“I’m sorry Second Mother,” Chloë started to blubber but Maria would have none of that!
“Hush dear! Hold her tight!” admonished Maria with a smile. “She needs you as much as you need her!”
Heather gave Maria a quick hug and then sat next to her, “Um, Second Mother… I’d like you to meet Sir Raymond. We’ve…we’re kinda…”
“A couple,” finished Maria. “It’s about time you found a nice boy!” Maria’s incurable smile flooded the room and she shook hands with the flustered but beaming Raymond. “You are most welcome to come by and visit our house at any time.”
“No he can’t!” laughed Heather. “Chloë said he can’t come by until he’s bought me bells!”
Maria grinned, “Bells on rings is it? Well then, we shall expect to see a great deal of you.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m looking forward to meeting the entire family.”
“Is that your father’s old sword he’s wearing?” teased Maria.
“Well, he needed a weapon for a formal challenge and that sword went a long way to scare the… well… thoroughly unhinge his opponent!” grinned Heather. “It’s still mine, though. For now…”
Caleigh finally fought through enough of her own tears to speak, “Maria, I can’t tell you how happy I am that your family took in dear Chloë. Whatever it takes to get her clear of this dreadful place. Maybe if things settle, I can take my exile to Afon. I do so miss my daughter, but she needs a family. A family like yours.”
“Your Highness,” began Earl Kevin from the periphery. “I own two villas on Afon. While not palatial, they are quite comfortable. I invite you to visit them at any time.”
“You are most kind,” beamed Caleigh.
“When did you buy those?” asked the ever curious Heather.
“Two weeks ago, my lady. It was a given Anna was not returning.”
Chloë had a good laugh at that, “You are a dirty old man!”
“Do you still desire your commoner?” fished Caleigh. “I understand she may never completely recover from her injuries.”
“There is nothing common about her!” beamed the earl. “I know of her injuries superficially: I am paying her surgeons. My greatest relief came from talking with Lady Chloë, hearing that Anna’s heart is still with her.”
“You two are certain to cause a scandal,” teased Caleigh. “You, trying to run off with my best friend!”
“Ah, I fear we will be a footnote compared to Lady Chloë and the storm we all know is brewing.”
“He will be here late tonight,” replied Caleigh to the question that was hanging in the air.
“Then by morning we will be on our way,” grinned Heather.
“It may not be that simple…” began Caleigh.
“Things are only complicated because we choose to make them that way,” interrupted Chloë with a broad grin. “Did I get that right, Heather?”
“Perfect!”
“I’m not sure you could handle politics on our level,” teased Caleigh with a laugh.
“Nah,” beamed Chloë. “I’m not sure they could survive her!”
They all laughed and it felt good.
“Um, Second Mother…” began Heather. “Why did you come? Not that I’m not tickled pink you are here!”
“I came because it was a given you two were going to need an escort back. We may have been wrong there; Raymond may do just fine!” Maria grinned. “We got here early this morning. Arranging transport was not an issue: we had many offers.”
“We?” asked Chloë.
Caleigh laughed, “There are five ever so delightful young girls she brought along. They are here, some place, exploring the grounds and playing.”
“Um, Lily, Lilac, Violet, Rose and Iris?” asked Chloë.
“Yes indeed,” replied Maria. “It seemed the perfect outing.”
“Ma’am,” began Raymond nervously, “I’m not sure this is the best time for such an outing. Things may become tense. Honestly I wish your husband had come along.”
Maria just smiled and beeped Raymond on the nose, “He does try to be all noble doesn’t he?” Maria laughed, “The girls can take care of themselves; I’m sure Heather has already demonstrated that to some regard. And no, my husband will not violate treaty unless asked to come here by a treaty signatory or unless one of his children is in danger for their life.”
“What about Gavin?” asked Heather with an evil grin.
Maria laughed, “We are trying to do this without starting a fight!”
