sterner than Jacqueline's had ever been.

Her eyes snapped open, suddenly alert, and Addison turned quickly on her side to face this new intruder. Her skin erupted in goosebumps at the sudden chill of the cold morning air, and she scrambled to reach for her covers once again as a line of maids marched into her room with the snap of the new woman's fingers.

They carried with them water jug after steaming water jug and poured the contents into a large wooden tub that sat in front of her hearth. A cloth had been lain inside the tub to protect Addison's skin from splinters and she watched in confusion as the odd procession went about their work. The tub had not been there last night, and Addison blearily stared at the new object, confused. She had not heard anyone bring it into her chambers while she slept.

The new maid was practically a blur as she urged the other maids to hurry and ushered them brusquely away. When they were gone, she sent a sharp look to the still disoriented Addison, pursing her lips even more harshly in her displeasure.

"A lady should never be idle," she commented and brought her hands to her hips in a critical manner.

The new maid stepped forward and ushered Addison to quickly sit up.

She slid slippers on the girl's feet at an inhuman speed, and Addison registered rather absently that this new woman must have been a vampire as well.

She didn't know what to think about this sudden addition to their household but held her tongue. Suppressing a yawn, Addison stretched her arms high above her head, relishing in the way her back cracked and stretched along with them.

"Where's Jacqueline?" She asked around another yawn, yelping in alarm when the older woman hustled her out of bed and stripped her of her garments.

Before Addison could blink, she was stepping into her bath, hissing as the hot water met her skin and turned it red. But she didn't have time to protest or jump back out before she was unceremoniously shoved down into a sitting position by the new maid who poured lavender oil into the water and reached for a bar of soap.

"The girl is back where she belongs," the older woman said. Short and stern and not providing any more information on the matter.

Addison frowned. What did that mean?

"Where she belongs?"

She couldn't keep her attitude from coating the words as they leapt from her mouth and the new maid stopped her preparations to fix Addison with a measuring look of her own.

"Yes," she said as though Addison were particularly daft. "That maid was not equipped to serve a lady of this house. She has done her best, I suppose, untrained as she is, but she is meant for simpler things. Surely, you did not expect her to continue to serve you in place of a proper lady's maid."

She said this and Addison didn't know if it was a question or an assertion. All she knew was that she didn't like the other woman's tone, and she didn't like the way she diminished Jacqueline to such a simple description. The golden hued maid had been Addison's closest female companion since Ailios six months – or fifty years – prior, and Addison felt suddenly protective of the other girl.

She frowned and opened her mouth to say so but was quickly quieted and sent sputtering when the women dipped a soft cloth into her bathwater and brought it up to scrub at Addison's face with vigor.

She spat and shook her head, trying to get away from the assault but could not. Around droplets of water and the bitter taste of the soap, Addison coughed.

"Who are you?" She asked and couldn't keep her exasperation from her voice.

"I am Bourgine de Prudhomme. You may call me Miss Prudhomme or Mistress; whichever you prefer. I am your new tutor, and lady's maid."

"Tutor?"

"Of course," Miss Prudhomme said as though it should have been obvious. "You are an unbroken, untrained young lady. I see now that you have suffered a grave disservice here raised in a house of only men, with none but a common housemaid to dress you and attend to your needs. You wear your hair loose, your waist uncinched, and your mouth unbridled."

"Unbridled?" Addison snapped, her eyes looking up at this woman with no small amount of spite. Her chest felt hot, and her belly twisted up with a bitter resentment she'd never felt so strongly in her life. "Who the hell—"

Addison yelped as the older woman's nails dug into the skin of her arm and twisted, pinching her sharply to punctuate the verbal reprimand to come.

"You will not speak such filth," the woman snapped, and went back to scrubbing Addison clean. "That tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day if you're not careful. In the week that I've been here I have played witness to your histrionics and your inappropriate displays of childish behavior. It is high time such things come to an end."

Addison thought back to the week before, when she'd been locked away in her chambers, afraid for her life, in the wake of her discovery. She had just learned that vampires were real, and she had been surrounded by them. She was still surrounded by them. She felt a twinge of anger in her chest and thought seriously about snapping at the strange woman who was so quick to storm in and pass judgement without even bothering to get to know her first. What the hell did she know?

Addison wanted to say more, to defy this woman who had come into her room and insulted her so. But she was naked in the bath, and her skin stung with the memory of the other woman's corporal punishment. It had been half a year since anyone had inflicted pain on her as a method of molding her behavior. The memory of other such negative reinforcements burned their way across her skin, like her body was a living catalogue of every past hurt. She was used to this method.

Defiance would only be met with escalation.

So, Addison kept her mouth shut and let the woman continue to scrub her clean until she saw fit to release her.

Her first day of lessons were already chalking up to be rather exhausting, and Addison couldn't help but think of all the places she'd rather be and all the things she'd rather be doing. But despite Miss Prudhomme's less-than-favorable methods, and the forceful way she'd been dragged into them, Addison did feel curious about her odd choice of words. The de Clermont, she had said. Just one.

"Don't you mean the de Clermonts? As in the whole family?"

A crack, and Addison hissed when the small switch Miss Prudhomme kept in her dress sleeves came down to snap at her knuckles.

"A lady does not speak unless prompted," she snapped. "The de Clermonts are a family; the de Clermont stands as one. One figure. One institution. The entire world around, Philippe de Clermont is the de Clermont. In his absence, other members of his family act in his capacity. They are an extension of his hand, of his power and his mercy. In the de Clermont family, you have many members, but you have only one de Clermont. In this household - and this kingdom - Lord Hugh acts in his father's stead. He is a symbol, my lady, amongst the creatures of an invisible world. To be the de Clermont, is to be the invisible hand that shapes the world. It is the crown of shadow, revered by all."

Addison opened her mouth to ask yet another question, but a withering look from the woman in front of her had her snapping it shut just as quickly. A satisfied nod, and the lady's maid continued.

"Under my tutelage, you will learn how to properly walk, sit, dance, and curtsy. You will learn the order in which you are meant to curtsy to each member of the de Clermont family as well as to those other figures of significance who you may encounter as well. You will learn the names and standing of those who will one day be expected to curtsy to you."

"To me?"

Another frown and Addison withdrew her hands closer to her person, eyeing the switch that peaked out of the other woman's sleeves.

"As the favorite of Lord Eric de Clermont, one day – in time – you will occupy a higher standing than many members of the de Clermont family. And of other humans as well, both common and royal. In such a position they will be expected to bow and curtsy to you respectively, depending on the nature of their relationship to the de Clermont."

And by the de Clermont, Addison silently concluded Prudhomme meant their relationship to the invisible crown, worn by an invisible man. A man whose name she had never heard until today, and whose face she could not even pretend to conjure. Now, somehow, she had become beholden to him. Beholden to represent him and reflect his rules and customs, whatever those were. Suddenly, Addison wished she had a notebook and a pen. There was no way she'd be able to follow this lecture on memory alone.

She swallowed her nerves and eyed the door in longing. She wondered where Eric was right now, drawing her lip between her teeth to keep from calling out for him. She was sure he'd hear her. If she called him, he'd come. Right? Surely, he would liberate her from Miss Prudhomme's terrible lessons.

Another thwack and the bloom of pain on the skin of her hands. Addison hissed and looked down at her knuckles which had already begun to turn red under the sharp sting of Miss Prudhomme's less-than-favorable tutelage. Her tutor did not comment on what she had done wrong this time. Addison already knew. Distraction was apparently a grave sin as were idleness and verbosity, and Addison had already been reprimanded for each of these things more than once. The maid moved on as though nothing out of order had occurred, switch tucked seamlessly back in her sleeve.

"By the time you have completed your lessons, you will be an accomplished young lady, an expert in elocution, deportment, art, music, as well as proper manner and decorum. By the time we have completed our work here, you will be able stand before any king, queen, pope or dignitary and not embarrass the Gonçalves name."

Or the de Clermont name, Addison grumbled quietly in her head. She fought to keep her eyes from narrowing up at the woman in quiet resentment.

"You will no longer run about the manor like a common prostitute with your hair hanging loose down your back, nor as a peasant girl with a simple scarf tied over your head. From now until such time I determine you are ready; you will defer to me in all course of action and correspondence. Your only duty is to conduct yourself in a way that is suitable for a young woman of your standing. Your only duty is to represent Don Fernando with honor, and to prove yourself worthy of a future at the young de Clermont 's side when the time comes."

---

Eric knelt at the bottom of the church steps in the village. Before him laid the body of a young girl.

The village priest stood at the top of the steps, looking down on the gruesome sight that had greeted him this morning when he rose to begin his day. Hugh and Fernando accompanied him there, speaking in low voices, as villagers passed them on their way to complete their daily chores.

Her face was blue and purple. Eric felt something twist inside of him at the sight of her tiny body, left out in the cold, but he hardened himself against it. There would be time for his own grief later. Now was the time to return her body to her family and offer his condolences. Now was the time for answers and justice and—

He reached out and gently drew his fingers over her eyelids, pulling them closed. It would be better to deliver her to her mother this way. To present her as though she were sleeping. Nothing could soften the blow of such a loss, but perhaps the sight of her would be less jarring this way. Less obscene. He shook his head. There was no way to lessen the obscenity of this, the murder of a child, by way of his own twisted kin.

Benjamin was unhinged.

"Had she been baptized yet, father?" He heard Hugh's voice ask quietly of the priest.

"Of course, sir," the priest bowed his head in affirmation. "Her soul rests now with God."

Both Hugh and Fernando made the sign of the cross and bowed their heads at the priest's words, Eric followed suit, rising from his place before the girl and nodding to the men at the top of the steps.

