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The walled garden terraces of Ishgard might have been dark, but her mood was darker.
Indoors, a thousand lights were aglow, setting the rooms golden and reflecting off the swirling gowns and nimble feet within with a bright, ethereal light. The Fortemps family had won the honour of throwing the first ball of the season, and it had been clear from the beginning of the night that it was an opportunity they did not intend to waste.
Early in the evening, guests had entered through the arched front doors to an eruption of hothouse flowers, hundreds of them blooming fit to burst from every available angle. While the current Ishgardian fashion may have been to dazzle guests in the dead of winter with exotic tropical themes and elaborate Near Eastern decor, the Fortemps family had gone for a more traditional theme for their fête. Much to the murmured approval of gathered guests, the illustrious and much-whispered-about family had chosen to drape their manor in the types of florals and trappings that were befitting the diamond-like wonderland of the fresh winter season.
Guests, then, were delighted by elegant, traditional decor at every turn. Enormous bouquets of white roses erupted from gleaming silver chalices, and tiny strands of what looked like diamonds sparkled brilliantly from where they were generously draped upon the polished chandeliers high above. Guests sipped sparkling imported champagne from tall crystal glasses, and the women’s gowns cut daring slashes of jewel-bright colours across the gleaming white marble of the dance floor.
Spirits were high, and it was already apparent that the careful planning ahead of time had rendered the Fortemps family the toast of the ton that evening.
“We need to show that we are as traditional and as loyal as ever,” Edmont had insisted firmly when the arrangements were being made days prior. His sons were scattered around the room in varying degrees of unruliness, while their singular guest and singular challenge sat extraordinarily still in the middle of the richly furnished drawing room, her delicate hands clasped tightly in her lap.
Frowning ever so slightly, Edmont’s grip tightened on his cane as he rapped it lightly on the floor to provoke his sons’ attention. Their guest’s gaze never lifted, but the patriarch knew that, though still, she was listening intently.
“Ishgard would struggle to accept that we’ve pulled in an outsider regardless, nevermind one where the situation is this delicate,” he reminded them. “If we’re to stay in the good graces of His Holiness and keep both ourselves and our ward out of danger, we need to present a united, traditional front to the ton. Gauche displays will not suffice.”
“I hardly think any fête we’ve put on to this point could be called gauche Father,” Emmanellain protested good-naturedly, flipping over one of the cards in the elaborate spread he’d laid out before him, which he’d been idly fiddling with for the better part of an hour. He made a face, and then flipped the card back over, frowning as he attempted to select another one.
“We can’t risk it regardless.” Artoirel’s arms were crossed imperiously across his chest where he leaned against the windowsill, and there was something fierce that could have been mistaken for dislike in his expression as he looked towards the young woman on the settee. “Father’s right. We’ve caused enough of a stir this season already, and it hasn’t even begun. If she’s to have any hope of repairing the scandal now attached to her name, we need to do everything by the book.”
The middle son of the Fortemps family, all too familiar himself with the heavy burdens that came attached to significant scandal, came to sit next to their silent guest, expression warm and fond. The sight of it had made Lord Edmont sigh to himself, almost wistfully; in another life, he could have happily married one of his sons to his ward – of whom he’d already grown terribly fond – and be done with it.
As it was, it was going to take far more than the likes of their family’s rank to undo the damage that had been done with the sultana.
“Fret not, dear sister,” Haurchefant said, his cheerful manner matched by the warm afternoon sunshine that lit the well-furnished room. “I shall personally see to it that you are the centre of attention all evening, until you have beaus clamouring at our doorstep wishing to court you.”
“Is that the only option then?” Her voice was quiet, but far from demure. “Marriage?”
“You have a better plan?” Artoirel’s voice was chilly as steel, but the look she shot him in return was pure ice. Cold enough, at least, to cool the eldest son’s flare of temper, and keep him at his frosty post at the windowsill, face turned away with a concerned frown.