“Um, mother?” asked Chloë suddenly to Caleigh. “Does it bother you that I also call them mother and father?”
“Will you still call me ‘mother’?” she asked with a grin.
“Of course!”
“Then why should it bother me? There is always room for more love to go around!”
“That is what Heather said,” grinned Chloë.
Raspberry! Heather, right on cue…
55
Chloë stood in the garden and watched the display with fascination; lunch was just going to have to wait! There in the large gazebo in the middle of the field of tulips, the younger girls were practicing Live Steel. Or more correctly, Lilac, Violet, Rose and Iris were practicing. Lily was just goofing off and wiping the walls of the four of them! Both sets of twins would try to close, practice blades in hand, but Lily, her snow white fur flashing in the sunlight just danced around them and sent them to the floor over and over again. The twins would shift back and forth from one weapon to the next, playing games of range in speed in such a blur that there was an almost constant shower of blue sparks. Lily, however… well Lily was playing at a whole different level! Not once did Chloë catch sight of a weapon in little Lily’s hand, just projections, manifestations of parts of weapons would appear and disappeared in a truly dizzying array!
“She’s thirteen?” asked Raymond in utter shock.
“Worried about the girls being able to protect themselves, were you?” grinned Maria proudly.
“And before you ask, yes, Lily can kick my butt!” grinned Heather. “Dad said I could be as good as her if I just practiced more.” Heather laughed, “I guess I spent too much time dancing and playing the piano! She… well… Gavin and Dad are the only two that can keep her in check! Even Uncle Edward has a hard time against her!”
“But you are masterful on the piano!” chimed Raymond.
“Oh? Finally have a chance to play?” grinned Maria.
“Yes, Second Mother. And apparently I’m much better on piano than I thought.”
“We’ve been trying to tell you that for years,” laughed Maria.
“So… um… what of Lily? I mean she can fight! But…,” began Chloë.
“She has ‘Second Mother’ written all over her,” grinned Maria. “She’s every bit as good with an infant as she is with a sword.”
“That is kind of scary,” murmured Chloë.
“It is only scary if you try to mess with her charges!” laughed Maria. “Of the five, she is also the most shy and reserved. She just really enjoys Live Steel. It is how she relaxes.”
“Dating is going to be interesting for her,” laughed Caleigh. “No boys in the family? Is this how your husband makes up for it?”
Maria laughed, “Nope, no boys yet. Ask again in late Spring and then again in early Summer. Llewellyn is happy to teach anyone. He taught me, Gwen as well as the Third Mothers. He prefers teaching girls actually; they pay better attention!”
“Um, Spring and early Summer?” asked Heather. “I knew about Moira, but…”
“Ivy! First Mother!” laughed Chloë. “Hey! Even I figured that out!”
“We are going to have to add a new wing to the house,” murmured Heather.
“Nah! By the time they move out of the nursery, they can have your old room!” teased Chloë. Chloë tried not to laugh as much as she did, but with Heather’s fur straight on end, Chloë only had so much control.
“All right, that is enough! Everyone! Lunch
time!” called Maria.
The afternoon pressed on, one distraction after another. Chloë knew they were just biding time, but at least she wasn’t spending it nervously pacing back and forth! She enjoyed watching both sets of twins out playing badminton―much more lady like! She found both amusement and comfort watching Lily, terror of the Live Steel match, sedately and laughingly playing with a toddler belonging to the young wife of the grounds keeper. Little Lily’s character was perfectly in line with what Maria had suggested earlier. Chloë had briefly caught Heather and Raymond alone in the gardens, but they were just sitting there holding hands and talking. Not much fun to interrupt!