It was time to move her body. He'd caught the scent that lingered on her, the place where she died. And, in his mind's eye, he could see the front door of the house in question even now – a small home a few doors down from the mill at the edge of the village, near the river. He'd plucked the cloth she had clenched in her frozen hands – one of Fernanda's – though it irked him to know he had no clue how his cousin had collected it. How had he gotten close enough to rob Fernanda of one of her scarves? His lip raised a bit in a snarl that the priest blessedly did not see.

Hugh sent him a sharp look, and Eric worked to quickly calm himself down.

He did not like being caught unawares, and he was quickly tiring of his cousin's senseless and brutal methods.

He tucked Fernanda's scarf away in a pocket and lifted the body from the ground, climbing the steps and following the others into the church.

They may not have been there to prevent her terrible fate, but they would not leave her out in the cold now that they had found her.

He laid her down on a stone table which rested beneath the mournful gaze of Saint Mary. The priest anointed the child and murmured a prayer for her soul, drawing a shroud over her forever infantine face.

With a heavy heart, and a bowed head, Eric turned his back and made his way out the doors of the church. He could feel his father and Fernando at his back as he stalked down the steps and back into the snow.

He mounted his horse and made for young Master Peiro's farm. Bound by both guilt and honor to inform the family of yet another tragic loss he had failed to prevent.

---

Idir and Balder stood at the mouth of a cave. Behind them La Ithuriana was but a speck amid the vast mountain views. To a human she would be imperceptible, but the two manjasangs could see. The snow was thick here, up to their knees and thighs respectively, and loose.

A bear should reside here, but absent was any sign of the hibernating beast.

They stepped from the snow, and in the way that only the practiced could accomplish, left not a trace of it as they entered the untouched floor of the abandoned cave.

It was barren. No trace of fire or food, no remnants of life at all, but someone had been here. The scent of a human lingered, and the scent of death. But there were no footprints in the snow. No sign that anyone had fled the safety the cave provided from the winter elements. And there was no corpse.

Balder and Idir traded looks and moved deeper into the cave. Swords drawn, mind's sharp and ready, they pushed forward to see what they could find in the odd shelter, unsure of the secrets it would reveal.

---

Jacqueline was making up the bed in Lord Hugh and Don Fernando's chambers when the scullery maid came hurrying in, out of breath and shivering from cold as though she'd just come from time in the snow.

"You are not meant to be up here," she scolded, her voice mild but disapproving.

"I know," cried the scullery maid. She was an orphan and had no name. "But I forgot to clean out the grate this morning and I thought since their lordships were not home I would do it quickly before they returned."

Jacqueline reached for another pillow to fluff, arching an unamused eyebrow at the girl and shaking her head.

"If they see you, girl, you'll catch hell."

"Oh, I don't believe that," she insisted, her eyes watering as she hastily scrubbed. "Lord Hugh has never been so cruel as that. Señora de Medina needn't be any the wiser. Oh please, Jacqueline, don't tell."

Jacqueline pursed her lips and gave a small sigh. Señora de Medina was a fair head of housekeeping, but she was stern, and she did not tolerate rule breaking amongst the staff. The scullery maid had been foolish in running up here, and even more foolish for neglecting her duties to begin with. Honestly, where had she been that she failed to scrub the one grate in the whole house that mattered most of them all? But Jacqueline couldn't deny she'd chosen her moment wisely. The girl was young, Jacqueline would be unfair to not acknowledge the girl was still learning life's lessons. It was an honest mistake that anyone her age could have made at least once.

"Alright," she said eyeing her critically. "Make haste and hurry on downstairs before you're missed. I'll not be risking my neck for your own negligence, little miss."

"Oh, thank you," cried the younger girl. "Thank you, thank you, Jacqueline. I won't ever forget it, I promise you."

Jacqueline turned away from the girl, back to her own chores. Collecting the discarded garments and linens that littered the floor on Lord Hugh's side of the bed, and those that had been carefully piled into a basket on Don Fernando's before heading for the door. She made her way back downstairs to the servants' quarters to deliver the itsems for washing and mending before the men in question returned.

She passed Señora de Medina with a polite nod before handing off the items to the laundry maids so they could get back to their washing and mending. And then Jacqueline made her way to the kitchens where a manjasang undercook passed her a small goblet of blood for luncheon. She drank quickly and subtly, before returning the item to the wash-boys for scrubbing.

As the blonde climbed the stairs from the servants' quarters, intending to make her way to the drawing room to begin dusting and polishing the surfaces and items there, she nearly collided with another. Startled by the misstep, so uncommon for one such as she, the young manjasang maid gasped and stumbled backward. A strong hand came out to steady her, and Jacqueline looked down at it in shock before glancing up to meet the eyes of the man in front of her.

She could not decide if he was a gallant rescuer or the hindrance that had caused her to stumble in the first place, but the man in question released her as soon as she was steadied. He fixed her with a warm look that suited his serene face and offered her a humble bow.

"My apologies, mademoiselle," he said, and Jacqueline noted that his voice was smooth and quiet. It matched him, she thought. Despite the way his presence had startled her so, there was nothing startling or loud about the man in front of her at all.

She knew him of course. She had been there in the entry the night he'd arrived. And, like all servants, she was apprised of his name and rank rather quickly after his arrival. He was a knight. A knight of Lazarus. He'd served in the Holy Land with the eldest de Clermont sons a century before. He was Sir Guillaume.

"It is I who should apologize, sir," she collected herself quickly and ducked down into a polite curtsy.

Jacqueline felt discombobulated by the presence of this man. She had forgotten herself and was embarrassed to realize she'd been staring.

"I must take more care in the future."

"Nonsense," he said with a small, almost introspective grin. "The fault was mine. I startled you."

"Well—" she started and then stopped, looking down meekly at the floor between them. "I..."

She chanced a look up at him and felt herself flush under the gentle weight of his gaze.

"I really must see to my chores now," she said in a rush, chest rising and falling in her fluster.

"Of course," he said, his voice rising in... not surprise, he seemed too calm for such an emotion as surprise... but perhaps dawning realization. "I should not have kept you."

She nodded briskly, unsure where to look or what to do with her hands. She ducked down into a quick curtsy and made a hasty retreat. Deftly stepping around him and moving on with her chores. She could feel his gaze on her as she walked away, but it wasn't until she got to the entrance of the drawing room that she gathered enough courage to look back. When she did, Jacqueline could not decide if she was relieved or disappointed to find that he'd already gone.

---

The absolute worst part of her newfound role as a member of the House Gonçalves de Clermont, Addison found, was the fillet and the wimple. A horrible contraption created by the world of men. A device of female oppression the likes of which she had never known before.

After Mistress Bourgine de Prudhomme, lady's maid and practiced tutor in the art of comportment, had roughly bathed her in a hot bath against her will, Addison had been forcefully seated in front of her vanity by the old woman who quickly brushed and braided her hair.

But unlike Lorna and Ailios and Jacqueline, Miss Prudhomme had proceeded to intricately knot Addison's hair up even further and pin it in an intricate fashion high on her head. The moment her hair had been secured; Addison's neck developed an immediate ache that only worsened as the day dragged on. By the time she'd been planted in a high-backed chair in the middle of the great hall, her head was splitting with pain, and she was beginning to feel woozy.

Worse even yet, was that Mistress Prudhomme the Terrible had smacked her hand every time Addison reached up to relieve herself of the tension that had gathered in her neck and shoulders. Apparently, it was unladylike to show such pains. Her hands were to remain clasped before her at all times, if not politely kept behind her back. Posture was to be her greatest weapon in this new life under the watchful eye of her new lady's maid, or so she'd been told.

But the worst had been yet to come, for after Satan's Mistress had pinned her hair, the older woman had stuck the oddest little contraption under Addison's chin. Addison had immediately cringed back and away from the stiff chin board Prudhomme had forced on her, but the maid held her still.

This was a fillet.

A horrible fillet. A stupid fillet. The worst of all fillets.

Next came the wimple.

Prudhomme wrapped this piece of cloth around Addison's head and neck tightly, until half her forehead disappeared, and her cheeks squished forward like a fat, grumpy fish.

Lastly, came the veil. It sat upon her head delicately and was held in place by a modest circlet. This was supposed to, somehow, make the fillet and wimple more appealing to the eye Addison supposed, but she wasn't buying it.

Addison had stared at herself in her mirror, looking stuffed and squished and covered in a way that she had never before imagined possible, with a headache and two hands that itched to reach up and give this new female torture device an anxious tug. She felt suffocated in the ugly thing. And she did not feel like the pretty, pretty princess everyone else kept insisting she now was.

She was assured by Prudhomme that this was the way that Ladies – with a capital 'L' – were expected to present themselves before the members of their household and the public. Only one's father or husband could see her in any other state without putting her reputation at risk.

Now, Addison was familiar with this sort of thinking. And she didn't think it was always all bad. She'd known girls growing up who had chosen to cover their hair and live their lives in such a way. She didn't take issue with that part of it exactly, but Addison did take issue. She took major issue because she hadn't chosen this. She hadn't chosen this at all.

She liked her hair. She thought it was one of her better features and she wanted to show it off. More than show it off, her head was much more comfortable when it was loose. Hanging free down her back where she could run her fingers through it whenever she wanted or braided down her back and flung over her shoulder. Addison was not lady material; she knew that going into this whole thing. And now with Satan's Mistress, Prudhomme the Terrible, breathing down her neck, she was only more certain of it.

No one had treated her poorly in all the weeks and months leading up to Miss Prudhomme's arrival. And if Addison didn't have a problem, and no one else seemed to have a problem, she didn't understand why on earth she had to conform to the rules that were being spelled out for her now.

But Prudhomme did not stand for cheek, or disobedience, and Addison had the pinch marks on her arm to prove it, so she held her tongue.

