Eponine was hoping to keep her new friend well away from the inquisitive eyes of her parents, but it didn't work.
Someone had evidently seen her and Gavroche take Sansa to the tavern and had informed her father and mother about the mysterious high-born maiden with the fiery hair and silk dress she was keeping company with.
As soon as she arrived at their ramshackle lodgings, to give them a little coin so that they didn't actually go out robbing or worse, her mother pounced.
"Is that all you've got? Slim pickings, Eponine dear, ain't it?" she sniped, rummaging in the pockets of her coat. "'least you brought a bit o' grub as well!"
Eponine thanked the gods that she kept her money close and far away from her grasping parents. Sometimes she wished she could do what Gavroche did and cut the cords completely between them. The little lad didn't even acknowledge them as family. Only Eponine was close enough to him to count.
"Time are hard, Ma-" she wheedled.
"Or maybe you ain't trying 'ard enough-" interjected her father.
Eponine still remembered a time when they still had the inn, when her father used to spoil her and treat her like his little lady. But as their fortunes had dwindled and the Thenardier family had slipped further and further down the social ladder, he had become more and more work-shy and more and more grasping. The notion of earning his own silver seemed to have passed him by a long time since.
"What's this 'bout a high-born maiden you were walking with the other day? Fire-kissed lassie in a silk dress?"
Eponine was put on her guard. Her mother and father were incredibly rapacious. Any chance to use their knowledge to enrich themselves would be taken and damn the consequences. They would think nothing of selling Sansa out to the highest bidder.
I can't let them do that, my dear friend is relying on me to keep her safe for now.
"High-born maiden?"
Her mother pinched her ear in between sharp grimy nails. Eponine winced in pain.
"Don't you act simple with me!" Madam Thenardier's sneer was a low threat Eponine well knew. "You were seen- by Montparnasse and Azelma walking down the street with a girl of six and ten. That little tyke Gavroche was right in front of you and you were talking to her."
"The girl was lost and we was giving directions. That's all." Eponine lied through her teeth, hoping her parents would not see through her tale. "I dunno what happened to her, Ma-"
"Lost!" the older woman scoffed.
Eponine hoped that her words were enough to throw her mother off the scent. The sooner they got off the subject, the happier she would be.
"I hope you picked 'er pocket well, lass?"
Eponine shrugged, deciding to go for a believable falsehood and get them off the scent. "Tried it, Ma, honest to the Gods I did. But the lass had nothing but coppers on her! Think she was probably an escapee from the Street of Silk in that dress."
"Very well-" Thenardier sighed. "-you've got to start applying yourself and stop hanging round with those no good students. You've a living to earn for us and it ain't going to walk into yer pocket!"
Sometimes Eponine wondered when he had lost his pride and come to depend on her for their living. Maybe Gavroche had the better idea leaving them to it and walking away, but being older and remembering earlier times, it was harder for her to make a clean break. The students, for all their quirks and the dangers of their revolutionary talk were far more of a family to her.
Ah well, you can't choose your family, she thought with an internal sigh.
"Look, I have to flit. I'll see you later." she said hurriedly, as she sped out of the door of their den.
"Mind yer bring us more coin, lass, won't yer?-" her mother yelled behind her.
At the Musain
Sansa removed her moonstone threaded hairnet and handed it to Enjolras. "You've all done so much for me. I wanted to give you this. Perhaps we could sell it for additional funds." she reached back to unhook the dragonfly pendant as well to add it to the haul. "This can be added to the haul as well. Hopefully the two items will fetch a decent price."
"Such beautiful items to give up, Sansa-" he changed the subject, sensing that he was going to get little more out of her, now that she'd realised her slip.
"I don't need them any more."
"Don't need? What do you mean?"
"I was thinking of cutting my hair, as part of a more effective disguise." she told him. "I truly won't need it any more as I won't have enough hair to put in it."
Enjolras stared at her in undisguised horror. He actually gaped for a moment.
"You can't-"
She shook her head in bemusement. "Can't what?"
"Cut your hair!" his voice came out in a bit of a yelp at the end. "It would be a sacrilege!"
Sansa gave him another look, puzzled by his vehemence.
Why was he so adamant that she shouldn't crop her head? If it needed to be done... she admitted that she would have a pang at sacrificing her pride and glory but if it were a matter of survival she was prepared to make the sacrifice.
"It's a fairly distinctive feature, Enjolras. The first thing that anyone is going to be looking for is a maid with long red-gold hair and blue eyes. I can't do anything about the eyes, but-"
"I'll get you a linen coif, you can hide it underneath that." he said hurriedly. "Truly I should have thought of it before. But please promise me that you won't cut it off. Not completely..." he was touching her long braid stroking it's length almost reverently.
He was so intent upon her, and she was so captivated by him that they didn't notice the odd looks his friends were giving them.
"D'ye think she's trying to attract him?" Grantaire remarked shrewdly, watching the couple interact. People often assumed that he didn't notice what was going on around him, due to the copious amount he drunk daily but it was actually surprising how little got past him and his sharp observant artist's eye.
"Enjolras? He's not interested in females!" Feuilly wrinkled his nose in disbelief.
"It distracts him from the cause, we've all heard him preach chapter and verse all about it, many a time." Bossuet agreed.
"Gods, d'ye remember what he was like when you were courting Cosette? How he ranted about you losing your focus over some woman!" Feuilly turned to Marius.
"How could I forget?" Marius said dryly.
"If I had a star for every girl who lost their head over him and his golden good looks I would be a rich man! Hell, I'd probably be Master of Coin! Nothing could sway him from his path, nothing. You're fretting about nothing!" Feuilly said decisively.
