Ch#66
Word of the Grand Duke restoring the long-neglected garden for the Grand Duchess raced through the duchy, eventually arriving at the Count Avoir estate.
Predictably, Meisel summoned Marzella.
This time, they convened at Café Delitar, nestled in the heart of Goldrain’s most bustling quarter.
The choice ensured Tiern wouldn’t spot them.
“What precisely occurred?”
Marzella, the chief maid, pressed her mouth into a thin line at Meisel’s piercing query.
Just days earlier, the Grand Duke’s abrupt command had mobilized nearly every soul in the castle.
Remarkably, not a single grumble arose.
Quite the opposite—the staff buzzed with delight, murmuring that it marked the first occasion their lord had orchestrated something special for a lady.
The Grand Duchess’s face had lit up with unfeigned joy upon beholding the garden, and numerous servants had peeked from the break room window, grins spreading as they watched.
The tale swiftly escaped the castle walls.
Yet Meisel alone dismissed it outright.
‘If anyone claims the Grand Duke’s smitten with the Grand Duchess, she’d likely erupt.’
“Isn’t an envoy from Rondoris due shortly?”
Marzella offered her rehearsed deflection with effortless poise.
“The garden refresh was for that event. The junior staff simply embellished the details.”
Meisel dipped her head in acknowledgment, though her teeth worried at her nails in unease.
A garden overhaul could pass muster—but what of the lake the Grand Duke had unveiled solely for the Grand Duchess?
Since that tea gathering with him, Meisel’s thoughts had scattered like leaves in a gale.
She took pride in how the boy she’d once known had matured into such a capable sovereign—yet it stung that he failed to know her in return.
Moreover, Marzella’s explanation notwithstanding, the Grand Duke had shown the Grand Duchess exceptional deference.
“Deference,” of course, served as Meisel’s euphemism to sidestep reality—she refused to concede affection.
‘He’s merely upholding his spousal obligations.’
Inevitably, Meisel’s bitterness fixed on the Grand Duchess.
That sly vixen, ensconced in the castle beyond Meisel’s easy reach.
—“I merely mentioned liking fruit, and the Grand Duke went to such lengths.”
The memory of the Grand Duchess boasting at tea never failed to churn her gut.
Marzella shared the irritation keenly.
The Grand Duchess had been artfully swaying the maids through subtle maneuvers.
Until recently, Marzella had wielded the castle’s master keys to maintain her grip, but for how much longer?
The Grand Duchess appeared utterly content these days. To drive her away, they needed to sow discord.
‘Accomplishing that proves tricky with the Grand Duke shielding her within these walls.’
Thus, the path to isolating the Grand Duchess lay beyond the castle grounds.
After mulling it through, Marzella lifted her gaze.
“My lady, why not leverage the gossip?”
“Gossip?”
“There’s chatter about an inn here in Goldrain. Whispers suggest the Grand Duchess holds a special bond with its proprietor.”
Marzella recounted the prevalent rumor: the Grand Duchess had propelled Marie’s Inn to prosperity, and now the Merchants’ Guild bore down on it in retaliation.
“She aided an inn?”
Meisel’s brow creased in bewilderment.
“Is she playing the philanthropist?”
“Idiots laud her for it, but really—what motive could the Grand Duchess have for aiding some lowly commoner?”
Marzella slipped in her barb with cunning.
“Doesn’t it ring truer if she’s pocketing bribes or granting the place undue favors?”
“You mean she accepted a bribe?”
‘Why would a marquis’s daughter stoop to petty coin?’
Meisel scoffed at the absurdity.
Such an accusation didn’t merely slight the Grand Duchess—it impugned the honor of all nobility.
“Speak something plausible.”
“Plausibility is beside the point.”
Marzella noted that all knew the Grand Duchess had arrived in Blenheim destitute.
That very rumor, naturally, traced back to Marzella’s machinations via itinerant maids.
A few well-placed whispers would reignite it.
‘The destitute Grand Duchess lines her purse through Goldrain’s traders.’
Truth held no weight.
The merchants, already irked by sluggish trade, would ignite at such insinuations.
A demonstration before the Grand Duke’s castle seemed entirely plausible.
Then the Grand Duchess—so bold in traversing Goldrain as if it were hers—would sample the North’s unyielding temperament.
“There’s ample tinder,” Marzella declared. “We need only stack the firewood.”
Noting Meisel’s keen interest as she leaned in, Marzella struck the decisive note.