Now, they were in the entrance hall. It was just past luncheon. Addison had eaten alone in the great hall, at a small table, tied by a scarf to the back of her chair. This had been a lesson in table manners. Addison hadn't gotten very high marks in that area.

The servants had been called to heel by her new lady's maid and now stood like statues, lined up before her as Prudhomme walked her through her next lesson, but Addison was only half listening to the older woman. Instead, her heart was going out to the poor servants for the display they were placed on now for her sake alone.

She'd been on the other side of this equation in her past life as Malvina. She had stood in lines such as these, under the scrutiny of those who were more important and powerful than she. And she hated now to see the blank faces that stared back at her, bowing and curtsying in unison as she walked back and forth in front of them.

She hoped they knew they wouldn't get in trouble. She hoped they knew that this was simply an exercise in comportment and not the result of bad behavior or a dressing down.

She hoped this hadn't interrupted their midday meal. Oh, she really did hope they'd gotten to eat.

Addison pulled her lip nervously into her mouth to gnaw on it as she memorized the different titles and roles that Prudhomme rattled off, pointing at and naming the different positions the staff filled in the house. The lady's maid did not name names or introduce a single person behind the uniform.

Here were the maids. The laundry maids. The scullery maid was absent as one such as she should never be in the presence of the lady of the house. Addison had frowned at that, but a look from Prudhomme and a sickly-sweet reprimand had silenced her rather quickly. Here was not the place for disobedience.

Not in front of the staff.

Addison couldn't help the small pocket of relief that opened up in her, though. Prudhomme seemed to think it best to keep her corporal punishment between the two of them. In front of the staff, she did not smack Addison's hands or pinch her arm for fidgeting or making mistakes.

For this alone, Addison felt a wave of gratitude wash over her for the lines of servants that acted as a buffer between them now.

Next were the page, the footmen, the serving boys. And then the cook, undercooks, wine bearers and others as well. The spit boys and wash boys were also absent for the same reasons the scullery maid had remained downstairs. Out of sight from the likes of her. Even though the logic behind it was absurd, Addison couldn't help but think that they'd gotten the better end of the deal.

Jacqueline had been among the maids and Addison had sent her a bright smile that was met with blank eyes and the barest quirk of her lips. Prudhomme's sharp eyes had caught the twitch and narrowed, but the head housekeeper, a kind woman named Señora de Medina had not, so Addison hoped that Jacqueline would be off the hook for any transgression.

After she had memorized and named them all back to Prudhomme, the woman had clapped her hands and sent the staff back off to their chores. Señora de Medina had remained behind, smiling a welcome smile at Addison and curtsying after she approached.

Prudhomme the Terrible had frowned and opened her mouth to speak for Addison, but the head of housekeeping had frowned back at the lady's maid and spoke quickly before she could be interrupted.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady," she had said and offered Addison a warm look that the younger girl happily returned, content to ignore her sputtering tutor. "I have not had the chance, in light of recent events, to speak with you yet, miss, but I wanted to present you with the house keys now that you have begun your tutelage."

"The keys?" Addison had asked, accepting the heavy ring of metal keys with a curious tilt to her head.

"Yes, my lady," Señora de Medina said. "The keys to La Ithuriana. They traditionally belong in the hands of the lady of the house, and I thought it prudent to return them to you."

"Oh," Addison said and looked down at the massive set of keys. "I couldn't possibly tell them apart," she said and looked up at the head housekeeper with a self-deprecating smile.

"I would be happy to show your ladyship," Señora de Medina said earnestly. "I have held the keys for many years now and have them all memorized."

Prudhomme made to interrupt but Addison cut her off before she could.

"I would be most grateful, Señora de Medina," she said. "Thank you for your kind offer."

"Oh, the pleasure is mine, your ladyship," the older woman said, looking pleased before glancing up at the stark features of Addison's tutor. "Well, if you have no further need of me, I will return to my chores."

Addison sent her a sympathetic smile and nodded her agreement. She too knew what it was to be subjected to the disapproving gaze of Satan's Mistress. Addison watched a bit mournfully as Señora de Medina turned and left for the back stairs that led to the servants' quarters, not for the first time that day wishing she could join the others down there, hidden from view.

If this was what it meant to be a lady, Addison wasn't sure she wanted to be one at all. Perhaps Fernando would un-adopt her and hire her on as part of the staff. She looked back up into the eyes of her lady's maid and couldn't help but frown.

She wanted Eric.

As she followed Prudhomme to her next lesson of the day, she couldn't help but cast a quick look over her shoulder.

Where had he gone?

---

Eric left young Peiro's farm with a heavy mind and a heavy heart. The farmer's wife, Lorencia, was frozen in her grief. First, her husband. Now, her youngest daughter. Gone. Taken from her before their time.

There had been no merciful way to tell her, but they had done as duty bound them to do. Bowed heads. Words of condolence. They would pay the expense of the child's burial as they had done for the father. It was the least they could do.

They brought with them new fabric for warm cloaks, and food to warm their bellies.

These were a humble family of farmers, and the snow was fierce this winter.

Young Master Peiro had looked up at him. Not at Hugh. Not at Fernando. He looked at him, and Eric felt that tether in his chest tug uncomfortably. He was tied to this land, and to this people, as he was tied to Fernanda as well.

It was his duty to stand by them. To shelter them from the storms of life. To feed them when they were hungry. To guard them against harm and guide them when they'd lost their way.

He was not alone in this role, as he was reminded by his father's steadying hand on his shoulder when they left the farm behind them, but he felt it weigh on him just the same.

He'd knelt before the boy and offered him a dagger from his boot.

"I will bring the killer to justice," he said, and the boy stood before him, skinny and covered in dirt as he always was. With clenched fists and a wobbling lip that he refused to succumb to. "You have my word."

The boy had nodded and made a valiant effort not to cry. Eric could feel the eyes of Peiro's two remaining siblings, young and confused, staring at him from the open doorway. They were bundled up tight in newly gifted wool with their own dirt smudged faces, and wild hair.

The boy accepted his dagger with shaking hands. "One day," Eric said. "You will overcome this moment."

The boy held the dagger close to his chest, protective of this gift that was so rare from a knight to a peasant.

"Thank you, milord."

Eric shook his head. "Don't thank me, lad."

The boy met his eyes then. The eyes that stared up at Eric were as dark brown as the earth the child was bound to till for the rest of his young life, and just as rich too. Swimming with some unspoken emotion that Eric was sure the child should be too young to feel. This was the way of the world, he reminded himself, there was nothing he could do.

"In the spring," Eric continued. "I will return and teach you how to use that blade."

The boy looked down at the blade in question with curious eyes.

"Me, milord?" he asked.

"Yes," he said. "If you would like."

The boy's face was bright with the shock of Eric's offer. Everyone in the village knew who he was. His lordship was a knight – a templar knight. Peiro looked from Eric to Hugh and Fernando, his eyes wide and uncertain.

"I would, milord," he said. "I would like that very much."

Eric nodded with a small, knowing smile. "Very well, then," he said. "Now, until such time as the snow melts, I want you to promise me this—"

"Anything, milord."

"I want you to think long and hard about that blade," he said. "And when I return here to teach you to use it, I want you to tell me all the ways it is useful to you that do not involve the taking of a life."

Peiro cocked his head curiously at the odd request. He would do it, certainly. Anything Lord Eric asked, he would do. But this... it was not what he had expected. Hardly the task of a daring knight. Hardly even a task for a squire.

"I don't understand, milord."

Eric nodded solemnly. "I know," he said. "But it is all I ask of you just the same. When I return in the spring, you can tell me then if you still do not understand."

"I will, sir," Peiro said.

Eric smiled and stood, dropping a strong hand down on the boy's head and ruffling his hair as though he were still a child and not the man of his house now until the day he died.

"Be well, young Master Peiro," he said.

And then, with Lord Hugh and Don Fernando, he was gone.

---

She didn't know where her new tutor had gone, and she found that she didn't really care. Addison wandered the halls of La Ithuriana, quite alone. She stopped by the window in the entry to look out upon the courtyard which was a vast expanse of white where it had once been warm brown and grey cobblestone. She could see patches here and there where the workers had tramped through and compacted the soft snow into hard ice.

She remembered it well.

The solid layer of cold beneath her boot clad feet. The way her soles could never maintain their grip. Every step felt like it would be the end of her. Last winter, the one she'd never been meant to survive. She flexed her hands at the memories, and the bucket handles she'd once held tight in their grip. The ones that had cut lines into her fingers. Sometimes she could swear her hands still went numb from the stress of it.

Servants moved about in the courtyard even now. Idleness could only be afforded by the rich in any century. And Addison didn't quite feel she had earned her idleness now. She did not yearn to be out in the elements, cold and stumbling about every chore. Not by any means. But she felt closer to those people out there than she would ever feel to other ladies in other houses like this one. She did not fit in her new station. Addison didn't know if she ever would. She felt herself tripping and stumbling over it as though it were a new, poorly fitted dress that drug under her feet. She didn't know if there would ever come a time where she wouldn't rather trade the company of Bourgine de Prudhomme for Jacqueline and the rest of the downstairs staff.

Addison sighed and turned away from the view, turning toward the grand staircase and climbing to the top. Looking this way and that before making her way to the window seat on the far side of the manor. It had become a new favorite when she'd reemerged from her chambers, clinging nervously to Eric's arm. The window overlooked the path that led up to the mountain's peak, the peak Eric said he spent the last year serving as a knight. She liked to sit there some days, in moments of quiet, and contemplate what it must feel like to be in his position. To move through this world confident and free, sure of yourself and your place in everything you do.

Addison ducked down onto the cushioned seat, and spread her hands over her skirts, smoothing them needlessly.

