Common (The Lora Fletcher Chronicles Book 1)

by Andrea Irving

  A moment later, Lora let Mistress Tabitha into her room. The older woman noticed how distraught she was and pulled her into a hug. “He can be a bit of a boor,” she said. “It’s a failing of all noblemen. Is this what you’ll be wearing? It’s lovely. It will make your hair positively glow. Will you be wearing it up?”

  Lora blinked. “No,” she stammered. “Not until midwinter.”

  Mistress Tabitha smiled. “Of course, I apologize. All of you young girls seem to be growing up so quickly.” She gestured for Lora to step out of her gown.

  Lora quickly complied and got into her corset. She held onto her bedpost as Mistress Tabitha drew her laces. Even though she hated it, she found she was getting used to it, and even felt a little odd to eat dinner without it. She found herself wearing it even if she dined alone. She stepped into her dress and Mistress Tabitha fastened the back. “Thank you for helping me,” she said. “You know you don’t have to.”

  “Not at all,” she said. “I know your friends have gone for the summer and you’ve no ladies maid. It’s nothing.” Mistress Tabitha smiled. “I miss having my daughter around and you remind me of her. She married just before you started here.”

  “Thank you again,” Lora said. The two women walked to the common area together, where they found Louis and Regan.

  Louis’ face broke into a grin. “What have you done with our Lora?” He laughed and shook his head. He held out his arm. “You’ll raise my stock a hundred fold. I’ll have to insist you walk with me everywhere now.”

  Lora blushed. “What an odd compliment,” she said, wishing she could punch him in the arm. She stared for a moment and did it anyway.

  “Ow!”

  “Shall we?” She grabbed Louis’ arm before he could pull it away. “Regan?”

  Regan nodded. “I apologize, but there will be a couple of more at dinner. I’m sure you’ll approve. Dain is in town. Lord Brandon has come to talk to my father about some inquiry or other of the Korlisseans. So Dain and Geoff are with him, of course.”

  “Geoff?” she asked as they walked outside.

  “You’ve not met Geoff?”

  Louis guffawed when Lora shook her head. “Lucky girl.”

  Regan climbed into his carriage and held his hand out for Lora. “I’ve known him forever, his father being my father’s chief advisor and all. He can be a little arrogant—“

  “A little?” Louis let go of Lora’s hand as she stepped into the carriage.

  “A lot then,” Regan grumbled. “He’s a good sort though.”

  Regan and Louis teased Lora about her enthusiasm for the city as they drove through it. “You forget that I walk from the Academy to a few shops and that I’ve driven in once from home when I was twelve. This is all new to me. I am sure that you two are much the same whenever you go somewhere you’ve never been.”

  “I feel sorry for whoever you travel with to your first assignment,” Louis chuckled. “It’ll take three times as long to get there for all of your stopping and looking.”

  Lora stuck her tongue out at him. She did not care that it was improper. “I hope I get stuck with you then,” she retorted.

  They bickered back and forth for the rest of the short ride, and Lora got more and more nervous. The palace came into view and her palms started to sweat. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until spots swam in front of her eyes. Regan shook her arm as she started to faint. Before he could admonish her, she said, “It wouldn’t have happened if your damned house wasn’t so big, your highness.”

  “You can’t help where you’re born, Miss Lorana,” Regan said as he punched Louis, whose chuckles had deteriorated into a wheezing kind of guffaw, in the arm. “Anyway, we’re here. Try to breathe as we walk through the hallway. The route through the hallways is ten times as long as the length of the outside of the building.” They descended from the carriage when it stopped, and he offered her his arm.

  Lora stared straight ahead as they walked through the palace. She knew that if she looked around at the rich, beautiful surroundings that she would feel even worse. The multitude of servants who bowed at the prince as they walked by had her squeezing her eyes shut as well. She started to hyperventilate until Regan elbowed her

  “You know me,” he murmured, pushing his blond hair out of his eyes with his free hand. “Just think of it like the Academy. It’s a big place with lots of people living and working there, and there’s one important guy in charge of it all. My father, instead of Lord Everett. You feel normal when you’re there, right? You should feel fine when you’re here.” He pulled her in closer.