“I’m afraid we have very few options, my dear,” Edmont explained in his son’s stead, sounding tired but no less kind. “If you wish to remain in Ishgard, you must have a family name to protect you. And after the scandal now attached to you with what happened to the sultana, and all the rumours that have followed you since, it will take far more than our patronage or protection to keep the Holy See from knocking you down to exactly where they feel you belong.” He made his careful way over to his armchair, settling himself heavily down into it and laying his cane to rest beside him.
“Anyone who attempts to lay claim on you will have an agenda,” Artoirel added, his voice more composed as he explained. “And even those will be few and far between. You might have a black mark against your name, but you’re still a newcomer to the city, with undeniable credentials, and you have one of the High Houses to speak for you. Your largest concern is the damage to your credit and your reputation, and whether the ton will allow you to breach their inner circles now that they feel they know your angle.”
The eldest Fortemps son crossed his arms across his chest once more, defensive. “And if you find yourself at the end of the season without a family name to shelter you, the Holy See will get rid of you by any means they see fit.”
“Not to speak of the gossip pages, either,” Emmanellain chimed in, his tone holding far too much excitement about the scandal sheets for someone whose family name had been badly damaged by its contents already. “Have you read the most recent ones, Father? They’ve stated that anyone who aligns themselves with a stray dog shouldn’t be surprised when they’re subsequently bitten.”
“ Enough.” Lord Fortemp’s voice held a lifetime of authority in it, and his sons fell immediately silent, each cowed in their own way at the tone. Edmont turned his gaze towards his young ward, who was looking both much older and much younger than any one person had the right to be at any given moment.
To be trapped by circumstance not of one’s own choosing was indeed a unique burden to bear.
“So you see,” Edmont told her, low and nearly apologetic. “You must marry, and marry well, my dear. And we will be fighting against the unfavourable opinion of every influential member of high Ishgardian society to get you there.”
Despite the grim predicament, Haurchefant had patted her leg fondly, as though trying to buck her up. Turning thoughtful, he’d pinched the fabric of her skirt between two fingers, rubbing the material consideringly. “A new colour, I think,” he declared, looking up at her with a wink. “Something Ishgardian ballrooms haven’t yet seen. No one will be able to take their eyes off of you, and we’ll make you an honest woman yet.”
It was as a direct result of that conversation in the parlour that she now found herself in the gardens, completely separate from the ball itself. With her nearly-bare shoulders pressed to the cold outer walls of the manor, it was clear that the evening had taken a very wrong turn indeed.
Initially, everything had started according to plan. While it couldn’t be denied that the new ward of House Fortemps was the subject of countless whispers across the ballroom, it had to be said that not all were sinister in nature. On the arm of the charming young Haurchefant, with his bright smiles and boisterous personality, she quietly shone, illustrious as a jewel when warmed by naked skin. Nosy mamans tittered begrudgingly behind their fans as they watched her move across the dance floor, measuring this newcomer up against their own, more titled daughters.
For herself, the new ward of House Fortemps had never thought much of her own appearance. She’d been told all too frequently that her looks were no match to any of the high ladies across Eorzea, nevermind the beauties of the ton in Ishgard. She’d found other, more substantial topics to draw her attention; her own beauty – or lack thereof – factored little in her life up to that point.
It couldn’t be denied, however, that under the bright glow of so many hundreds of tall white candles scattered throughout the ballroom, she was far from what anyone could claim was homely. Eyes across the room wordlessly admired her as she passed by in the arms of her temporary foster brother, from the cut of her gown, the litheness of her figure, and even the array of jewelled combs that swept her thick hair up and away from the delicate column of her neck. It was rumoured, whispers said, that the intricate jewels had once belonged to Countess Fortemps herself; a gift from Lord Edmont to the daughter he’d never had.