She had once complained she was bored. Quietly, in her own head. Before she discovered the truth of vampires. Before she had run from Fernando and Idir, and Eric. Hugh had promised to take her away from here when the weather allowed.

She hadn't spoken to him much since then. They had seen each other less frequently since she arrived, and it seemed that frequency was lessening still.

She knew now that he was the one who had called for Prudhomme to come at once. She couldn't really imagine why. No one else in the house had ever seemed bothered by her behavior, only ever seeming shocked or amused... but never upset or scandalized. At least, not that she could tell. Maybe they were better at hiding it than she was at perceiving these things.

But Hugh had called for Satan's Mistress, and so Satan's Mistress had come.

Addison frowned, pressing her forehead to the cold glass of the window. Closing her eyes and letting out a long, tired sigh. Her head was spinning.

She turned her face, ducking her it into her shoulder before gagging and jerking back. Her fillet dug into her throat at the motion, and Addison reluctantly recalled her lessons. Shoulders back, face forward, chin level with the ground.

This was the proper posture for a lady, and it was also the only way one did not gag on one's oppressive clothes.

She glanced down and saw that her hands had been automatically placed in her lap, polite and prim as Prudhomme had insisted they should be. She had done it without realizing it and that bothered her more than she could ever say. Addison frowned and withdrew them, digging one into the skirts of her dress and bringing the other to rest on the frosted glass of the window.

Part of her hoped it would leave marks. The warm ghost of a handprint against ice cold glass. The silent reminder that Addison had been here. That she existed in this place in the middle of some forgotten history. That she had seen it and lived it and survived it all.

A small guilty voice in the back of her mind told her she'd just created more work for some poor maid. And she contemplated bringing up a skirt to wipe the smudge away, but she didn't. The handprint stayed there and part of her felt a little more grounded for it.

Addison spared a glance to the door she knew led to Eric's chambers. Hugh had pointed it out when he gave her a tour of La Ithuriana, the day Addison had discovered a goblet of blood in Fernando's study. The day she ran from them in horror.

Part of her was tempted to go over to the door now and knock. She even stood from the window seat. She'd taken the first step but stopped, stomach sinking.

It was the middle of the day.

And she knew in her gut that she was the only one home. Sorley had never been one to sit idle, and she doubted Eric would be in his rooms right now. It just wasn't his way.

No, she was the only one home.

Well, sort of. The only member of the family any way. The servants, of course, were all around, all the time. As was Mistress Prudhomme. Addison frowned. If she knocked, he would not be there to answer. And for some reason, trying anyway only to be disappointed despite herself seemed so much worse than not trying at all.

Unsure what to do with herself now that she'd found herself alone, but for the company of her new maid, Addison sighed and turned back to the window. Stopping short when her eyes caught a glimpse of two figures, growing larger as they approached La Ithuriana from the path that led to the peak of the mountain.

Her heart gave a small jolt and she could not stop her face from splitting into the largest grin she'd ever grinned.

Idir. Idir and the other knight – the large angry looking one named Balder.

She was unsure what to do with the two new additions to their winter household, friends with Eric or no. Balder was a surly looking, bear-like man with a shaved head and a scar above his eyebrow. He was a vampire, she knew, as most of the household now was. But she trusted Eric, in her own way, and so by extension she had resolved to, if not trust, then suspend disbelief regarding Balder and his quiet companion Guillaume.

Either way, no matter how uncertain she felt about Balder, she was so relieved to see Idir.

They too had spoken little since the events the week or so before, but a friendly face was a friendly face. She could see that now, in the wake of her first day in the company of Prudhomme the Terrible.

She hefted her skirts so that she did not trip and bolted for the grand staircase. Startling servants as she ran, and throwing apologies over her shoulder, Addison made it to the entrance hall just as the footmen hefted open the house's heavy oak doors.

Idir and Balder wore grim expressions as they strode in, dusting themselves of snow as they did. They were speaking low, in hushed voices, and a language she did not understand. But Addison, in her excitement, noticed their heavy moods too late.

"Idir," she called out with a smile, carefully dropping her skirts back around her ankles just in time for the two men to look up. Not wanting to appear rude, more nervous about Prudhomme's displeasure than any insult to Balder, she turned to him and offered him a more reserved smile.

"Sir Balder," she said with a nod.

Idir smiled back at her, perhaps a bit tense, but kind, nonetheless. Balder offered her a reserved bow of his own, followed by a gruff, "my lady."

"Lady Fernanda," Idir said, recovering the jovial energy she was quickly abandoning in a wave of awkwardness.

She had nothing to say. Nothing important anyway. And it felt all too familiar and forward to say that she'd missed him. So, she froze. Idir, having sensed this, quietly saved her.

"I trust that you are faring well this day?"

"Oh," she said, and her mind automatically flashed to the welts on her knuckles and the pinch marks on her arms. "Yes. I'm very well."

Her smile was too wide now, and strained. And her heart gave a little extra leap at the lie she uttered for the sake of politeness. Idir's eyes flickered, and she saw them look her over to detect whatever it was he thought to be out of place. Balder's bear-like eyes narrowed, and his head cocked slightly to the side.

"And you?" she asked, suddenly nervous.

Addison folded her arms behind her back as she had been taught to do and did her best to keep from fidgeting, but now that she knew they were vampires she understood why she'd always found their gazes unsettling. They blinked less, and they saw everything. This only made her want to fidget even more.

"We are," Idir said slowly, glancing at Balder. "We're very well, my lady."

"Good," she chirped. "That's good."

"Indeed it is," Balder said and his voice was rather dry.

She frowned and glanced down the corridor to the stairwell that led to her chambers. She had been so desperate for company, but now all she wished to do is hide.

"Yes..." she said and turned back to them with a reluctant smile. "I can see that I have interrupted you now."

This time she did fidget, bringing her hands up to tug at her wimple only to drop them quickly back to her sides, embarrassed at being caught in her discomfort.

"Nonsense," Idir said. "We were just about to make our way into the drawing room. Come, join us. I hear you have a new lady's maid."

Addison still had a nervous pit in her belly, but Idir had tossed her the lifeline she so desperately needed, and she felt her lip begin to wobble a bit at his generosity.

"Yes," she said, too brightly. "I do have a new maid. She is... tutoring me in the art of comportment."

Balder's frown deepened at the mention of Miss Prudhomme, and Addison didn't know why. She averted her eyes when his gaze drifted back down toward hers.

"And how are these lessons of yours going?" Idir asked, warm and sturdy, his hand guiding her gently to the drawing room door.

---

Fernando Gonçalves has always sworn he no longer remembers when he was a boy.

If you were to approach him and ask him of his life up until this point in the here and now, after you met him, and knew him, and learned that he was ancient. He would have nothing to say.

He knew he had a beginning point. A moment in the long stretch of eternity where God or gods or his mortal mother's womb had simply decided that this was where he was meant to begin. He knew that point existed for he was not as old as time itself. He was not so old as creation. And yet, he would laugh if you thought his starting point had come after Christ or, for that matter, after Eve.

He could tell you of the long ramble. The eternal wait. He could tell you of royal courts, and endless travels. He could tell you of bloodshed, and sickness, and greed. Fernando could tell you story after story of the time he met Hugh, how he knew immediately that this man who now wandered with him would always be the one. He could tell you how he had run from him in fear of what that kind of love meant for someone such as him. And how he had run in fear of the crown of shadow that loomed large over his mate's weary head.

He could tell you all of these things, but Fernando Gonçalves would swear up and down from now through eternity that he no longer remembered the time when he was a boy. No longer remembered a time when he was anything other than a manjasang. A guaxa. A vampire.

But this was a lie.

Humanity was not so easy a thing to shake. It was the conception point. It was the starting make and matter of a being who could occasionally become something more. We all start as human. Time and the violence of others – others like him – are the things that turn a person into a beast. He knew not why or how he had become what he was. He had never agreed to it. But he found in his long life that the why and how of things rarely mattered, rarely made themselves plain to see.

He could not tell you whether it happened in love or in war, in his sleep or in waking. He could not tell you if he remembered his final moments in one life before he was dragged bloodthirsty into the next. But these things would never leave him.

His sire was no one of import.

He had left Fernando no name to claim as his own. No family. No guidance.

Young and alone in the world, hungry for the metallic nectar of human life, and possessed of some greater strength than he had ever needed, Fernando Gonçalves named himself. And raised himself. And waded through the ages desperate to outrun the memory of it.

Hugh was an unwelcome surprise. A surprise that came with a world of obligation and power that had never tempted Fernando Gonçalves, first of his name. But he had fallen for him quickly. Dangerously so.

He had not needed Philippe to step in to know the path to Hugh was forbidden. He had not needed the bribe that was offered, nor had he accepted it. He had not needed to be told to run before he did exactly that.

But his mate was not so easy to deter. Philippe de Clermont had raised a man worthy of the de Clermont name. High minded, and entitled and flippant – Fernando had to laugh – and brilliant, generous, fair and cunning.

Hugh de Clermont was beautiful.

Hugh de Clermont was the lightness his soul had yearned for from the first moment his teeth ever pieced the neck of an innocent. He was the forgiveness he had run from the first moment he'd ever snapped a neck. He was the family Fernando swore he did not have. Did not need. His was a name gifted to Fernando when the Gonçalves swore he needed no other but the one he had made for himself and earned.

Hugh had chosen him. And Hugh... well, Hugh always got what he set his mind to in the end. Fernando had never stood a chance. Fernando had never—

He traced their crest with light fingertips. He could feel his lover's eyes on him from the chair by the fire, but Fernando could not look his way now. He certainly couldn't bring himself to sit.

