Chapter 54 – An Unexpected Ally

Wherein Valentina sets her course out of misery.

The women of Stygian Way 13 spent more time together in the following days. Rose told her friends about all the stipulations of Bardic College and how those were just impossible to live up to. She told them about Mr Bosch, upon which Bosra stormed out through the scullery door. The young women followed to see her hacking into a stubborn lump of firewood.

Rose was happy it was wood, and not Mr Bosch’s face.

"There’s going to be party," Rose said, loudly talking over the sounds of splitting wood and Highlander grunting. "I have to go."

Valentina wanted to make a silly remark, but didn’t. She fidgeted with the lace cuff of her sleeve. "I could come with you."

Rose shot her grateful smile, but doubted if the young woman should, before returning her gaze to Bosra’s hulking form. As the axe fell down on yet another block of wood, and splinters launched themselves in every direction, both young women flinched.

"Will you come along, Bosra?"

Bosra set up another piece of log to drop her axe into. "That Bosch-guy gon’ be there?"

"He shouldn’t be."

"Ain’t gon’ be pretty if he is." Swing. Thwack. Crunch.

Valentina and Rose took a cautious step backwards.

"I’d still feel safer if you tagged along," Rose said, her Fairfields accent reinstating itself. Mr Bosch would get what was coming to him, if he did attend a student-body party.

"Then I’m there."

Easy as that, Rose thought. She let Valentina tug her back inside.~

Rose and Bosra, though supportive, were of no real help to Valentina, when it came to breaking her engagement. So she sent a note to her father, requesting a copy of the marriage contract.

She should have asked for a secretary aide to come with it, because she had trouble understanding the meaning of certain phrases.

Time and time again, as she was struggling her way through the tome of stipulations, Lord Elvendale’s words came back to her. "Words on paper can be bent. A vow has to be broken."

She wasn’t fighting the words on the paper. She was fighting the vow. She couldn’t be the one to break the vow. That would discredit the Arch-Duke in a serious political fashion that she did not want to be responsible for.

During yet another session, locked up in her bedroom with the contract under her nose, she found the loophole that would give her a way out of the contract without breaking it t. She was indicated as ‘daughter of the noble line of Effyne’.

A grin split her face from slightly pointed ear to slightly pointed ear.

There was more than one of those. If she could get Theodora to step into her shoes, she might be free to choose her own course.

She rushed downstairs to share her news with her friends, only to come to the conclusion that it was the middle of the day and they were both at work. Valentina didn’t let this stint her happiness.

She dove into the kitchen to bake a cake. A scrumptious cake that would finish off their supply of cacao, and possibly their oranges too.

Getting Lord Elvendale to break his vow, and Theodora to accept the marriage, didn’t seem a herculean task anymore.

Doing something she had never done before, something that required bravery, Valentina invited her sister over for tea. 

She was nervous as all get-out. She had baked three cakes and deemed them all failures. She went over to a neighbour to trade her bundt cake for an orange-zest angel cake. They had had a heartening conversation, after which Valentina had left with the angel cake and a new recipe from a ladies monthly magazine. 

She felt a little calmer as she surveyed the scene she set. 

Fine porcelain tea set ready for use, check. 

Queen Vesper sofa lightly pillowed, check. 

Cherry wood coffee table waxed, check. 

Tasteful art displayed throughout the salon, check. 

Flowers in the windowsill, check. 

A carriage pulled by two black horses pulled up in front of the house. The doorbell rang before her guest had exited. Valentina opened the door and watched two dainty feet step onto the pavement. She saw a young woman approach that might as well be her twin if it hadn't been for the three years between them. 

If this had been Queen Raevyn herself, Valentina would not have been more nervous.

Stop being silly, it's only your sister.

"Is this how the rabble lives?" Theodora asked disdainfully, attempting to mimic Venlica, yet the poison didn't drip from her words just yet. Maybe, if she was on time with this, she could save not just herself, but her sister too. 

"It appears so, doesn't it?" Valentina answered with a soft smile. She gestured for her sister to enter the home she was proud of. 

"Is it true you live here with your servants as if they were your peers?" 

"Actually, yes. You should try it."

Theodora crumpled her nose. "No thanks."

Valentina stifled a grin. A year ago she would have said the same. 

They played pretend at tea, saying only polite things. It both frustrated and calmed Valentina, until she didn't know how to keep the conversation going anymore without openly making it seem like she was avoiding a shower of burning coals. 

Cutting herself another slice of angel cake, she said: "I'm breaking my engagement with Lord Elvendale. He doesn't know yet. If you want, you can have him." 

Theodora's cup, decorated with little pink and gold roses, tumbled from her hands. "You are what? Why?!"

Valentina breathed in deeply. She held her breath for a second. "Because the prospect of becoming his wife has made me beyond miserable."

Theodora picked up her cup and set it on its saucer very carefully. She picked up the spoon next and laid it next to the cup, frowning as she did so. The pensive expression made her look real.

"I have read the marriage contract about a hundred times. It might as well apply to you as to me. My signature on the last page doesn't mean much, it is father's signature that matters and as it happens he has two daughters of noble lineage."

Theodora’s blinking made Valentina realize she was going too fast for her sister. 

"As long as either of us marries Lord Elvendale, father cannot be held accountable for breach of contract," she explained gently. "I avowed to Lord Elvendale that I would marry him willingly, but I find that I cannot. If he breaks his vow to wed me, will you take my place for the sake the contract?"  

Theodora was still gobsmacked. Valentina could understand the sentiment. A year ago she would have had the same flustered reaction. 

"I would be untouchable," Theodora concluded in a whisper.

Valentina could see cogs turning behind the pretty face. Maybe Thea wasn't the minion of Venlica's machinations, as Valentina had feared. 

"I could do whatever I wanted and mother would have no say at all."

"Correct," Valentina affirmed. Rhodum had said the same to her.

Theodora closed her eyes and rocked with a violent shiver. "Okay. I will do it." She opened her eyes, blue boring into blue. "But you have to do something terrible or Selanar will not break his vow."

"I know." Valentina clamped her thighs together, hands stuck between them. "I have a plan."

Theodora took one itty-bitty bite of her angel cake, and the usual spiteful mask returned. "I will do whatever it takes to take this from you, but that is it. You won't get further aid from me."

It stung to hear this sentiment spoken aloud. Valentina hid her pain behind a polite smile.

"And I suggest you hurry, it is only seven weeks until the wedding." Theodora set her cup and saucer down and rose from her seat with grace befitting a queen.

Valentina hurried to do the same. She showed her sister to the front door. The lackey was waiting there for her sister, the carriage standing in the exact same spot as it had upon her arrival. 

"Farewell, sister," Theodora greeted haughtily. Valentina grimaced. Thea might as well have said: See you never.

"Goodbye, Thea. I wish joy upon you."

"Hph." Theodora lifted her nose and sashayed down the flagstone path. Valentina watched her sister enter the carriage with help of the liveried lackey and waited until it was moving, until the carriage was out of sight. 

Closing the door firmly behind her, she felt lighter. She went into the salon to clean up and noticed her sister had swiped what was left of her piece of cake, where it had seemed like she was going to have only one bite.

How sad that Thea couldn't openly eat.