“Don’t give them a second thought,” Haurchefant had advised her at the beginning of the evening, and it was both a simple and weighty task. Eyes on her were familiar, particularly when they weren’t friendly. It was the fact that she somehow needed to impress; that she needed to prove before all of these haughty strangers that she was worth something, that made her skin crawl. The thin, gauzy material of her gown felt like poor armour against all of those judging gazes, waiting for her to slip up and risk more than she was willing to give.
It was a spell all too easily broken, however, by a small commotion to the far side of the ballroom. Mothers and daughters alike were suddenly weaving through the spectators at the edge of the dance floor, heading towards what appeared to be a new arrival to the ball.
“Ah,” Haurchefant said as the waltz drew to a close, his hand squeezing his partner’s conspiratorially. “I do believe that some of the heat has been taken off of you for now, dear one.”
She turned, just in time to catch a glimpse of the now-familiar profile of Lord Aymeric. He was bent low, pressing a courteous kiss to the hand of yet another young debutante in yet another washed-out shade of what could only be described as milk and water.
She looked quickly away again, pulse fluttering inexplicably in her veins.
Here, then, was proof that a scandal could be outrun, and a reputation restored nearly to the point of jealousy. While the de Borel family had no official titles higher than any of the established High Houses, and Lord Aymeric’s lineage had been in question for years (or so she’d been told), he still remained firmly one of the most eligible, if not the most eligible bachelor the season. His military fame combined with his looks and good breeding meant that every family with a daughter of marrying age was clamouring for his attention now that he’d finally made it back to Ishgard for the season.
Dropping Haurchefant’s hand, she turned away from the spectacle, giving nothing but the long line of her back to Lord Aymeric’s direction. If their prior conversation had told her anything, it was that his acquaintance was of no benefit – or indeed, dangerous – for someone in her position.
Regardless of the way his eyes had unsettled her in a way she didn’t know how to explain to herself.
She sliced a rather violent figure across the ballroom floor as she moved through the assembled guests, contrasting sharply against the other ladies of the ton in both dress and nature. The fountain of champagne glasses that towered high in the middle of the room, weather in bountiful white roses and ivory hydrangeas, barely shivered with the movement of her passing. She was light and quick in her escape, despite the uneasy feeling she was the only person who actually cast a shadow in the room at all
She was decidedly not thinking about the way Lord Aymeric’s eyes seemed to be just as dimmed and constrained as she felt her own must be whenever she corested herself into the expectations of the ton in public.
If she thought about it long enough, she could almost remember the feel of his warm hand on her own, even through the black elbow-length gloves she wore.
It was, in fact, because she was considering so very intently on how she wasn’t thinking of it, that she found herself slightly startled by instead of that warm imagined hand on hers, she felt instead a cold grasp around her slender wrist.
“I believe you had promised me a dance, my Lady.”
Lord Zephirin was beautiful in the way icicles were beautiful; sharp, cold, and liable to shatter into deadly shards when faced with too much pressure. He was looking at her now as he’d looked at her at the Archbishop’s luncheon gathering at the Vault the previous week, and it set that same, unsettled feeling at the base of her spine.
“Did I?” She asked, meeting his glacial gaze with a level one of her own. Their limited interactions already were enough to make her skin crawl. “I don’t seem to recall, Lord Zephirin, and I do believe my card is full for the remainder of the evening. Excuse me.”
She dipped into a quick bob of a curtsey before turning away, weaving between the mingling groups and couples, feeling every breath of hot air uttered by each of them until it felt that the heat was creeping down her neck and pressing down on her chest.
The walled garden terraces of Ishgard were rather famous in their own right. The intricate stonework of each wall had been developed across generations by master artisans and stonemasons, and the gardens fairly glowed ethereal in the moonlight with night-blooming roses and other rarities of botany that only the wealthiest and most well-connected families could afford to raise. It had been noted, however – frequently in a warning tone from governesses to their charges – that those very flowers were a trap to the virtuous daughters who dared venture there alone. The high walls and twisting pathways, with their dark corners and private alcoves, were nowhere for a lady to be, particularly in the middle of the night when she should be back inside at a ball, smiling charmingly in the arms of some titled gentleman.