He traced their crest. Two lions standing proud, facing the same direction, the same enemy. An ouroboros high above them, in place of the sun. Beneath them a combination of two names.

Gonçalves de Clermont.

It was rough under his skin. A name gifted, and a name earned. This was his legacy, their legacy.

Fernando frowned.

He'd never wanted children. He knew what it was to be dragged into the world kicking and screaming. He knew what it was to hunger for something that would never come your way. He knew what it was to be powerless and alone and scared. He did not want to bring the vulnerable into the world. He thought it cruel. And he was ill suited to care for such beings.

There was only one person in the world who knew Fernando remembered his mortal life. There was only one person in the world who knew, in intimate detail, the harsh truth behind his lover's hellish beginning. And he was sitting across the room watching him, waiting for him now as he had waited for him then.

Waiting for the crack Fernando did not want to show.

He'd never wanted children.

But then he had a daughter.

For a short time.

Fernanda Gonçalves, mystery child. The enigma who had landed face first at their feet in a cobblestone courtyard. The young woman who every day until the beginning of winter watched him with wide, owl-like eyes and an anxious shift in her step.

He adopted her in the fall.

This fall.

Against all doubt and all reservation. Hugh had asked it of him, and he'd been swayed. He always let himself be swayed. Part of him wanted to blame his mate. If only the infuriating man behind him would cease his incessant meddling. If only he would forget his delusions of control and the greater good. It never worked out. It never worked the way he wanted things to.

Hugh would always swear that these things fell into place with time but—

Fernando sucked in a harsh breath. It had been a long time since he'd felt such grief.

Wide, owl-like eyes and the stench of her fear. He turned his face from the memory.

"Come here, my love," Hugh's voice was soft, calm.

Hugh never knew how to phrase things as a request. He simply told you how things were going to be and anticipated that you would follow. But Fernando heard the questions his mate did not know how to ask him.

The silent, did I take it a step too far? Can you forgive me for putting you in this position? Will you be all right? The silent, please let me hold you.

He turned to face his mate, and Hugh's face was awash with love and sadness, grief and guilt.

Fernando no longer ran from Hugh. He had learned long ago that his heart's desire would always lead him back to this man.

He made his way to his mate, heavy and tired from the weight of the ages and the fear in Fernanda's eyes.

He'd only had her for the fall. He'd only had her in the season of the dying things. And now that the snow was here, she too had gone from him. She would never forget this fear. She would never forget what he was.

He knew what he was, he had accepted this part of himself long ago in a different age surrounded by different people. But he never wanted her to know. Had somehow figured he would find a way to hide it from her. Tried to outsmart the fates in a way that they would never allow.

He never wanted this.

Not this.

He had come to care for the child. He had come to listen for her heartbeat first thing in the mornings when she hopped quickly down the stairs to meet them. He'd come to enjoy each breakfast at which no one at the table ate but her. He found himself listening for the soft sound of her breath from across the house as she slept deeply and safely in a comfortable bed. Safe from the horrors of the night, and those of the world. He had come to relish moments in her strange, beautiful, wide-eyed company. And he had come to fear for her, as he imagined any father would. And plan for her too, to make her life better than his had been.

Fernanda had been a hope he'd never dared to dream of. And once again Hugh had been the one to drag him, persistent in the face of his own reluctance, right where he needed to be. It had been Hugh who turned him and pointed him in the direction of some other more profound kind of love. Toward the child he never wanted to care for, but suddenly did.

Fernanda had only lasted through fall.

And in that time, he had fallen in love with her in a way he had not thought possible, in a way he had only ever experienced through Hugh's memories of Eric when the boy became his son. And he had deluded himself in thinking he could keep her here, locked away behind the walls of La Ithuriana, safe from the truth and the world and all the horrors that came with it. Deluded himself into thinking he was not the kind of horror she would ever fear.

He was kneeling before his mate now. Hugh staring lovingly and kindly down at him, running a gentle hand through his hair. And he rested his forehead on his lover's thigh and closed his eyes and willed himself to forget the image of her covered in blood and stumbling away from him in terror. Begging him to spare her life.

This fortress he had imagined keeping her in for her own happiness and safety, had become a prison and he was the terrible guard that kept her in.

He pressed his forehead harder now against Hugh's legs and Hugh simply let him.

A knock sounded at the door. They froze. They were not to be disturbed unless absolutely necessary.

Jean Luc's voice, a quiet, "my lords, there has been a development," and Fernando raised his head to look darkly at Hugh. The de Clermont stood, with one last brush of his fingers through his mate's hair. He made his way to the door and cracked it so none could see in. His shoulders were set back and tense, and Fernando listened silently to the murmur of his squire and the metallic clink of a chain.

The door closed. Hugh turned back to him, a fair bit darker and grimmer than he had been a moment before.

He held the chain in his hands. A pendant on the end.

Fernando stood, rose to meet him, to stand beside the man he loved. He look down upon this odd little trinket to see what had his mate looking so terribly grave.

It was not a pendant as he'd originally thought, but a badge. A pilgrim's badge. And on it Saint Lazarus was dying. Choking on his own, sacred eternity.

Fernando dismounted with a bowed head and a heavy heart. He waved off the stable boy who reached for his reins and led his steed to his stall.

Standing tall at 17 hands, and black as the night he was born to, Malachi was a fierce stallion who had carried Fernando into many a battle. Fernando, of course, trusted his stablemaster and his staff to care well for his steed, but he'd never been able to shake that he owed the beast his own care. He removed Malachi's saddle and murmured as the war horse snorted back at him his quiet thanks. Then came the bridle. He hung them on the rack outside of his stall, and grabbed a brush, methodically grooming every inch of his favored companion.

A hand settled gently on the small of his back, but Fernando did not stop his ministrations. When he finished brushing Malachi, he turned for a fresh bag of grain, only to find Hugh standing patiently behind him. A bag of oats outstretched, and a soft look meant only for him.

He opened his mouth to speak but closed it just as quickly. Fernando nodded at his mate, accepted the bag of grain, and turned to place it on a hook over Malachi's door so that he could access his food more easily. Then he just stood there, watching his steed slowly warm himself in the comfort of his stall, and begin to munch on the food his master had secured for him.

He stood there and found that he was not quite ready to turn around or speak or—

Two arms wrapped around him, holding him tight to a sturdy chest, and Fernando resisted the urge to close his eyes and lean back into the comfort of his mate's embrace.

He had seen death before. Fernando was hardly a stranger to it. None could walk the earth for as long as he and not see the cruelty that men so callously doled out on the weak and vulnerable. He had been a killer and a savior many a time. He was a predator by nature and he knew what it was to hunt vulnerable prey.

But— he shook his head and turned his face from the memory.

The sight of the girl on the church steps. More babe than child, she was long dead before she'd frozen in the snow and he did not know whether to see this as a mercy. She had suffered at the hands of Benjamin. She had suffered, and he and his family had failed to stop it.

He wanted to blame Hugh. To blame Philippe. He wanted to rage at them for their callousness. How could they have trusted Matthew to do what must be done? How could they have believed one as twisted as Matthew would have been capable of removing this stain from their family name? He would never have done it.

He had not done it.

Fernando could not blame Matthew. He knew how Philippe played his games and warped the mind of Ysabeau's eldest son.

He knew this, and he felt his sympathy for the man, but a girl was dead. And he could not help but look upon his own hands and see centuries of bloodstains coating them even now. He was as culpable now as any of them. He was complicit in the loss of this child.

His mind flashed to Fernanda. Young and full of life. And he remembered her terror. The way she had begged and pleaded with him to let her go. So desperate to escape him, and the violence he represented, she had been all too willing to pitch herself out into the cold. All too willing to freeze to death in the ice of the mountainside.

Benajmin was hunting her now.

He did not know the game the other manjasang played. But his stomach churned at the thought of finding Fernanda one day as they had found the farmer's youngest girl.

The image of a catatonic Lorencia, widowed now and missing a child, would forever haunt him. Would forever remain burned into his memory. One day, far from now, he would think back to her and know intimately the pain she had suffered then, and he would mourn for her anew.

He sighed and leaned back against Hugh who only held him more tightly.

A firm kiss to his shoulder, and the murmured words of comfort from one lover to another. He reached up and patted his mate's hands in silent gratitude before pulling away and facing him once again.

"We should join the others," he said.

Hugh studied him a moment, astute eyes seeing everything Fernando would never permit the rest of the world to see. Fernando rolled his shoulders back and allowed it. He felt laid bare before him, as he had felt the day they'd found their way back to each other. He felt just as raw as the day Hugh had chosen him, and forsaken his family in doing so.

"So, we shall," Hugh said and turned, leading them back to their home, their guests and their children.

All will be well, he could hear Hugh thinking at him now. We just need a bit more time.

---

The drawing room was warm compared to the world that had frozen around La Ithuriana. The walls and faces that occupied the space were cast in a sleepy, golden hue. Outside, the world had grown dark and nothing could be heard all around, except the crackle of snow and the whistle of wind through the trees.

When Hugh and Fernando entered, the rest of their household seemed to have already gathered there. Balder and Idir kept quiet counsel by the fireside, murmuring between themselves about their findings in the cave.

Guillaume and Jean Luc were discussing the teachings of Bonaventure and Aquinas, and from the way Guillaume spoke at a normal volume, Fernando guessed that things must have been getting heated. He spared Hugh an amused look. Felt a laugh bubble up at the barest smirk that graced his mate's lips as they witnessed the exchange between the serene knight and Hugh's own most humble manservant.

Fernando turned away from them and caught his daughter's eye. She flushed and looked away, and Fernando couldn't help but let out a small, disappointed sigh.

Eric was leaned over Fernanda's shoulder, pointing at details in a compilation of sketches she seemed to have gotten her hands on.