Contrasts! Personality! No one was easy to read or superficial. They all had wide ranging aspects of their personality and they were all comfortable with that. The only one truly not comfortable was Mother Caleigh: tension was weighing heavily on her. While Chloë tried to talk and laugh with her, things were distant. Chloë was hurt at first, but thinking about it she started to understand. Her mother didn’t want to get too emotional with Chloë if she was just going to get yanked away from her again. Chloë hurt, but she knew it was a pale comparison to what Caleigh was feeling: to have her daughter dangled and then yanked away again. Nope! That wasn’t going to happen if Chloë could help it! Chloë wanted Caleigh on Afon! Heather had taught her far too much to give up without a fight. A very serious fight!
56
As dusk finally fell and it was well within the hour of the Prince’s arrival, distractions became harder to find. Heather did her best as she filled the long hall with a beautiful performance on the piano, but the air was thick…
“His Highness, Crown Prince Philip Amsterval and Sir Reinhardt of the Beycones!” announced the doorman.
Chloë snarled. The errant knight too?
They all rose and moved to ‘greet’ the newcomers. Chloë and Heather out front with Raymond right behind, Caleigh and Grandmother to the side, while the quintet of sisters formed into a glaring ‘V’ with Maria standing in the pocket. All along the perimeter of the room stood elements of Watzkel’s forces watching blinklessly.
Philip snarled as he entered the room, “What are those hideous Shukurae doing here? Send them away at once!”
“This is House Heigen on Bervik VI,” lectured Chloë’s grandmother. “I bid you know your station and mind your manners. The Shukurae stay!”
“Stay? After what they did to poor Chloë?”
“What did they do, Philip?” asked Chloë. “What did they do besides help rescue me from that treacherous coward Sir Reinhardt?”
“Quiet girl. Know your station!” snapped Sir Reinhardt.
“Mind your station in how you address my daughter,” snapped Caleigh.
“Your Highness, I do apologize. It is just that the young girl…”
“Lady!” snapped Heather. “She’s not a girl.”
Philip scoffed, “And what would a tart from the Highlands know…”
“She knows the obvious truth,” snarled Chloë, half on her own and half at Heather’s defense. “I must be a lady, a young girl is not permitted to marry!”
Philip rolled his eyes, “Seriously, a girl your age is permitted to marry.”
“If she is declared a competent and emancipated minor… So then you agree; I am a competent and emancipated minor.”
“Still your tongue and don’t put words in mine!” snapped Philip.
Chloë laughed. Honestly she didn’t know she had it in her, but it just sort of came bubbling out, “Sixteen years I’ve been quiet. Ten of which without my mother! If you wanted me to be quiet now, maybe I should have talked more then. Honestly, when is the last time you and I just talked? Not false smiles and a pat on the head for some class, or fanciful garden I made. When have we ever just talked?”
“This is not the time nor the place for such discussions!”
“That’s right! There never is the right time or place for such discussion is there? But what does it matter? You still have not addressed the horrible company you keep: Sir Reinhardt! Men under his employ drugged us, tossed us in a shipping container and then tried to squirrel us away while he played out his own game at your expense! When things came to blows, as he didn’t wish to admit his treacherous behavior, he was the first one to run! A coward! I can’t tell you how he looks in combat because all we ever saw was his tail bouncing away, into the distance!”
“You grossly misunderstood the situation, Your Highness,” began Sir Reinhardt.
“Oh, ‘Your Highness’ now is it finally,” snarled Chloë as she cut him off. “Which part would you like to address first: that they were in your employ perhaps? Or the drugged and stuffed into a shipping container?”
“It was a pretty sparse shipping container too,” grinned Heather. “I can’t believe you’d stick a princess into such dismal conditions.”
“Things were complicated… I had to intercept parties already in motion!”
“Parties that you paid handsomely! If it was all so noble on your part, then why wasn’t the Prince notified as soon as you had custody of us? When I asked you if you had grabbed us in an effort to curry favor with the Prince, you replied that ‘My motivations are complicated.’ What exactly did you mean by that?”
Sir Reinhardt just gnashed his teeth. It was Caleigh that spoke up next, “Philip, dear, why don’t you ask your newest young knight what happened. He was there.”