To be caught alone in the gardens with anyone was an immediate death sentence in society.
When she stepped onto the dark terrace and closed the glass door behind her, the noise both around her and in her mind went soft.
The night air was a cool balm on her skin, calming her slightly as she drew it greedily into her lungs. She felt her black humours rising dangerously to the surface for every moment longer she spent in that room, allowing herself to be assessed as though she were a mere commodity for sale.
More than anything, her fury was at herself for allowing the situation to develop as it had in the first place.
There wasn’t another solution, but that didn’t mean she needed to be happy about it.
“My lady.” Her name, she realised dimly, had been called several times as she’d departed the ballroom, and Lord Zephirin seemed unimpressed to have been so ignored. “You’ll thank me for my patience, mademoiselle, for your unbecoming behaviour.”
“I will thank you, Lord Zephirin, to go back inside.” Her chest rose and fell heavily with her restraint, and it was there that his gaze fell, and fastened.
“Why should I do that, my lady, when you’ve so generously led me out here?”
“You are mistaken ser.” She took a step backwards, countenance cold as marble, and found one of the garden’s stone walls firmly at her back.
“I am not.” The young gallant encroached further on her space, a middling predator woefully under the false impression that he’d found a prey animal. “You are the talk of the ton, and an enigma besides. I can think of no one else who would be better suited at my side as my companion..”
“You mean at your side as your pawn,” she shot back, gaze piercing and far from subdued. “Do not presume to think that merely because I am newly arrived to Ishgard, I am naive to its politics, my lord. You are but a puppet for the Archbishop, nothing more.”
The bluntness of the barb stung, it was clear, but Lord Zephirin was not to be deterred, nor intimidated. “You and I both know you can do no better.” He crowded closer, ignoring her immediate protest. “Some nobody off the streets with nothing but a shamed reputation and the temporary shelter of a borrowed family name. You need me , my lady, far more than I need you.”
With brazen hands, he grasped roughly at her waist, forcing a gasp out of her that was more pain than surprise. “Perhaps need is exactly what I need to inspire in you.”
“Get your hands off –”
“Let me show you exactly how it will be once we are wed…”
The blow, when it came, was swift and precise.
It wasn’t the first time she’d hit a man, and it showed by the way her fist connected squarely with the delicate skin of Zephirin’s eye socket, puncturing blood vessels instantly, and sending him reeling backwards with a sharp gasp. He hit the ground rather harder than expected, given his slight build. She, meanwhile, stood still and cold, chest heaving and her arm aching with nothing more than restraint.
“Well I must say, that was quite impressive.”
Whirling on the spot, her heart pounding heavily in her ears with the expectation of another assailant, she found instead only the tall form of Lord Aymeric, standing nearby with a bemused expression on his face as he looked down at the fallen lord.
Involuntarily, her fingers flexed. His eyes were shockingly blue in the moonlight.
“What are you doing out here?” She asked, more blunt than she might have otherwise intended.
“The same thing you are, I imagine,” Aymeric replied calmly, crouching down to examine the prone form of Lord Zephirin, tilting his head as he considered the considerable number she’d done on his face. “Attempting to escape the inevitable.”
When he rose, it was with his gaze firmly fixed on hers, something passing behind his eyes that she found it difficult to decipher. “I’ll admit, however, I hadn’t anticipated witnessing such a thorough thrashing – in the Fortemps gardens, of all places.”
“Yes, well.” She pulled herself away from the wall, away from the dazed lord on the ground, away from that look on Lord Aymeric’s face that had prickled at the back of her mind since they’d met. “Some of us don’t have the luxury of disappearing into the dark areas of the gardens for a moment of quiet without compromising ourselves, or inviting others to do the job for them.”
