The Duke of Edingrove, Ronnet Algrave
'The King is dead.'
It was a thought that had begun to strike Ronnet at the oddest of moments since news had reached him some days before. 'The King is dead!' Shock. Excitement. Even now he still had trouble getting a hold on how he truly felt about the whole matter. Was he afraid? Well, yes, there was some of that, it was an inevitable emotion given the situation. Granted, most of it came from his own ego.
He and his entourage had been in the city for less than a week when the King had succumbed to a mild case of death, and - unlike the common-folk, he took notice of the steadily climbing number of guards walking through the streets in the aftermath.
True, there were perhaps a number of reasons for the action, but it set his sense of paranoia to tingling all the same. 'They' had to be watching him, he was sure of it. Yes, he did frequent the more prominent areas of Velusia, where everyone walked with the cocksure swagger of men who knew that the men around them were paid well enough to make at least one steady poke at the chest region of a body. But still..
Well, he wouldn't lie to himself. The idea that they thought so highly of him tickled that same special place his grandfather had on his deathbed when he cried, "You!?". He? The lowly Duke of Edingrove, grasping so far? It was actually unfortunate that the King had died. Just having his named whispered among the group of potential assassins would have been worth the political repercussions.
He smiled at the missed opportunity for scandal. It would have been wonderful.
As far as Ronnet was concerned, the late monarch was a relic. Leftovers from his grandfather's day. He had met the man as appropriate his station, when the occasions called for it, but he never loved him. Ofcourse, he had heard stories. Who hadn't? But what did stories of the bygone years matter to Edingrove? Obviously someone else had felt something along the same lines, and had taken care to prove him right. It was unfortunate that he had a stronger stomach for living that he did for treason. A case of wine was waiting for this stranger. A cheap vintage, mind you, they had killed his King after all. Such practices shouldn't be motivated.
"I am glad that she pleases you, Your Grace." A lesser man's reaction to the nearby baritone would have been a called quailing, with Ronnet, it was a dignified flinch.
"Ah," he responded, giving his visitor a slight nod, "she does."
It was still early in the day, some three hours into his meeting with the same honored guest who sought an audience with him just after the waking hour. Sir something or the other. An aged knight in a red tapered robe who had taken up the business of olives. None of which the Duke cared about, but having been caught enjoying his fantasy world, it was only appropriate that he pretend.
"She is a fine girl," he leaned into the knight to whisper, while the girl in question worked her way through three hundred verses of some song about some thing. She was a beauty. Fair skin, blue eyes, black hair. A plain beauty. Her fair skin was marred by an unflattering number of freckles, those clear blue eyes tended to drift, and her hair's similarity to Ayanne's gave him a distinctively bubbly feeling in his stomach. And her dress?
A high-born lady could make herself appealing in the thickest burlap sack. This one hardly managed the same in low cut silk, satin and lace.
"Very beautiful, very." He held up his hand to stop the singing but still kept his voice low. It wouldn't do to have her hear him slight her. "But also very," he stretched the word, "young." There was a questioning tone to the statement, a trick he had learned to couple with a sympathetic look to draw out the answer he wanted - a nod in this case. Social grace wouldn't allow the man, Sir Whatshisname, to do otherwise.
"Oh, ah. Yu..Yes. Your Grace. I had not thought t-" The older man was flustered, shamed, though it was uncalled for in Ronnet's estimation.
Some men did love their virgins.
"In some years, perhaps," Ronnet interrupted. With another hand gesture, he called forward the daughter. Young and graceful, but still learning. Her nervousness was prominent in the way she walked, watching her feet and shifting her dress about her small frame in the six or so steps it took her to stand before them. Although, her lack of bosom might have done for most of that shifting. Not that those particular features mattered so much to him. Socially she was too far beneath him, and up close, her sharp features brought to mind a hint of Feldorian ancestry.
Be that as it may, twelve years of olives had done wonderful things for the rest of her. Her legs and backside to be more pointed.
"You will join me for an early lunch," he commanded, and she blushed. The freckles weren't quite so ugly when she did that, he noted. And twleve wasn't so young. And he was one of those men that loved his virgins between wives. "In private," he went on, speaking in her direction, but addressing her father. "Sir will be suitably accommodated for parting with such lovely company. It would better my mood for the day's business." The Duke smiled, the knight lauded, and the girl blushed down to her chest.
Perhaps Lhymaelya had blessed him. Meeting his peers might not be so trying an experience after all.