  When they arrived at the Blue Dining Room, as it was called, Lora’s nervousness faded. Dain stood there laughing with a young man who could only be Geoffrey of James Lake. Sylvane stood with them, her arms across her chest, glaring. When they were noticed, Sylvane frowned.

  “Hello, Ready-Made,” Sylvane called. “Lovely of you to join us.”

  “Cut it out, Sylvane,” Regan shot back. “Everyone here is a welcome guest. I see you everyday, so your absence is no great loss to our party.” Sylvane pouted prettily, but did not reply. He nodded toward Dain and the young man he was speaking with. “Geoff! You’ve heard us talk about Lora often enough, haven’t you?” He walked her over to where they stood. “I could’ve sworn you two had met. Miss Lorana of Haven Dale meet Master Geoffrey of James Lake.”

  Lora curtsied when Regan let go of her arm. “Please to meet you, Master Geoffrey,” she told him.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he said as he rose from an elegant bow. Geoffrey took her hand and kissed the back of it. “And please call me Geoff. It’d be odd for you to call me anything else with these fools around.”

  She blushed. No one had ever kissed her hand before. “Please call me Lora. No one calls me Lorana but my cousins and our teachers.”

  Geoffrey held out his arm for her. When Lora took it, he led her to a place at the table. “Of course, Lora. Here, sit by me. I know everyone else here, and I fear we’ve exhausted all topics of conversation, so it will be a nice change to speak with someone new.” He let go of her, smiled, and ran his hand through his blond waves, as if to fluff them up a bit.

  Lora’s gaze slid from Geoffrey to Dain, who was making a gagging gesture, and then to Regan. The prince was trying very hard not to laugh. Louis was busy distracting Sylvane and hadn’t seen the interchange. She felt her face redden. It was very uncomfortable to be under so many different types of scrutiny.

  At that moment, a servant appeared and rang a small silver bell. “My lords and ladies,” his voice rang out. “Dinner is served.”

  The group gathered around the table. The young ladies sat, quickly followed by the young men. Six servants then appeared, each carrying a plate topped with a silver cloche. As one, they placed them in front of the diners and removed the cloches.

  Lora stared at her plate. She had no idea what was on it and could not fathom how to eat it. She made eye contact with Dain, who sat across from her. He smiled, picked up the morsel with his hand and took a small bite. “I just love smoked oysters on melba, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Obviously,” she told him, mirroring his actions. The oysters were cold and bitter in her mouth. Her muscles seized. She wanted nothing more than to spit the offending morsel out, but was forced to chew and swallow. She placed the oyster back onto her plate, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and reached for her glass of wine. Table manners had been discussed back at the beginning of her first year. They were hard to practice because of the way meals were served and the type of food that was served at the Academy. Seeing as how this meal started with a cold hors d’oeuvres, Lora reached back into the recesses of her mind for traditional seven course meal menus to try and anticipate which forks and knives to use.

  Dain smiled and tipped his head toward Geoffrey, who evidently was regaling Lora with some tale of a buck he had gotten on a hunt. Her eyes narrowed at her friend. His smile grew. “Tell me, Lora,” he interjected when
Geoffrey was taking a breath. “How have your holidays been?”

  “I melted a knife to Lord Michael’s hand,” she said nonchalantly.

  “I’ve always been jealous of your fire,” he replied. “Was it the first time he let you swordwield?”

  Lora nodded, trying very hard not to grin at Geoffrey’s obvious discomfiture at the thought of her using a sword and shooting flames out of her hands. “He’d disarmed me, and I did it on instinct.”

  Regan frowned. “He cracked your rib, if I recall.”

  “Very few young men at James Lake learn swordsplay at the Academy,” Geoff put in. “None of the ladies do. I’d be very distraught if my sister had been handled in such a way.”

  Their cold appetizers were then removed by one set of servants. Another set revealed small bowls of soup. Lora picked up a spoon and checked her choice with Dain. He nodded and she began eating. “It was not my plan to learn swordsplay when I arrived in Glimmen. I was here to learn wielding, to keep from burning down my village, if nothing else. The sword part was a surprise.”

  “Haven Dale must be very backward indeed,” Sylvane said quietly. “Your manners are coarse now, but you were a barbarian when you arrived.” She was seated on the other side of Geoffrey. “The first time I met Lorana here, was at dinner. It’s self-serve from large platters in the middle of the table. Well, she grabbed a meat pie with her hand and just started eating it. No utensils. It was quite shocking.”