He and his adopted daughter had made amends days before, but now it seemed they had entered a new sort of purgatory. He plucked a glass of wine from the tray by the doorway and made his way to the sofa across from the pair. It seemed it would be a different feat entirely to get her to overcome the mortification she felt around how she had acted toward him that day.

She no longer reeked of terror when she was near him, but neither could she look him in the eye for long. He watched her eyes drift quickly over to his goblet before snapping back to the sketches in front of her when Eric reached over and turned the page.

He met his stepson's eyes then and Eric offered him a sympathetic smile before returning to the quiet conversation he was having with his mate.

"Would you care for more wine, Fernanda?" He offered, keeping his voice deliberately low to match the din of the room.

She startled and looked back up at him, nearly dropping the sketchbook in the process. The room flooded with the thick stench of her shame, and Fernando had to fight to keep from frowning. Around him the conversations of others stuttered at the sudden flood of her shame through the room before quickly recovering as though they could smell nothing at all.

"No," she said with a blush. "No, thank you."

Addison cleared her throat and looked all about her, hands clasped politely in front of her but no longer fidgeting how she once would have. His eyes flickered down to observe this small change, and suddenly he remembered rather daftly that she had acquired a new maid. A tutor. He sucked in a breath. He had forgotten to warn her.

"I fear I owe you an apology," he said, leaning forward, his brow furrowing with his realization. She looked up at him, confused. "I have been so busy of late, cariña, I completely forgot to warn you that we'd acquired you a proper maid."

Fernanda's eyes snapped up to his, and he watched as she absently rubbed at her forearm. Not a common gesture for her, and he couldn't help but narrow his eyes curiously.

"How have you adjusted to the change?" he asked when she remained silent.

"Oh," she said, as though he had startled her from her thoughts. "It's— I mean... She is..."

A long pause and Fernando felt his heart sink. Fernanda cleared her throat and reached up to tug at her wimple. He grimaced. The garment would be considered outdated in the more modern cities such as Prague and Paris, but here, it was both fashionable and appropriate for a young lady of her station.

"She is very—" Fernanda tried again and another wave of shame flooded the room.

She had caught the attention of everyone else now, though their conversations appeared to continue on around her. Fernanda was none the wiser to the signals she was putting off to those in her company, and a sharp look to the men around assured Fernando that this would be the way things remained. There was no need to further mortify the girl.

When Fernanda failed to come up with a response to such a simple question, Hugh stepped in deftly to save her.

"Bourgine de Prudhomme has served my family for many years," he said. "Specifically, my sister by marriage, Lady Louisa."

Whatever Fernanda had been thinking, she quickly hid from view. Her eyes shuddered and her face clouded with doubt. Fernando frowned. Eric looked down at her too, but he was unable to see her face from the place he was standing.

Hugh was the most astute of the men in the room. He saw everything. Nothing escaped him. And Fernando knew that this gesture now was less a praise for Mistress Prudhomme and more a mercy for the young human girl they had adopted into their family.

Fernando knew that Bourgine de Prudhomme was of a particular manner. They all did. And he knew from experience that she was a traditionalist. She was by the book to the point of laughability. She was proper and shrewd. And fairly closed minded as well. But she was knowledgeable in the way of all things feminine, and she was loyal to the de Clermont family. Fernando's adopted daughter was an odd one in speech and manner. She was a bit uncouth, and beyond the safety of de Clermont walls, she would be shunned as a woman of loose morals and treated as a foreigner with no family, money or name.

Hugh and Fernando had lived long enough to see a great many women in a great many roles. They were hardly scandalized by her odd ways. If anything, Hugh found her eccentricities endearing. And Fernando... well he did not blame her for her mannerisms, but he agonized over them too. If this was to be her home, and she was to be a member of his family, then she would have to learn. For her own sake. It was dangerous to live how she had been living thus far.

But the lost look in her eyes and the lingering scent of shame had left him concerned. She did not seem to have the same brightness about her that she'd had the day before. One day with Mistress Prudhomme and his young Fernanda seemed to be dimming before his very eyes.

When the Page entered and announced it was time for dinner, the men stood and waited for Fernanda to stand as well. Hugh led them toward the great hall, with his family and guests in tow. Fernanda cleared her throat and jerked her head a bit against the odd sensation of the fillet beneath her chin. He was reminded, rather unpleasantly, of an untamed horse tugging against its first bridle. Then she folded her arms behind her back and followed Hugh and company to the great hall for dinner.

Her eyes were cast down demurely, and she seemed to have been quieted significantly in her first day of tutelage. He knew that she now appeared more the proper young lady she was meant to be, but Fernando couldn't help but be unsettled by the change he saw in her, nonetheless. He had no good reason to think it, but for the feeling in his gut, that something was very wrong.

---

"Today we practice the art of elocution."

"Elocution?"

"Quiet!"

"But—I—" Addison stuttered around her confusion. "I don't know what that means."

Prudhomme's eyes came down on her like predator's teeth comes down on their prey. Her lips pursed in displeasure, but she did not hit Addison's hands with the switch.

"Elocution is the art of speech, young lady."

Addison nodded and drew her lip between her teeth. A sharp look from her tutor and she released it automatically. An approving nod, and a suspicious eye.

"Will I be expected to make many speeches?"

"Heavens no!" Prudhomme's head whirled around to look at her. "A lady must never speak unless spoken to."

"But I am to learn the art of speech?" Addison was confused.

Prudhomme looked at her as though she shouldn't be.

"Precisely," she said. "You will learn to speak like a proper young lady, and you will mind your tongue like a proper young lady as well. You will speak only when spoken to, and even then, you will do so politely, and concisely."

Addison's lips twisted, but she neither commented nor crossed her arms in front of her like she wanted to do.

"Today, and everyday hereafter you will wake in the morning and recite your devotionals from memory."

"My devotionals?"

"Yes, girl, your devotionals."

Prudhomme looked down at Addison as though she had asked something particularly absurd. But Addison couldn't keep the confusion from clouding her face. This seemed to upset her already excitable tutor. Prudhomme's own face reflected back at her, scandalized.

"Your devotionals," she snapped again as though to jolt Addison out of her own stupidity. "The Apostles Creed; Hail Mary; Our Father—"

Addison felt some sort of dawning realization come over her at that, but her face must not have registered for the lady's maid sputtered in disbelief.

"Glory Be?" She asked and seemed to be resisting the urge to cross herself.

These were catholic things. These were—

"You mean prayers?" she asked her tutor, hoping this would calm the other woman.

Prudhomme looked for once something other than displeased, her suspicion faded away and left only relief.

"Good," she said. "Good. You do know them."

"Oh," Addison snapped her mouth shut as soon as the word popped out. A pool regret swirled in her now. Prudhomme's face dropped.

"What?"

In for a penny, Addison cringed.

"I—I don't know them really. Not so much as I know of them."

"That—that is blasphemy," Prudhomme spat.

Addison sunk low in her chair; shoulders raised up to her ears. She looked up at Satan's Mistress and hoped she hadn't just sealed herself some terrible fate.

"Does his lordship know?" Prudhomme asked her. Her voice was sharp-edged and cutting.

"I don't know," Addison said, her voice tight under the weight of the other woman's gaze.

She hadn't thought it was possible, but her tutor's face twisted even more sharply at this turn of events.

"Very well," she said. "You will learn your devotionals then. And still, you will recite them from memory. Of course, Don Fernando and Lord Hugh will have to be informed of your..."

Prudhomme didn't finish the thought aloud, but she didn't need to.

Addison's mind blanked at her own stupidity, stomach twisting itself into knots. This was more than a faux pas or a misunderstanding. Church was a big deal in past. A very big deal. And Addison had just demonstrated that she didn't know the first thing about it. She didn't know how to pray. Whatever God there ever was hadn't done much for her when he sent her hurtling through time, but she didn't think the people of Navarre would care about that. She didn't know what she believed about life after death, and Addison was only starting to realize how dangerous a thing that was to think here.

Hugh didn't know this about her. He had never asked, but she hadn't said either. Fernando— What would he think?

What would they say?

In all her time here, they hadn't once mentioned church or prayer. Now that she thought about that, it seemed rather odd. Maybe they wouldn't care.

But could she truly be certain of that?

Honestly, she scoffed. They were vampires for Christ's sake. Prudhomme the Terrible was a vampire. Did they really have a leg to stand on when it came to this?

Her face and throat suddenly felt too hot, and Addison had to dig her nails into her skin to keep her hands from reaching up to tug at her fillet. She swallowed now and could feel it pressing into the sensitive skin of her throat. Tried not to gag at the odd sensation and rolled her shoulders back to keep them straight instead of hunching.

She had already revealed to Satan's Mistress that she was not a practicing catholic, she couldn't afford to slouch right now and get punished for that too.

She bit down on her tongue and breathed heavily through her nose. A wave of nausea rolled over her and it was all Addison could do not to heave.

She'd made a mistake. And she didn't know if there was a way to get ahead of it.

Prudhomme moved on as though she hadn't just sent her young student into a existential spiral.

"Now," she said. "I've been informed that you only speak Castilian."

Her tutor spoke with less pleasure, somehow, than she had just the minute before when she discovered Addison did not know how to pray. Given the circumstances, she didn't think it was the moment to reveal that she spoke some French too. Instead, she gave one curt nod to the older woman and kept her mouth firmly shut.

"This is unacceptable," Prudhomme continued. "Each day you will rise and recite your devotionals in the common tongues which are Basque and Occitan. From there you will recite them in Castilian, Portuguese and Gaelic."

Addison did not furrow her brow in confusion, not in front of Prudhomme the Terrible, but she did tilt her head at her in curiosity. Basque and Occitan made sense to her. Even Castilian. She knew Fernando thought she had a speech impediment, but she adamantly refused to turn her 'h's into 'f's, hablar would never be fablar to her. But Portuguese and Gaelic? They were odd choices, random choices, but she held her tongue.

