#gramond

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25. Silver Lining

“I’d like to talk about father.”

“...Why?”

She feels the same hurt you do, but not the same guilt.

“Because we haven’t yet and it’s been nearly a turn.”

“...What do you want to talk about then?”

What do you want to talk about? It can’t be undone.

“I’m not sure. I suppose I thought if we just had the chance to speak it might feel...finished. It was so sudden.”

“...I don’t know what to say about it. What do you want to hear, that I’m sad?”

“No. I want to hear what you feel like telling me. Though I am sad, even if he wasn’t exactly present all the time. He wasn’t perfect but he was our father.”

Does that owe him something? Respect? Does it feel cruel to point out his flaws and absence now that he’s gone?

“...Do you remember when he put on that hat for Starlight that one turn?”

“Yes, and we couldn’t stop laughing at him.”

You also remember how he didn’t read to you. Didn’t tuck you in. Didn’t attend your first opera.

“He had his moments.”

“He did.”

He also went behind your back. Went against your will. Went and almost ruined this House.

“...I’m sad too. We all fought more than we got along but he was trying.”

“I’d like to think he was. It isn’t easy running a House like this. I know that now.”

Did he try? He tried to arrange your marriage, tried to control your every movement. Tried to dictate how you would live. Is that how a Viscount shows his daughter love?

“...What did you really want to talk about? I can see it’s not this.”

“...I think…”

“What?”

“...I think my life is better with him gone and I feel guilty for that thought. I’m not sure how I can even think that, but I do. It’s hard to feel this way about him.”

You’re not beholden to anyone now. Does his death sit uneasy because that was the cost of your freedom?

“I had a feeling. You’ve been different since he’s been gone.”

“I want you to know I don’t want to feel that about him. It’s just...now I don’t have to worry about things like I did before. I’m sorry.”

All the expectations and dread gone, and the only thing that had to happen was your father dying.

“...It’s okay.”

“I don’t want us to grow further apart like we did with father.”

“We won’t.”

Won’t make the same mistakes he did. Won’t live anything other than the life you want. Won’t feel guilt...or at least you’ll try. For now, remember to live. There was a price paid for this, after all.

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23. Soul

He came to the manor before Alliette had given birth to Evilie, turns before Abrie herself would be welcomed into this hellish bastard of a city. His former employer...no, master, had been a controlling, selfish man. But when someone feeds you, gives you a warm bed to sleep in at night when you’d had nothing, you learn to keep your opinions to yourself.

Gregoire expected the same here. Why shouldn’t he? Gramond seemed agreeable enough on the surface but they always did. He’d show his bastard ways soon enough, and Alliette would be just as awful, commanding him around the manor like a marionette on a string. Dance for me, little man.

Halone, he was angry back then. But he kept it to himself, resigned to a role in a manor he’d never sit at the head of, forever destined to clean up the mess left behind by people whose lives inherently held more value than his own. That’s how it always went for those like him.

But less than a turn later he’d found himself letting the guard down he’d so carefully constructed. He never truly felt comfortable in Gramond’s presence, even to his dying day, but he came to see Alliette in a different light. Kind, welcoming. All these turns later he still recalled what she’d said to him not even a sennight after he’d been hired. I hope in time we’ll come to see each other as family. What an odd thing to hear from a woman of her station, but it had put him at ease, even if at the time he’d considered it a pretty phrase to quell his uncertainty.

Then Evilie was born and right alongside the joy he felt for her mother, worry crept through him. The closeness he’d developed with Alliette was something that ashamed him, kept him up at nights, worried of a reprisal from a Viscount who’d find their talks over tea and bells spent together in her loneliness unbecoming. And that wasn’t all he was afraid of him finding out.

He’d considered resigning, finding work at another House. By that time he’d proven himself to be a qualified steward and he’d be welcomed with open arms elsewhere. But he’d stayed, compelled to play some role in Evilie, and later Abrie’s lives that their bastard father would never give. His distaste for the man grew by the day, the affairs he drug through the doorstep all but leaving a bloody trail behind him on the carpeting while his daughters went neglected.

