Chapter 38
I spent the following four days confined to my chamber, nursing my supposed recovery.
Truth be told, I felt perfectly hale the moment I stirred from sleep, yet my physician, Hosen, fussed over me several times daily, leaving me little option but to feign frailty.
Had the Grand Duke not stopped by each morning and evening to keep me company, I might have perished from sheer tedium.
A twinge of remorse stirred in me at the sight of his evident concern, yet I relished his devoted attentions and so averted my eyes from the truth.
‘At last, fresh air.’
After days pent up indoors, I ventured into the gardens of the Grand Castle, savoring the crisp breeze.
A few small hiccups aside, matters were unfolding precisely as I had schemed back at the Marquis’ estate.
Defying the original tale, I had forged a solid bond with the Grand Duke and was gradually drawing nearer to the knights.
Now I simply needed to establish myself in Blenheim and lay groundwork for what lay ahead.
I was quietly congratulating myself when, traversing an arched walkway, I caught murmurs from beyond a pillar.
“But if she comes here like this, I…”
“She even greeted the knights!”
The voice was low, yet laced with fervor.
“Does that mean that woman intends to linger here indefinitely?”
“I’m not certain yet…!”
Intrigued, I edged forward.
The speakers whirled to face me, their expressions startled.
One was Marzella, visibly rattled. At her side loomed a young noblewoman with rosy cheeks and chestnut locks.
Marzella swiftly composed herself and dipped into a curtsy.
“Your Grace.”
The noblewoman followed suit with a bow.
Her inferior rank forbade her from addressing me first.
I might have brushed past them, but curiosity won out.
“Who might you be?”
As though she had anticipated the question, the noblewoman beamed.
“It is a profound honor, Your Grace. I am Avoir Meisel.”
Avoir Meisel.
Her lemon-yellow eyes—precisely as the novel depicted—locked onto mine.
“Ah, daughter of Count Avoir.”
At the reference to her lineage, a shadow of feeling flitted across Meisel’s gaze.
“I never imagined Your Grace would know of my house.”
“It falls within my purview as Grand Duchess.”
In truth, the Avoirs were the sole northern noble family I recognized, and that solely due to Meisel’s role.
She was a secondary antagonist in the original narrative, not unlike myself.
“What occasions your presence in the castle?”
I flicked a look toward Marzella.
Beyond the maids, I alone held leave to roam the Grand Castle unchecked.
Though my glance carried a note of caution, Meisel merely smiled.
“I was dispatched on an errand for my father and lost my way. Luckily, I encountered the head maid, who came to my aid.”
Her words flowed with practiced ease.
“It has been ages since I last visited the castle, so I blundered foolishly. My apologies, Your Grace.”
“It’s hardly foolish.”
Her excessive deference struck me as subtly irksome, yet her obeisant posture prompted a lighter tone from me than I had planned.
In the book, Meisel emerged as a dim-witted aristocrat nursing a hopeless infatuation with the Grand Duke.
‘She enters the story later, harassing the heroine, Kathren, only to be banished from Blenheim.’
Meisel and Annette shared striking parallels.
Both were peripheral foes engineered to torment the central heroine, culminating in their downfalls—cathartic payoffs for the readership.
‘And both harbored affections for the Grand Duke.’
The distinction lay in timing: Annette debuted early, Meisel far later.
In essence, Meisel served as Annette’s successor.
‘Must we clash irreconcilably?’
What gain in petty strife between two bit players, stirring needless discord?
In the novel, their paths never crossed.
Thus, perhaps—as with the Grand Duke—I could cultivate amity with her.
Perceiving my lack of dismissal, Meisel cocked her head faintly and ventured further.
“Are you faring well, Your Grace?”
“In what sense?”
“I’ve heard you lack a lady-in-waiting.”
Her eyes darted behind me, underscoring my solitude.
“It must prove isolating and cumbersome, residing in the Grand Castle without retinue.”
“I manage. It mirrors life in the capital.”
“No need to dissemble before me. I understand how the capital diverges from the north.”
Meisel creased her brow in apparent solicitude.
“The Grand Duke is most inconsiderate, abandoning you so.”
‘What? Hardly. He dotes on me.’
Only the previous evening, the Grand Duke had appeared in my quarters bearing a parchment.
– “What’s this?”
– “A roster of prospective ladies-in-waiting. I suspected you might desire one.”
His foresight had stunned me. I had mulled the notion sporadically, never dreaming he would broach it.
‘He’s far more attentive than I credited.’
– “I prioritized daughters of noble houses, but should you harbor particular preferences, I can seek alternatives. Naturally, you might import someone from the capital, if feasible.”
If any would brave the journey to Blenheim, that was. He seemed faintly abashed delivering the line.
I had not scrutinized the list closely, but Meisel’s name had topped it, as I recalled.
‘Perhaps I ought to appoint Meisel as my lady-in-waiting.’
Should she learn of the selection, she would covet the role fiercely.
As attendant, she could traverse the castle at will, edging closer to the Grand Duke.
For one aspiring to Grand Duchess, it promised unparalleled access.
In the tale, she infiltrated only after Kathren’s northern arrival, under pretext of service.
‘I won’t permit that recurrence.’
I gave a subtle shake of my head, resolve hardening.
‘I refuse to perish from some schemer’s poison.’
Yet, might proximity to one’s foe prove wiser?
Lost in contemplation—
“I’m delighted fate allowed this encounter, Your Highness,” Meisel declared, her smile radiant.
“You’re even more impressive in the flesh. I’ve heard tales of you since childhood.”
Since childhood? Her tone rang bright and ingenuous, but I grasped her implication all too well.
Closeness? Out of the question.
“What tales precisely?” I inquired.
“Pardon?”
“Do you allude to my renown as the false saintess?”
My pointed barb quickened my heartbeat faintly.
“…Certainly not,” she countered.
Despite my overt displeasure, Meisel’s smile broadened, unruffled.
A vassal noblewoman ought not to conduct herself so brazenly toward the Grand Duchess. Rather than cower, however, she brimmed with peculiar eagerness—as if baiting my outburst.
As though she craved my lapse into ire…
Ah, so that was her game?
Serenity washed over me.
I turned to Marzella, who had lingered mute at my elbow.
“See the lady out. Lost or not, outsiders may not wander the castle unchecked.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Without a backward glance at Meisel, I swept past, according her utter disregard.
It was dismissal incarnate.
“Your Highness?”
Her tone sharpened faintly in my wake, but I pressed on.
Even sight unseen, I pictured her quaking with mortification and rage.
‘Did you suppose a counterfeit grin and barbed slight would ensnare me?’
A false saintess.
She had reckoned it the ideal prod.
Had fury seized me, she could feign innocence, protesting my misreading of her benign praise, my disproportionate wrath.
Whispers would proliferate: the capital’s notorious villainess fulfilling her archetype.
‘Her grand stratagem?’
She had never foreseen total indifference.
For this struck at Annette’s core vulnerability.
‘Yet it leaves me utterly unmoved.’
Indeed, Annette’s fame predated her first breath.
The year of her birth, a heavenly augury surfaced after decades’ silence, heralding a saintess’s advent.
“On the night when the last moon sets, the third star, born with a noble fate, will bring divine light to save the world from darkness.”
Marchioness Freis, then great with her third child, neared term on the year’s final eve.
Marquis Freis deemed his offspring the foretold savior. He lavished the temple with vast tithes and ceded lands in piety.
And on that ultimate night, the Marchioness bore a daughter.
That daughter was Annette Freis.