"In time, you will have mastered the native tongue of the land you occupy, the land from which your father hails, the land from which the de Clermont hails, and the land from which your..."

At this Mistress Prudhomme snapped her mouth shut and looked, not annoyed as she usually did, but shocked and almost chastised. Like she had said something – or almost said something – she was not supposed to. Addison's eyes narrowed. Prudhomme cleared her throat in a way that sounded to Addison like she was choking.

"That is to say... the language of the land from which Lord Eric de Clermont hails."

She looked nervously at Addison, and then back at the door as though she expected someone to be standing there in displeasure. When no such person arrived, Prudhomme went back to her lesson. This time a fair bit more humbly than Addison had ever seen her before. But what had she been about to say? About Eric being her... something. She couldn't have meant husband, though Addison herself was unclear on whether or not they were still married, it was hardly a secret. Not to her. She frowned and did her best to listen to the rest of Prudhomme's lecture, but that didn't stop her mind from spinning.

---

Several nights in a row Eric observed his mate at dinner. He thought she looked beautiful of course, garbed in the fashion of the time. The fillet and wimple secured on her head. He thought she looked dignified and like a proper lady of his family's house, but she did not smile with the same lightness that he so loved. And he felt a bit guilty to admit that he missed the sight of her hair, missed the way her smooth tresses flowed wavy and free over her shoulders like they had the night they were wed.

She did not eat with the same voracity either. She eyed each supper with the same passion, the same hunger she always had, but she kept her shoulders back and her hands clasped gently in her lap, waiting for someone to come along and serve her as a proper lady should. Then, she would carefully lift her fork and her knife and cut small, dainty pieces of each meat and vegetable. She would eat her bread slowly, breaking it first into small pieces and sip her wine or mead in small barely-there sips that made him wonder if she had tasted any at all.

When she met his eyes, her own reflected back at him, still melted bronze – still beautiful as always – but dull and no longer shining. It was as though her thoughts and heart were somewhere else entirely. And when she looked at him, he did not think she truly saw him. He had said as much to his father, a couple days before, after witnessing one too many of these subdued displays.

"Someone needs to intervene," Eric had snapped, turning from Hugh toward the door as though he himself would do so now.

"Intervene with what, exactly?"

"This," Eric said and gestured to the floor as if all the world had gone off kilter. "There is something wrong with her."

"She is suffering growing pains, Eric. She's not been locked in a dungeon."

"By the look of her, she may as well be," Eric said, raking a hand through his already unruly hair.

"You are overly concerned."

"I am not."

"You are," Hugh said, voice hard. "She must learn her place in this world. And your mating instincts—"

"Are fine. My mating instincts are under control."

"You are being possessive—"

"I am expressing concern."

"—and proprietary."

"As is my right, father."

"It is not your right! She does not belong to you."

"She is my mate!"

"And yet you are unmated!"

"Then allow me to resolve the issue of our marriage. Allow me the time I need to settle things with her, so that we may be mated and done with this business."

"She is not ready," Hugh waved a hand and sat down behind his desk as though the conversation were over.

"That is not for you to decide," Eric snarled.

"And neither is it for you," Hugh countered but he had already turned to his daily correspondence and no longer looked at Eric as he spoke.

"Then who?"

"These things are for her and Fernando to discuss. You and I will leave them well enough alone."

"She was my mate before she was Fernando's daughter," Eric growled and began to stalk the room in agitation.

"You are acting in a manner that is beneath you. She was not your mate when you knew her. She may be your mate now, but it is not the time for impulsive decisions, my boy. Your marriage is not the thing we need concern ourselves with now. We have the matter of Benjamin to see to. You will not pursue this any further. I forbid it." Hugh set down his quill and stared resolutely into his son's defiant eyes.

Eric turned from his pacing to stalk up to his father and lean menacingly down over his desk. Hugh's lip curled in warning at his son's insolence, but Eric did not care.

"You forbid it?" The young de Clermont hissed at his father. "You? You forbid it?"

"Aye, son, I do."

"You who have defied everything to be with your mate, the man you love. You, father, will deny me this? You think you can deny it? Truly?"

"In time, you'll understand. I say this not to deny you your truth, Eric. She is your mate. She is a daughter to me. A daughter to Fernando. She will bear the de Clermont name, as she already does the Gonçalves. She will have every honor and every luxury afforded to me and mine. But she is not ready. She may not be for some time. And if you cannot see that then neither are you."

This was a grave insult. To suggest that a vampire did not know how to care for his mate or see to her needs. It was a personal matter that was not openly discussed. And if any other man but Hugh were to say it, Gallowglass knew quite surely that man would not live to see another day. But it was Hugh who had spoken so plainly and so true, and though his body flooded with the urge to defend his right to the woman he loved and to challenge the man in front of him for asserting his dominance where it didn't belong. He held fast and bit his tongue and tried to collect his anger.

"Your father is right, I'm afraid" Fernando spoke from the doorway.

His voice quiet and grave and apologetic. Hugh, Eric would not challenge out of respect and deference. While he respected Fernando, Eric knew simply that he could not challenge him. Not if he hoped to win, at any rate.

"And what, pray tell, do the two of you know that I do not about the affairs of my mate?"

"She does not understand, son," Hugh sighed and sat heavy in his chair.

"We can help her understand," Eric countered.

"Aye, we can," Hugh nodded, though his voice remained firm. "In time, when she is ready."

Hugh's unspoken, "and when you are ready," hung between them in the heavy silence.

Eric shook his head and gritted his teeth. Eyes flitting from Hugh's to Fernando's and back again.

"I am prepared for her rejection. There is no need to—"

"You may have prepared yourself for the worst, Eric, but have you prepared yourself to recover?"

This time it was Fernando who spoke, and his eyes were somehow both stern and full of a rare showing of concern.

Eric stared at him. He opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden twist in his chest, and he closed it and looked away.

No.

He had not prepared himself to recover.

He did not know that she would understand what it meant to be a vampire's mate. No matter how bright and sharp and remarkable she was, there was the chance that she could not understand the way his soul had bound itself to hers for eternity. Some things were beyond rational explanation, and love unfortunately was one of them. Especially, the kind he felt for her.

From now until the end of his days, she would be his forever. She may not belong to him or choose him or understand, but there would be no eternity for Eric that did not start and end with Fernanda. It all started with with her.

If anyone in the world could understand it would be the men standing before him now, telling him he wasn't ready.

But God how he grated at their words. Their wisdom. Their restraint.

This was not for them to decide. What happened between Eric and Fernanda, was for him and his mate alone. Surely, they could see that.

Surely, they could—

Hugh sighed and gestured for Eric to sit, sending him a look that was equal parts a plea and a command.

Eric dutifully pulled back a chair and dropped down into the seat across from his father. His heart was heavy, and his eyes were low, and his teeth ground together more firmly with each new consideration that passed through his mind.

Fernando stayed back by the doorway. He knew intimately what it was for the father of your mate to come between you and them. He knew the way it irked and chafed at a young manjasang to see the obstacle to their happiness and have to cow themself before it.

No matter how much Eric loved the girl, no matter how much they did need to explain the complex situation she had stumbled into here with them, it was in her best interest to first develop an understanding of the world she now lived in.

If Fernando had learned anything from his time with his daughter, and the stories Eric and Hugh now told of her past as Malvina, Fernanda desperately needed structure. She desperately needed a roadmap to her own survival here.

She had gone from a young woman out of time, to a maid in a horrible castle who suffered countless abuses, to now a lady in an important house with an important name. She carried weight and meaning, and the longer she stayed here the more the world would look in on her with expectation – the more the world would look to her only to find ways to bring her down, knock her out of the running, keep her in her place.

If she was to one day thrive in this world, she needed to learn the rules and languages and customs of it.

You cannot overcome what you do not understand. As difficult as it may be, Fernando knew from experience, sometimes assimilation was the first step to true empowerment. It was the vampire way, and now it would be Fernanda's as well, to integrate so that the eyes focused on you will eventually look away, and then in time individuate so that you may live freely how you wish to live. After all, a woman who becomes a nun gives up everything to her higher power, but in the end, she may read and write and pursue those passions that have otherwise been reserved for the world of men. In the end, she may practice medicine or the arts or philosophy to her heart's content.

He knew not Fernanda's passions — though he could venture a guess that food may well be one of them. He did not know if she knew her own passions. But he could give her the opportunity to find them, before the world pushed in and the de Clermont came knocking.

To marry Eric now, would be to give up a life of her own. He may not see it, but Hugh and Fernando knew. After all, Philippe had only given Eric fifty years before he called on the youngest heir to fulfill his family duties.

Fernanda had every opportunity to be more if time allowed. Eric wanted to protect her. Fernando could not begrudge the younger man that. Marriage to him would solve her a great many problems, would unburden her of some things. But Fernando knew, intimately, that it would saddle her with even more.

No, he was firm in his decision. And Hugh would enforce that with his son, here and now. The girl needed time to grow. She need not concern herself with marriage to Eric now.

As far as Fernando was concerned, fifty years on and a handfasting left unconsummated, did not a legitimate marriage make. He'd said as much to the boy very early on. As far as any of them were concerned, the moment she disappeared from the village at the edge of the woods, and Sorley had been turned into a vampire, the marriage itself became null and void.

Fernanda could afford now to be a child for a little while more. And Eric's good intentions be damned, Fernando would not be challenged on this.

"I would not ask it of you if I thought for a moment, you lacked the integrity for it," Hugh said, and he kept his voice low as though he was confiding in his son some great secret. "Eric... Sorley, my boy, she arrived here just months ago and everything about her was odd. She is different than the other women of her age-"

"It matters little," Eric bit out.

