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Elissa straightened the collar on her dress and snarled at her reflection. Arl Howe was visiting Father again tonight and staying for dinner too. That meant Mother had insisted that she wear her best dress (three inches too short since her growth spurt, with scratchy embroidery on the collar) and be on her best behavior if she wanted to have dinner with the adults. She hated that dress when it was new and even more now, but she also wanted to sit at the high table for dinner instead of being relegated to the nursery with Nan. She was thirteen years old now, her birthday almost two months ago to the day, almost old enough to put up her hair and wear long skirts and definitely too old to have dinner in the nursery.
She tolerated old Nan fussing with her dress and braiding her hair (at least she doesn’t have wear pigtails anymore) and Mother Mallol explaining for the upteenth time the appropriate behavior for a young lady of her rank. She knew most of that lecture by heart, but Mother Mallol always repeated it before every social function. She more or less ignored it now. Her mabari pup (head at chest level and still growing) sprawled in front of the hearth. She was forbidden from taking her hound to dinner after last month’s fiasco at Bann Loren’s party. How was she suppose to know that Darius (silly idiot boy) was terrified of dogs?
Eventually, after surviving endless fussing from both Nan and Mallol, Fergus came to escort her to dinner like a proper big brother should. She curtseyed at him and even remembered to take tiny ladylike steps down the hall. Mother would have been proud.
She never understood why Father liked Arl Howe, and tonight was no exception. Arl Howe bent over her hand and gave her sickly sweet smile. She smiled back despite the fact that she wanted to run away screaming (or rather, kick him in the nether regions). That, however, would not be dignified or proper (her prefered option even less so), so she simply wiped her hand with a handkerchief as soon as she could. Mother smiled at her for her restraint, or so she’d like to believe.
Dinner, for the most part, passed without incident. The worst that happened was her dropping a fork and overturning a finger bowl, both small mishaps in the grand scheme of things. Dessert, however, was another story entirely. With wine flowingly liberally (she was allowed a small glass of her own, undiluted even), various comments were made by various people on the topic of Fergus’s upcoming marriage to a young Antivan lady. Those comments, naturally, led to a discussion on the marriage prospect of the younger Cousland, namely, her. It was entirely Arl Howe’s fault, and she was not pleased. Not even a little.
“They grow up so fast, don’t they, Bryce?” Arl Howe pontificated. “Why, it seemed just yesterday that little Elissa was still in the nursery and romping around with my boys, and now she’s a lovely young lady. Will she be coming out in Denerim next winter? I’m sure you’ll have beat the boys off with a stick.”
“Thirteen is still a touch too young for a coming out,” Father exchanged a significant glance with Mother before speaking. “When she’s sixteen, perhaps, we’ll talk of coming out balls.”
“In our day, thirteen was old enough to be engaged, but times have changed,” Arl Howe shook his head and then gave her another leering glance. “And what does your lovely girl think of this? Perhaps she has a sweetheart at court already and won’t mind coming out early.”
Only her mother’s iron glare kept her from scowling at Arl Howe. “No, ser, I don’t mind waiting longer,” she forced her voice to stay polite.
“You mean to say no boys at court have caught your fancy?” Arl Howe focused his rat-like eyes on her. “My Nathaniel says he sees you at the practice yards every afternoon last winter, watching the boys.”
“No, ser, they have not.” It wasn’t a boy she had been watching, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“None at all? Not even the prince? Or Bann Loren’s boy? Or maybe Bann Sighard’s? Or my boys, even?” Arl Howe tsked most disapprovingly. “You might have a hard time finding a match for her if she’s that picky, Bryce.”
Prince Cailan had flirted with her, but he had also flirted with every available girl in the palace, noble or not. Not to mention the little fact that he was betrothed to Anora. She had no use for someone so unfaithful. Darius was afraid of her dog. Nathaniel Howe was a stuck up bully, and Thomas Howe barely out of diapers. Oswyn couldn’t stand the fact that she could best him three matches out of four in both chess and fencing. True, there were other boys of rank at the palace, but she could classify them in same categories: cad, coward, bully, or incompetent. She had no interest in any of them.
“We’ll see, Rendon,” Father waved away Arl Howe’s protests, and Mother gave him an icy little smile that did not bode well for anyone.
“And you’re sure there’s no one at court at all that you’d fancy for marriage?” Arl Howe turned back to her. “It would be such a shame, a pretty girl like you with no beau.”
There was, in fact, someone at court she wouldn’t mind courting her, someone tall, strikingly handsome, brave, chivalrous, and all those other virtues a girl was supposed to want. Someone who taught her basic swordwork and invited her to watch the practice bouts in the afternoons and tried to keep her out of trouble (with only partial success). Someone who was nice to her, encouraged her, and challenged her to do her absolute best. Father certainly approved of Cauthrien already as her escort and fencing instructor (and occasional chaperone) even if Cauthrien was a woman and wasn’t noble born. Cauthrien was older than her, but the age difference was no worse than others she knew about.
Arl Howe was still leering at her and would keep leering until she answered him.
“Cauthrien,” she had a wicked gleam in her eyes as she replied, “I’d marry Cauthrien.”
She had never seen a man so stunned or so at a loss for words. Father hid a smile behind one hand, and Fergus roared with laughter at Arl Howe's shocked and scandalized expression. Mother, though, was far less amused and was muttering about discretion and the lack thereof just barely under her breath. She was sent off to bed early after that display, of course, but it was worth it to see Arl Howe gaping like a fish. And perhaps, just perhaps, Father might understand.