“That young fop has a crush on the Highland girl! His mind is clouded with lust!” snarled Reinhardt.
“Fascinating! So being waylaid off the streets of Afon and put into binders was all some elaborate lust filled dream. That is a little more kinky than I would go for. That explains much of your personality,” began Raymond eloquently and evenly. “Oh I wish I had half the imagination about such things as you. Oh, and that whole part where one of your men fired a plasma lance into the room and narrowly missing Chloë and striking Heather, was also part of the hallucination? Prince Philip, you may not like the Shukurae, but they are very, very professional: why not ask their account of the story as well?”
“A plasma lance? Into the Highland girl? How absurd! Are you even listening to yourself?” blasted Reinhardt.
Heather’s grin tried to consume her face as a waterfall of blue sparks engulfed her leaving only to reveal the iridescent sheen of her Live Steel armor, “It hurt. It hurt a lot, you son-of-a-bitch! But at least I didn’t run!”
“Heather, watch you language please,” offered Maria discreetly over her shoulder.
“Sorry, Second Mother,” grinned Heather as she dismissed her armor to the shock and amazement of the newcomers.
Philip was taken aback… that was the first sign of weakness Chloë had seen, “Did you send Count Alfonso off to… ‘recover’ me? What exactly did you instruct him to do?” she asked softly.
“Of course I sent the count out to help you! Any and all means at his disposal!”
“So, you concur with his actions… where he gassed us all and kidnapped us off the streets…”
“You are my daughter! It wasn’t a kidnapping, it was a rescue!”
“Let’s take this a piece at a time: so you are okay with the count gassing the town?”
“Of course! He had to get you away from those monsters!”
“The monsters that were protecting us… right… Three townsfolk, three innocent people were killed in that gas attack! Suffocated! Killed for no good reason.”
“It was a horrible situation! Five men were brutally maimed!”
“Five men were injured by Heather, trying to protect Raymond after the entire town had been covered in gas. No shots were fired. If the threats had been from the Shukurae there would be a nice array of 15mm holes in people. Go check the infirmary… no gun shots. Not a one… And now the colony has called for the count to be bound over on charges of murder. Murder that he will say you authorized. ‘Any and all means at his disposal…’“
“Count Alfonso would never try to throw the blame
back at me…”
“Oh, young knight, Lord of the Bescones, do listen to what is being said before you too are cut and left to dry in the sun,” smiled Chloë with false concern.
“This is serious Chloë!” fired back Philip.
“Yes, yes it is. Which brings us back to the charge of kidnapping. I’m an emancipated minor, well either that or you are a felon. I traveled to Afon and was brought into House Stratford. By law, by treaty, by custom of the Altshea Confederation as well as the Highlands, I am a daughter of their house! Trying to take me from them is, quite bluntly, kidnapping.”
“Now see here!”
“Now you see here!” snapped Heather. “The entire government of the Altshea lands save for three, three small little planets, agree that she is my sister! How many planets do you wish to pick a fight with!”
“They can all burn!”
“Yours first!” snapped back Heather with a grin.
Philip paused and then finally laughed, “Chloë, you would give up your throne for these sort of people?”
Chloë scoffed, “My throne? Or did you mean young Duke Estherdale’s throne?”
“Well, yours together, of course.”
“Just like you and mom.”
“That was different! There were complications!”
“Like she wouldn’t roll over and play dead?”
Philip snarled, “Whatever the reason! Do you really want to give up your station and go be some peasant girl?”
“Well, the man of the house is Baron of Threedales…” grinned Chloë. “Are you threatening to disinherit me?”
“Maybe I am!”
“Good! Do so! By law of the land as a disinherited princess who is the only legitimate heir, I claim my due: one quarter of the land and I accept the diminished title of countess. As countess I list Lady Caleigh as executor of my estate in my absence!”
Philip was enraged but carefully fought through it, “You’ve thought this out. You’ve planned this… that is why you left in the first place didn’t you?”
Chloë Page 23