"It matters a great deal," Hugh said and arched an eyebrow at his son.

Eric was being purposely difficult now, and Hugh knew he did not raise a young man who was quite so blind as Eric now pretended to be.

"She has a different culture. A different way of speaking and manner of dress. I cannot claim to know what her world is like, but I imagine it to be very different from our own."

Eric stared at his father but remained silent. He could feel Fernando's eyes at his back and he rankled a bit at the presence of his stepfather now, leaning on the wall between him and the door. A silent reminder of the fact that there was one very steadfast obstacle between him and his mate even now.

"In the time that she has been here, she has adjusted to several rapid changes," Hugh continued. "She has struggled to cope with the death of the farmer, with the truth about our kind, and now she struggles to adjust to the basic customs of our world. She needs patience. She needs guidance and care."

Hugh shook his head and looked at his son in earnest. Could he not truly see this of all things?"

But Eric could see. He watched his father stare at him in a silent plea for peace. Then he sighed and looked away, thinking of the scattered fear and grief and shame that followed his mate around La Ithuriana like a black cloud.

"Eric," Hugh said and the youngest de Clermont turned his eyes back up to his father. "You must understand that, at this moment, she cannot go into a marriage freely and with her whole self. To tell her now that she is your mate... well... I do not think it wise to overwhelm her. Give her time. Let her a moment to find her footing. I fear that if we were to tell her now, she would enter her bond with you without the power she needs and deserves. She would do so out of fear. You know many women do. Eventually her ignorance of our customs, her lack of footing in our world, would mix with the rapidly increasing distance of your ages, and your relationship would fester. You may be young to me, but we must not forget, my boy, that you were not yet thirty when she met you. And she now, cannot be thirty yet still. You threaten to outpace her. You have done already. If we approach this too soon, I fear your bond with your mate would be at risk of permanent damage."

Eric sagged with every word. His father was right of course, but—

"I want you both to know what you are entering beforehand. There are too many questions. You passed fifty years without her. She passed six months. You have lived a very long life that is destined to be even longer still. She is still young, and confused, and for some reason we have yet to uncover, she is traveling through time itself—"

Eric rubbed his hands down his face wearily and nodded with his father a silent agreement.

"I have been so busy with Benjamin; I still have not spoken more with her about—"

"Neither have I," Fernando said, regretfully. He pushed off the wall finally and came to take a seat with the other two men before he continued.

"Eric, I understand well what you are going through."

The young de Clermont scoffed.

"Perhaps not in the exact same way, but I know what it is to be denied my mate," Fernando said. "I don't want you to hear my denial and think it a reflection on you, meu filho. I only want her to understand the culture of this era and the culture of the manjasang. I want her to know what you ask her to agree to."

Hugh was already nodding his agreement, and he leaned forward onto his desk when Eric turned back his way.

"She needs to be educated, my boy, not subjugated," Hugh said, tapping his finger on his desk with every point he made. "Loved, not suppressed. A true de Clermont woman is a woman of power. Moreso, a true member of the Gonçalves-de Clermont family must first and always be free. She must be of sound heart and mind, to make the best choice possible for her person regardless of the desires of others. She is Fernando's daughter. She is your mate. In time, she will be my daughter by marriage, if she so chooses. We have all accepted her into our hearts and our home, but that means that we must also guard her interests. We must guard them against the world beyond our walls, but also, if we must, we will guard them against you. Even if your intentions are well meant."

"You need not protect her from me—"

"We would do the same for you, if your roles were in reverse."

No, he did not like this change in his Fernanda, but he held his tongue. It was unfair of him to rob her of her maid. It would be thoughtless of him to rob her of her tutor. She must learn now what it means to be Lady Gonçalves, before time comes along and casts her into more treacherous waters than she has already been. La Ithuriana acted as a shelter. And the guests they kept in their home would respect her despite her eccentric ways, but a visit from a priest or a member of the nobility of Navarre...

No, he turned his face.

If she were to continue how she had been, they would see her reputation permanently damaged. They could see her through far worse if they were able, but she needed to learn how to be a lady so she could learn how to survive. The world would not show her the same patience and acceptance as he had thus far. His home could be a fortress for a time. He, in his way, could be a fortress for a time. But fortresses are constructed to withstand the worst possible scenario, and they often suffered the worst possible outcome as a result. Her tutelage could spare her an unimaginable fate.

She required an education. He could not interfere. And he couldn't disrespect Fernando by doing so. She was his mate, but they were yet unmated as his father so liked to remind him. She was his wife, but for the fifty years they'd spent apart, and Fernando's adamance that the marriage was null and void. There were too many questions between the two of them. Too many uncertainties. And Hugh had made it abundantly clear that Eric was to respect Fernando's role in her life. He'd made it clear that Eric was not to interfere.

But Eric couldn't help but frown. He watched the dull way she turned a pear over in her hands, refusing to take a single bite of her favorite fruit, and wondered if this was the best way for her to learn how to exist in this new world. He knew not the time she came from, or how it differed from here. But to see her succumbing now to her tutelage felt like more of a loss than he could bear.

---

After dark, when the evening meal had ended, and the humans had laid down their weary heads. The group of manjasangs melted away into the darkness. Down to the village they had stalked in the shadows, one with the night and intent on their creature prey.

They surrounded the house where the little girl had died, so thick its scent had seeped into her body. They knew exactly which one to go to. The mill did not run in the frozen winter cold. It was but a few doors down, a large looming figure stood out in the cold. Not even the animals of the night made a single sound. All around them the world was silent, holding its breath in the anticipation of some great and terrible fear.

Eric had led the march. Followed by his father and his father's mate. Behind them were Balder, Idir and Guillaume. Jean Luc remained behind.

Swords drawn, eyes glinting, they made no noise as they entered the house. They left no trace of their presence there. And found in the darkness that their prey was gone.

This time, at their feet, the elderly miller and his apprentice lay half dead and bleeding. Their throats had been ripped from them in Benjamin's violent spree.

Eric knelt now before them, held his hands to their throats and muttered pointless words of comfort. He contemplated seriously changing them. Saving them. Offering them another fate but the one they met now, weak and dying on the floor of an abandoned home. But Hugh, knowing his son's impulses and the weight of his guilt, had settled a firm hand on his shoulder and shaken his head. They would not make the miller or his apprentice a de Clermont. It was reckless and unwise. And no other here would offer to change them. They could not afford to bring a newborn into the equation, and they could not bring a newborn home to Eric's mate, Fernanda.

They sat in silence as the men died their slow gruesome deaths. Whispering quiet, useless words of peace and comfort as they did.

---

Addison stood outside Fernando's study. It was long past dark, and Prudhomme had tucked her tightly into bed before leaving. She had tossed and turned for a while but found she couldn't sleep. With a huff, she'd thrown back her covers and padded quietly across La Ithuriana's immaculate floors.

She hadn't expected the house to be lit after dark. Hadn't expected the warm glow of the rooms and corridors that greeted her. But she was rather grateful for it either way.

Now, her hand was raised to knock on her father's study door but lingered just inches from the surface instead. She hadn't been in this room since she'd discovered the truth about her new family a couple weeks ago. She and Fernando had made their amends, sure, but she hadn't come back to this room.

She sucked in a steadying breath and finally found her courage, bringing her fist down to knock at the door when a voice sounded behind her.

"Lady Fernanda?"

Jean Luc.

Addison turned to face Hugh's manservant with wide eyes and a stutter.

"Can I help you with something, my lady?" he asked, patient in the face of her stuttering.

"No—" she started but then shook her head. "Yes. Yes, I was looking for my fa—for Fernando."

Jean Luc's eyes were light and knowing, he nodded, but fixed her with a sympathetic frown.

"I'm afraid he's away, my lady," he said, and his voice did sound genuinely apologetic.

"Oh," she said and brought her arms up to wrap uncertainly around her torso. "Right. Well—"

She cast a glance up at the man who waited patiently for her to continue.

"Do you know when he will be back?"

Jean Luc's frown deepened a bit though his eyes remained impossibly kind.

"I regret to say that I do not, but I'd be happy to tell him you were looking for him."

She couldn't help the sinking disappointment that overcame her at his words. Addison didn't know when it had happened, but it seemed the entire household had gone and left her behind. She glanced down the corridor where a lone window looked down on the village a ways below. The snow was high on the mountain and the elements seemed so unforgiving, but everyone else appeared to be out there. Even in the darkness. She had no idea what they were doing, but whatever it was, it was a far cry from the company they'd kept each other in the fall. Fernando and Hugh, Eric and Idir. All those she had come to rely on in this place and time, and now, in the ancient walls of La Ithuriana, Addison realized that she was suddenly quite alone.

"No," she said after too long a pause. "No that won't be necessary. Thank you, Jean Luc."

Her voice was surprisingly calm when she spoke, but Addison felt her throat tightening around a lump that had formed. Her chest constricted a bit, and she hid her hands in her skirts to hide the way they clenched nervously at this realization.

The manservant frowned down at her, his face clouded with concern, but he did not question her. No matter how close they seemed to have become in the time she'd been here, Addison now knew that no matter how kind or familiar he may be, he was a servant, and she was part of the family.

He could not be a friend to her the way she needed someone to be. His role was to serve Hugh, and to run things in the eldest de Clermont's stead. Anything else from him to her was the kindness he was bound to show her as a result of her station. Nothing more, nothing less.

Addison felt hollow as Jean Luc reluctantly nodded his acceptance of her words, ducking his head down in a quick, practiced bow. She sent him a small smile and turned away, heading back to her chambers to wait for something to do or someone other than her terrible tutor to speak to.