Chapter 16
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 15
She knows that her fate is sealed when he takes a moment then all but coos that she has the best of both worlds. It’s too much, just too much, she doesn’t want to have to deal with her story anymore! She doesn’t want to be the misshapen heroine who can only find love with the one hero who sees past her grotesque form and frees the princess underneath. She hates those stories, she doesn’t want to be in one of them! So she turns human again and orders him out of the room so she can cry herself to sleep. Not even that works until he fetches her a vase with that ugly earth, at least he put flowers into it, can he please, please really leave now?
He does, but she knows he must have snuck back into her room while she was sleeping because she finds a new dress waiting for her in the morning, and a little card with a paw print because of course, her prince of nightmares can’t even write. She stares at the pink dress, pink… is he telling her that she isn’t a real woman? Tears of frustration want to well up but then she clenches her jaw. She hates those stories, she refuses to be made into one, she’ll wear that dress and wear it proudly, she doesn’t need him to rescue her from her… deformity! She’s a night creature, her friends don’t care, she won’t let him make her care!
~~~~
That’s how her weeks go on, he gifts her something pretty to wear or jewelry, she answers in poetry and little calling cards, because really, not only is he frivolous in gifting her bauble after bauble he also doesn’t realise that the money he uses comes from her account as a baroness. He is using her money. Money she could be spending on projects in her barony, which turns out to be a lot more paperwork than she ever knew before.
She tries dutifully, Arthur normally at her side when she finds herself overwhelmed with the bureaucratic language and occasionally they even share a bit of their frustrations with each other. He’s still shy, she still likes that about him but she does hope her papa arrives soon. Why hasn’t her papa arrived yet? He must have gotten her letter surely; whenever she starts wondering about that too much, though, a new crisis materialises.
Watching her account drain and dragging herself back from excursions and terrifying meetings with her subjects and tenants is far from putting her into any romantic mood. Maybe she’s safe yet? But Gregory just does not give up, when it’s not gifts, which she knows a lady shouldn’t ever accept from a man anyway but it’s too late, she already made that mistake now there is no way back, then it’s him fawning about how amazing she is again.
~~~~
Something is going on, Arthur thinks. Something is going on with Gregory and Darcy. But he isn’t sure what. Well, there’s the obvious- but he dismisses that thought as soon as he has it. Darcy has made it pretty clear that she doesn’t even like Gregory- as seen with her reaction to that fake fiance debacle.
So he doesn’t know what it is, and if no one’s telling him, that clearly means it’s none of his business.
He settles into life at the castle, and… in some ways, it’s not so bad. It’s warm and dry and his sheets and clothes are always clean. And he can eat as much food as he likes, whenever he likes. His meals even start including honey cakes. The taste of them still reminds him of the smell of dust and people on a summer afternoon, the clangor of Whitegate Road, the sound of wheels and shouts… but it also reminds him of times before that day, when he was sure Gregory was Gregory and he felt free for a precious few hours, lost in the bustle of the city, with possibilities hanging around him like they were almost real- running away with the circus, some sudden turn of luck that would lead him off into an adventure like in the storybooks he snitches out of bins.
He gets so used to there always being a next meal that it takes him a while to realize the house also cleans away his food stash- and he doesn’t even mind.
In many ways, life at the castle is terrifying- trying to write letters that sound like what a noble person would write, and going out and investigating things… He doesn’t mind the investigating part, that part is almost fun, but every time they leave the wards, he is all too aware that his father is out there somewhere, that maybe he could curse him or catch him. And of course, he has to act like he’s not someone from the lowest station you can be, but belongs with nobles and is a gentleman and all that.
When they don’t have to go out and when he’s not helping Darcy with all these complicated letters and such, at least he gets to curl up in his hidden little lab and learn more about magic.
He even manages to make himself a protective amulet. The house provides him with a huge amethyst and the silver for setting it in. And it makes the silver into the shape he needs it to be, so he can wear the stone on his palm, because the books he’s working with say that the hands are the easiest conduits for magic.
If he’d had to learn silversmithing himself to do this, Arthur never would have managed, he’s sure, but with the house’s help, he doesn’t need to, and he makes sure to thank it for that.
It’s the most complicated piece of magic he’s ever done- well, of course, he hasn’t done much magic in his life. More accurately,it’s the most complicated piece of magic he’s ever even thought of doing. And the enchanting of the stone is essentially a ritual, which makes him hesitate for long days on whether he should even try, given how his last ritual worked out….
But with this one, all his research says that at worst, he’ll crack and ruin the stone. He’d feel bad about that after the house gave him such a beautiful and large one, he doesn’t even know if it took it from somewhere or whether it made it magically, but it’s the size of his palm and smooth and a deep purple in colour and really very beautiful, and he’d feel bad about ruining something so precious.
But even if he does, nobody’s going to die. Or go to hell.
And he can take as much time as he wants setting up the ritual- making sure all the circles are exactly round, are in just the right space, the symbols, too. Once he decides to do it, he spends another four days drawing and erasing and measuring and correcting and re-measuring until he’s sure, double sure and triple sure that he’s set everything up exactly right to conduct the magic.