Aymeric’s expression immediately darkened, provoking something equally dark and smoky to curl appreciatively in her stomach. “I hardly think you invited anything by–”
But with a fuzzy sense of ringing in her ears, she suddenly stopped listening, realising exactly what the harsh reality was of what she’d said. Lord Aymeric had indeed come steps away from the pitch-black shadows of the covered gardens nearby. That left her, alone, with one man unconscious, and another looking at her in a way that confused her thoughts, even as she turned away, breath catching in frustration.
She’d promised Count Edmont she’d be careful. She’d promised she wouldn’t make things worse for herself, or his family.
And now she was alone, with two men, at risk of being caught and tied to a newfound scandal at any instant.
“Are you alright?” Aymeric’s touch on her gloved elbow was feather-light, and she jerked her arm away as though she’d been burned. His tone was too gentle, his eyes too understanding, and she felt stripped bare despite the yards of expensive fabric shielding her bare arms, her shoulders, her body.
“I must go.” She turned away, heart pounding; adrenaline or something more, she could no longer be sure.
“Please.” Aymeric’s quiet voice, something in it, made her pause. Her face was half-submerged in cold shadows where she stopped, turned away from the warm pool of light coming from the ballroom windows nearby.
“I apologise,” he said quietly, holding his hands up before her as though in surrender. “I didn’t…what I mean is, you’re safe here.”
“Am I?” She turned to face him properly, feeling her walls rising once more, gaze flinty. “I am alone, with two men, steps away from the hidden gardens. I am seconds away from being caught in another scandal that threatens to trap me in a situation far worse than the one I am already in. I have no family, no prospects, and no suitors willing to take on the shame of my situation, save for the unappealing cretin you have at your feet. You didn’t even know what name to call me when you came up, did you? What honorific do you even call a woman with no name at all?”
Her eyes were unflinching on Aymeric’s face, and a small part of her was surprised to find that he met her fury and frustration without hesitation.
“What right have you,” she continued, voice low, “to try and keep me from further shame by any means at my disposal? You, who have the luxury of simply declaring you do not wish to marry, and having the ton respect that decree?”
“I do not wish to marry because there is a war on.” There was absolutely something weightier behind Lord Aymeric’s gaze now, and she found herself searching his eyes, still so bright blue in the darkness, to pin down exactly what it was. “While I understand and appreciate your particular plight, I cannot in good faith put any young lady in the position of being wed to someone simply for the sake of avoiding scandal or pleasing the ton.”
“And personally,” he continued, soft now, and nearly to himself more than her. “I fail to see why there wouldn’t be a line of suitors leading out into the street for the privilege of simply speaking to you.”
For a long, heavy moment, there was stillness. In the cold air between them, their clouded breath mingled, wafting gently through the night to the tune of the haunting violin string music coming from the distant ballroom.
“Well then,” she breathed, feeling inexplicably as though she’d narrowly missed falling from a great height. “Be that as it may, it doesn’t change the reality of the circumstance. It seems, my lord, that we have little else to say to each other.”
“I disagree.” Despite her sharp attention to his face, his expression had shifted again without her noticing when exactly the change had occurred. “I think, perhaps, you and I might rather be of use to each other.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Of use?”
“Quite.” Despite the confined space of the garden paths, Lord Aymeric began to pace, slow and thoughtful, arms folded across his broad chest. “Only if you are amenable to the proposal, of course.”
The glittering ballroom seemed very far away now. “You’ve yet to propose anything.”
Aymeric stopped, and his eyes bore into hers, pure and honest and true. “We could pretend to form an attachment.”
There was a beat of space that held an entire world inside of it. Inexplicably, the music was still coming, distantly, from the party. Inside, people were dancing, flirtations were being initiated, alliances were being made, scandals were being whispered about. Yet in the darkness, in the garden, the infamous Fortemps ward and the lauded Lord de Borel of Ishgard were alone, holding a breath of silence while the world, unbeknownst to either of them, tilted irreversibly beneath their feet.