"Enjolras eats sleeps and breathes our cause and he's not going to change for some female, gorgeous and high-born as she is." scoffed Courfeyrac. "I'd bet you ten stags if I had them that there's nothing to it. 'Course he's going to look, he's flesh and blood like the rest of us!"
Joly didn't look convinced. "I suspect you would lose that bet, Courf. He's not been like this with other girls because he hasn't had any feelings for them. But this one...it's like watching sparks from a forge when they are together. And he's so tender towards her. They were holding hands when he introduced her-"
"Most men would. Isn't that right, Combeferre?" Grantaire jabbed, his eyes gleaming with amused malice as he latched on to his target.
The other man blushed furiously, cursing the artist under his breath.
"Gods, you too?" Marius had the temerity to look amused by the revelation. "Seems like love eally is in the air at the moment!"
Even Combeferre's ears turned slightly red. "There's no need to mock!" he gritted out.
Jehan thought about it. "Well, she is undeniably fair. A true Northern Rose-"
"She is fair, and if she'd shown the slightest bit of interest in me, I would snap up the chance of being with her, but she doesn't see me like that. Not like him and her-"
"So you would gallantly stand aside for your friend?" Grantaire mocked, wine stained mouth curled up in a cynic's smile. "I would have known you'd be so selfless, my friend Combeferre!"
Combeferre refused to rise to the artist's needling. "Selfless has got nothing to do with it. He's my best friend and I want to see him happy. If that means him getting to know a beautiful girl- well, man cannot live by revolution alone. Perhaps she might be good for him, who knows?"
"So what's going on with you and this girl?" Corufeyrac asked, completely lacking in tact. he eagerly leaned forward keen to find out the answer to this riddle.
Enjolras scowled. The last thing he wanted was for speculation to start about him and Sansa, especially as he hadn't even come to terms with it himself.
"Nothing!" he was irritated to see Marius and Courfeyrac swap knowing glances across the table.
"What?" he snapped, feeling far more defensive than he would have liked.
"Oof, someone's like a bear in a pit this morning, aren't they?" Courfeyrac insinuated, not bothered by Enjolras's bad mood. "I was just curious about the pretty lass you introduced to us all."
"'Tis no sin to show a little kindness to a soul in distress, is it?" Enjolras found himself saying, faced with Courfeyrac's disbelieving smirk.
Grantaire in the corner was amused by Enjolras's attempt to justify his care of the mysterious maiden. "Would he be swayed by such a thing as compassion, duty and chivalry if she had a face like a boot?" he muttered, a little too loud to be sotto voce.
"There is nothing going on." Enjolras narrowed his eyes at his friend, ignoring Grantaire's muttered cynicism. "She's just a maid that we are helping. It's the chivalrous thing to do, is it not?"
Enjolras did not like the way that this was going. He didn't want to think about it in any depth. To admit the truth of it, that yes, he did have feelings towards Sansa and he didn't like it.
He didn't like feeling so distracted and well...vulnerable.
I'm not going to act upon my emotions. I'm a grown man. I can handle myself around a mere girl, as lovely as she is.
Even as he told himself this as sternly as he could, Enjolras knew that he was lying to himself.
I don't have time for this. He sincerely hoped the rest of the group could not sense how she affected him.
It's completely inappropriate, she's just a maid. A high-born one, I must not!
I'm so tired, I should sleep. I'm going to feel like hell at the printer's if I don't get some rest.
Yet every time he closed his eyes and lay down on his bed, he knew the dreams would start again to torment him with what he cannot and must not want...
Sansa naked and pliant in his bed, her long pale limbs curled around him as he pressed adoring kisses to her throat, lingering on the warm hollow of her collarbone and the upper curves of her breasts. Her soft gentle sighs, her arms twining round his neck to draw him closer, affectionately playing with the golden curls at the nape of his neck. She looked at him with a dreamy smile, gaze lingering on his features as if he was infinitely dear to her.
That affection and intimacy almost felt more dangerous for his equilibrium; he could have dismissed the explicit nature of his earlier dreams as mere lust for a beautiful woman, to be sublimated and overcome with discipline and hard work, but this treacherous longing to be near her, to kiss and touch her was uncharted territory, a perilous path without a map or guide.
The night before he had been plagued by a dream in which she had boldly straddled his lap while he was at his desk and ground against his pelvis as she kissed him fiercely, sliding her tongue into his willing open mouth, undulating against him like a Lyseni whore. He'd woken up hard and aching, frustrated by his dreams and unable to do anything about it.
Other nights had found him dreaming about bending her over his desk, slick skin sliding against slick skin, gripping her hips as he pushed into her; or the two of them entwined in every lascivious pose imaginable rather like the commission Grantaire had been working on, which was a series of illuminations based on 'The Loves of Queen Nymeria' for a wealthy Dornish customer.
This has to stop.
I have to remember my aims, who I am. I have devoted my life to freedom and justice in the Seven Kingdoms. I don't have time for dalliances with fair maidens, however pleasant and alluring they are.
He remembered how he had rebuked Marius for falling for his Cosette- accusing him of losing his focus and not taking their cause seriously enough.
Now the Gods are surely having their revenge for my hubris for I am falling into the same silken trap!
He was worse surely, for at least Marius had hope of having his love requited!
Why would a pretty high-born maid like Sansa, however down on her luck ever accept my suit? And worse; what do I know about wooing?
And now I have fallen into the same snare; I'm falling for this maiden despite my best efforts and I know so little about her.
I have to master this weakness, plunge myself back into my work. The kingdom needs me right now, as it has never needed me before. Now is the time, I must not be distracted from my goal. I must put aside my own selfish desires, no matter how hard it is.
'Tis my only possible salvation.