Even when he’s ready to cast, when he’s primed the stone and placed it in the centre, he finds it hard to believe that he’s really going to attempt a piece of magic like this- enchanting a stone not just with a protective spell, but one that he’ll be able to adjust depending on the situation he finds himself in.
The books say that is artificer apprentice-level work! But the theory seems straight-forward enough, the book tells him the exact symbols and configuration he needs, it’s not like he has to come up with that by himself.
And he’s practised with the fire spell, and according to his reading… if he can cast a fireball like he now suddenly can, he should have the power to fuel this spell.
He rubs his left wrist nervously for a moment, the faint, narrow welts of scars brushing against his palm, then takes a deep breath and focuses his mind, sets his fingertips on the foundation circle of the spell, and pushes all his magic into the chalk lines.
There’s nothing really to see- maybe a faint glow from the stone, but he can feel the rush of the magic out of himself, into the spell, can feel how it weaves itself together and settles. He can feel how the circle goes inert.
He lifts the stone carefully, studies it- but he can’t tell whether it’s magical. He’s only started practising to detect magic, and he’s not succeeded yet.
But when he sets the stone with the house’s help, and then puts it on, he can feel it link up with himself, can feel it like he can feel it when he casts a fire spell, like it is one of his spells.
He stares in amazement at the purple stone on his palm- it really worked! He really did it!
He has the urge to run off and tell Gregory, but he has no idea where Gregory is, and so he just closes his fingers around the stone and presses it to his chest for a moment.
Maybe he’s not a demon or a dhampir, but now he doesn’t have to be so scared of getting hurt.
Of course he tests it- carefully. And he can’t test how well the mental protections work, of course, but with the physical ones active, a knife against his skin won’t do a thing.
And he can’t help but be a little proud of himself.
Not that anyone asks about the new addition the next time they have to go out.
~~~~
And then there is the day Gregory delivers a calling card from a knight at her door to Darcy. Much to her vexation, ever since he started courting her, his quirk of running around as if he were her butler only got worse. Apparently, he thinks it charming when in reality, he is only showing off even more how unbecoming a consideration he would be for her. But he is the only one who has shown any interest in courting her and… every time she wants to rebuff him, she remembers what he did to her. That he first violated her privacy as a cat and then made her so unsure about her body that she exposed herself, even just as a wolf, for just a bit of reassurance. She knows there surely is no other man out there who would still want a woman as sullied as her.
So she did the one thing she could find that might improve his station, she read into the different knight orders in the country with Arthur’s help, and found one that was founded as a para-military haven for those of the population who have been cursed with an aberration. Many of them make for good fighters, and as they are barred from regular military service, the chances of them turning to crime are high. Discipline is what they need and the Duchess of York saw it as a fitting humanitarian endeavour. Once Darcy had through that little informational brochure, she knew she had to enlist Gregory!
This is perfect, he would get training, hopefully, hopefully that would include manners, a stipend, and, if he served long enough, a knight title. With what she’s seen of his spending habits, she’s not sure the stipend would help him much, and it certainly wouldn’t do what it was meant to. She couldn’t help the snort when she read that the stipend is supposed to keep the knights independent of the nobles they are required to swear their service to so that no noble amasses a private militia. As if the money would help in this specific instance. Never mind, she could get him to sign the application papers easily enough, he didn’t even ask her what he was signing, too busy making lovesick eyes at her and talking… well, how men talk in romance stories. She’s read that often enough, so she knows that that’s definitely the kind of story he wants this to be.
On her side, it feels more like she’s stuck in a political crime story. She knows that Eluned assured her that her credentials would stand up to scrutiny (as long as she did her duty), but that doesn’t mean she feels she has any credentials. Or the training she really needs to run this barony properly. Which she notices only once more when Gregory escorts the knight before her, and she holds onto her etiquette training with everything she has. A misstep in front of him may expose her and this venture to get more legitimacy might end up in ruin. Not that Gregory is aware of that and definitely doesn’t behave as reverently as he should, although he likely thinks the fawning about a real knight is the appropriate response. Luckily, the knight is obviously used to it, after all, many of his order are of lower station, as he conversationally mentions in reaction to Gregory’s behaviour.
Cheeks burning with embarrassment at that remark, Darcy, or the Lady Rossmore in this case, goes over the clauses and conditions of a potential enlistment before the knight is satisfied and shall, with the lady’s permission, go on to the physical test. She’s worried, maybe Gregory won’t stand a chance and then she would have wasted a knight’s time, but if her description of Gregory’s abilities in the application had not passed their benchmark, the knight would not be here.
That worry does not let off one bit as she and Arthur watch, from a balcony, as Gregory, to put that very unladylike, gets beaten up by the knight easily. Fretting about the implications and to her own surprise snarling slightly at somebody hurting Gregory like that, Darcy calls a short break from up on their viewing spot, then rushes down.
Any potential worry she had for Gregory evaporates when he tells her he has been holding back because he can’t possibly hurt a knight. Fury sparking, she puts her commanding tone on, looks directly into his eyes and demands he do whatever he must to win this fight!