“Moreover, my lady, don’t all gentlemen falter similarly, highborn or low?”
“How so?”
“No matter their fondness for a woman, persistent scandals wear them down swiftly. Particularly one like His Grace, ever attuned to the public’s pulse.”
“Who claims he’s fond of her?”
Meisel’s retort lacked true ire, though.
‘If I commit to this, I’ll see it through utterly.’
Her citrine eyes flashed with resolve.
Bide time for merchants to revolt? How interminable.
She’d reached marrying age already.
“This café is the Merchants’ Guild leader’s, isn’t it?”
Meisel shoved aside her bitter, overbrewed tea and issued her directive.
“Fetch the manager. I need the Guild leader’s whereabouts at once.”
No need for firewood.
To spark a blaze, douse it with oil.
‘What on earth am I doing?’
Twenty minutes had passed since I’d collapsed onto the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
—“I’ll return late. Inspecting harbor villages.”
The Grand Duke had volunteered his itinerary unprompted.
He’d extracted Berni’s vow to ensure my dinner, repeating the charge multiple times.
He’d lingered, ill at ease, until I’d straightened his cravat and clasped his hand—only then departing with evident reluctance.
‘Lately, when he takes my hand, he tries weaving our fingers together as well!’
Four months had elapsed since my arrival at the Grand Duke’s castle.
My strategy: lie low, stay unobtrusive, ready myself for what lay ahead.
Enduring a year without divorce seemed sufficient.
Yet this wolf-pup kept bounding before me, tail thumping as if I held his leash—leaving me utterly bewildered.
‘That garden especially—it gladdens me yet stirs unease each glance from the window.’
Harmony beat hostility, to be sure.
But growing this intimate only to divorce after a year—wouldn’t that ache?
Still, divorce remained unavoidable. My own path beckoned eventually.
Even sans return to my prior world, I couldn’t forever impersonate Anette as Grand Duchess.
Until then, I’d play the part faithfully.
I retrieved Baron Gelfry’s letter, penned days prior by the Merchants’ Guild head.
He professed delight at escorting me through Goldrain at my convenience.
Polite on its face, yet the timing screamed ulterior motives.
Linked to my tea-time gripes about Goldrain? Or the inn’s troubles?
Those icy glares from beyond the carriage on my last outing had soured any eagerness for Goldrain ventures.
“Your Grace, if you intend to venture out, oughtn’t you prepare?”
Cecilia halted upon spying me splayed across the bed.
“Shall I postpone if you’re disinclined?”
With a weary exhale, I hauled myself upright.
“No, best to dispatch it swiftly.”
‘Should they scheme, I’ll counter.’
I harbored my own grievances about Goldrain.
Buoyed by defiance, I strode to the carriage.
There, Marzella conversed with Tiern.
‘What brings her here? She’s been scarce of late.’
Marzella had taken to seclusion recently, as if guarding her dominion from me.
Reta had confided—
—“Lately, she conceals the master keys with extra care.”
I’d intervened occasionally over staff treatment, never aiming to usurp Marzella’s sway.
With departure looming in a year, I shrank from upheavals left unresolved.
At my approach, Marzella offered a hasty curtsy and vanished before I could speak.
‘You’d swear I’d tormented her.’
Tiern, predictably, scowled in my direction.
I commanded departure.
The expedition soured from the outset.
“Your Grace, such a privilege to host you.”
Baron Gelfry hastened forward, pinning his sparse, gust-tossed hair.
He defied my preconceptions entirely.
I’d envisioned haughtiness, disdain.
Instead, he groveled so profusely I flushed with secondhand chagrin.
Thus, when he pressed a tour of cafés and boutiques I’d already toured upon my Goldrain debut, demurral felt impossible.
“A profound honor, Your Grace, to welcome you.”
Shopkeepers mouthed the courtesy, their expressions joyless.
Colder, even, than prior visits.
‘Another Grand Duchess backlash?’
Baron Gelfry, aiming to thaw the chill, slapped a proprietor’s shoulder with forced mirth.
“What’s with the dawdling? Her Grace could be your top patron. Impress her!”
The shopkeeper dipped low with reluctance, murmuring invitations to return anytime.
“You know Marie’s Inn? That former eyesore? Her Grace transformed it!”
“I didn’t transform it—that’s overstatement. And it was never an eyesore.”
“No false modesty. The truth’s common knowledge.”
In the frosty hush, the Baron’s conspiratorial wink only drew the shopkeeper’s mouth into a sterner line.