So the turns passed, and when Alliette was gone he still remained. Would remain. He’d made her a promise. He watched Gramond choke on his own blood with indifference, realizing he himself would never be a Viscount, would never been seen by others as an equal to the daughters he stood watch over. The man had been unworthy of the role, and now he worried for his daughter more than ever as she assumed the same mantle.

He was there for them, playing the role of a father they never truly had even if he would never say such a thing aloud, though perhaps it was more than simply pretending--he would never know. But it was when Evilie was grown he realized how much she was her mother’s, the same eyes looking back at him he had come to know so well, echoing the same sentiment spoken to him all that time ago. You’re family, Gregoire. And he was, now more than ever.

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18. Devil's Advocate

“Gramond, my old friend, remember what you stand to gain from such an arrangement.”

Lord Burlemont had not been a good man in his time as head of his House. He had lied, cheated, stolen, even killed to take what he considered was due to a man of his station. The Viscount Gramond Voutellievre was just another fool taken by his guile.

“You have my word that Lady Evilie will be well cared for and our Houses will prosper tied in union. My son is a good man.”

Lord Burlemont’s son was, in fact, not a good man. He was nearly as bad as his father; cruel, arrogant, and lacking entirely in any of the traits that made the elder successful. It seemed he’d inherited none of his cunning or mind for strategy.

“With our Houses officially tied it opens the door to conduct our business more freely, Gramond. Surely you see the benefits. We are stretched thin as it is.”

Unlike Lord Burlemont, Viscount Gramond Voutellievre was never cut out for this life. He was easily fooled, easily manipulated, easily swayed by the honeyed proposals brought to his doorstep. It was convenient, he thought, to take an offer in hand than to seek others out that might try and fail. Better to be seen as agreeable.

But something sat uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. His dealings with Lord Burlemont had grown more and more unfavorable, the scales tipped in the balance of the other man’s House. Despite not being a clever man, Gramond recognized this.

“I have my eye on another Viscount, I’m afraid. I've even spoken to him. One she might actually find agreeable. I’ve told you how hard-headed she is.”

There was a flash of anger in the Lord’s eyes at the refusal, never one to accept being denied by a man he considered below him. “Start acting like the Viscount you are instead of a simpering father, Gramond. She doesn’t dictate to you, you dictate to her. She is your daughter, not Viscountess. My son would make a fine match for her, you know this.”

Gramond straightened in his chair, the uncomfortable silence in the blistering wake of the other's anger growing larger by the moment, a force that felt as if it might choke him in its suffocating hold like Burlemont’s own fingers were tightening around his neck.

“I’m afraid I can’t agree to that, Lord Burlemont. Though my daughter Abr--”

“My son is meant for more than your youngest, Gramond. Surely you jest.”

Lord Burlemont spread his arms out, an invitation for Gramond to see some reason in his words, the vulture smile spreading across his thin lips.

This man is dangerous. Gramond knew that, had known it, and yet he was in far too deep to change the course of their arrangements. His dealings with House Burlemont had stretched back a decade; it would be his House's ruin.

“Abrie is in need of a suitor, and I’m afraid I ca--”

“For Halone’s sake, Gramond. Very well. Waste your House away, just as you had been before we began working together. Do you recall that? I picked you up when you were nothing. Let’s not forget who owes who.”

Gramond’s shoulders sank, his age showing in the wrinkled lines at the corners of his eyes. It had all been so tiring since his wife’s disappearance. She had aided him in the House’s affairs, a silent and unseen force that guided the Voutellievre name. He had never loved her, but he had needed her all the same.

“...Give me time to consider, that is all I ask.”

Lord Burlemont nodded, finding that answer suitable. He knew Gramond would see reason in time, he always did.

“Of course, Gramond. Am I not your friend? Take the time you need, then we'll begin planning.”

Just like that the softer disposition had resumed control, manipulative to his core.

“Now tell me more about your daughter, Gramond. Evilie. I want to know what sort of wife she’ll make for my son.”

And so Gramond told him, as he always did.