“With you on my arm,” Aymeric continued, “the world will believe that I’ve finally found my countess. Every ambitious maman in Ishgard will leave me alone and free to see to the success of our military efforts, and every suitor…will be looking at you.”
Unconsciously, the tightness in her spine had loosened itself, ever so slightly. In his words, she could see the way it would all unspool so easily; jealous whispers behind fluttering fans, admirers turning their gazes in her direction simply to see what it was the famously unattached Lord Aymeric could see in her, of all people.
Count Fortemps losing that worried frown between his eyebrows.
“It…has merit,” she agreed, carefully. She began to slowly pace in turn, the two of them circling each other like cautious predators unexpectedly meeting their match in a field where they’d only anticipated prey. “You presume that the ton will deem that believable?”
“I presume that they will deem us to be precisely what we are,” Aymeric reasoned. It was impossible to break his gaze. “Me? Unavailable. You?” Aymeric moved towards her, slow and focused, deadly serious in his proposal even as his lips parted, just for a moment before he continued, as though he were tasting the word as he spoke it. “Desirable.”
Later, when they entered the ballroom, she couldn’t quite remember exactly how they’d come to the agreement. All at once, all she became aware of were sensations; sight and sound, dialled both up and down to unusual levels, throwing her off-balance.
His hand on hers was one of the few things left to keep her steady.
Every head in the room turned in their direction, with expressions that ranged from shock, to delight, to outrage. Aymeric’s hand was warm, laid over hers where she’d taken his elbow. The candlelight was bright, the flowers were ethereal white, and not for the first time she had the sensation of an invisible noose slipping around her neck under the weight of all those stares.
And she was pulled out of it all simply by his hand gently squeezed hers in reassurance as they moved to the middle of the dance floor.
“After all,” she’d reasoned softly back in the garden, likely far too close into Lord Aymeric’s personal space than was considered proper, too busy learning the nuances of shades of blue she hadn’t even realised existed, “so long as you do not wish to marry me, and I do not wish to marry you, whatever have we to lose?”
He’d taken her hand, and there was no going back.
“Look at me,” he said softly, once they were under the blazing lights of the ballroom, with all the glamour of its marble, and silver, and increasingly swelling music. In the middle of the sweeping dance floor, they pulled all eyes to them effortlessly. “Just you and me, remember?” His hand found the small of her back, gloved fingers pressing lightly through the gauzy fabric of her gown to pull her closer. “No one knows but us.”
No one but us. She mouthed the confirmation back to him, her voice lost under the music, and seeing no one but him as the waltz began. Those same words would be whispered across Ishgard the next morning, echoing the writings in hundreds of scandal sheets. Parchment papers would be distributed by dawn, telling all and sundry how the Fortemps ward and the Lord de Borel had formed what appeared to be a rare love match in a surprise coup at the ball the night before. Already, they’d hiss amongst themselves, the couples were seen whispering sweet nothings to each other as they took to the dance floor together.
“Well would you look at that,” Haurchefant said appreciatively, coming up alongside his father on the sidelines of the dance floor. Beneath the bright lights, under a thousand watchful eyes, his adoptive sister bent in a graceful arc backwards, dipped provocatively low by the Lord Commander in tune to the triumphant peal of the orchestra.
“Indeed.” Count Edmont’s eyes were fading in recent years, but his instincts were shrewd, and his experience sharp. He tapped his cane lightly on the marble floor, thoughtful. “Quite an interesting development.”
On the dance floor, she was secure in Aymeric’s arms, oblivious to anyone but the two of them. She wasn’t one to seek limelight, nor acclaim; without their deal, she knew, she would have had a difficult time indeed securing the types of nuanced flirtations that would have led to a proposal. Instead, she moved effortlessly across the polished dance floor, candlelight flickering stars around her, finding herself unable - or unwilling - to focus on anything but the man who held her so protectively as they moved.
Risky?
Perhaps.
But there was no going back now.