  Lora smiled. “Haven Dale is small, but it’s not the town that’s at fault,” she said as she lifted her spoon from her bowl. The soup was green with white specks and tasted of broccoli and goat cheese. She looked at Geoffrey while her bite of soup cooled. “We are far removed from my cousin, Lord Allistair, if you catch my meaning.”

  “You don’t speak much of your family,” Louis said. “You never go home, and they never visit. Just Lady Tiana on occasion.”

  This was dangerous ground and Lora wished to change the subject. “There are no means for visits,” she explained. “It’s just my father and older brother, Shawn. They never change. Although, I understand Shawn is courting some girl or other.” She shrugged and took her bite, careful not to slurp.

  That seemed to satisfy Louis, and he went back to his soup. Dain winked at her, which made her blush. Regan merely looked thoughtful.

  The fish course followed, which was some sort of sole in a creamy sauce and an unidentifiable vegetable. Dain kindly worked the name of what they were eating into their conversations whenever he could. Regan seemed to catch on to what they were doing and was quick to name the palate cleanser a bitter orange sorbet. The taste stuck on her tongue, and Lora did not really find her palate much cleansed.

  “Ah, veal!” Geoffrey exclaimed when the meat course was brought forth. “We keep veal calves at James Lake.”

  Lora was tired of hearing about James Lake. It seemed that they had everything there. She found it boring that everything possible could be found or occur there. She didn’t need to ask any questions about it, since it had everything. She only had to assume. “Fascinating,” she finally offered.

  Regan choked on his wine and tried to hide his laughter in a cough. “James Lake is a nice place,” he said after he recovered. “The weather is quite fine. The lake is picturesque, and you can see the mountains in the distance. I spent a good deal of time there as a boy. Geoff and I made quite the pair in those days.”

  “I like to think we still do, Regan,” Geoffrey said. His hazel eyes were quite earnest.

  A salad of kale and tomato followed. If nothing else, the meal made Lora acutely aware of what foods she did not need to try again. And perhaps how to eat food she didn’t like without letting on that she didn’t like it. She was starting to change her mind about wine though. It was no surprise that the palace would have better vintages than the Academy.

  “How long are you here?” she asked Dain, finally finding an opportunity to speak with him while Geoffrey was occupied with Sylvane.

  Dain shrugged. “Lord Brandon is here to bring a missive to the king from King Shane of Korlisse. It’s the same every summer. This for that. It’s worked for the past few years. No one’s been especially offended in a while, which is nice. While I’m prepared for it, I’m not interested in going to war.”

  “Lord Cedric says relations are better than they have been for as long as he can remember,” she said. “In spite of that, I hope you will be able to stay awhile. I’m sure Lord Michael or Lord Robert would be thrilled to give you a trouncing.”

  “That’s a very interesting way to try and entice me to stay,” Dain teased. “Reminding me of what violence my teachers can do to me.”

  “Violence?” Geoffrey asked. “Good heavens. Perhaps I should convince my father to leave sooner. We’d planned on staying a few sevendays, but I’m sure he’d prefer you in one piece.”

  Dessert was served. Lora smiled. It was a mess of caramel and chocolate and summer-ripe berries on top of a shortbread. She was glad to finally have something her stomach could count on to be edible. “It’s good for Dain to keep in practice. Our teachers wouldn’t do him any lasting damage. And any temporary injuries would be healed up by the wielders.”

  “You don’t heal?” Geoffrey pushed his dessert around his plate.

  Lora shook her head. “I use fire, water, earth, and air. I also use my essence, but we’re not quite sure what aspect of it though. Probably distance hearing and speaking. Healing appears to be beyond me.”

  “I heard a rumor you’re taking your wielding seriously, Louis,” Dain said.

  Louis shrugged. “A bit.”

  Regan rolled his eyes. “He’s fond of his new trick. He can go invisible. Something to do with using air to bend light or other such nonsense. In any case, he goes invisible. He likes to sneak up and scare people and do mischievous things.”

  “Damn right I do,” he said with a grin.

  Sylvane’s eyes widened in shock. “Such language,” she admonished.

  The group spoke for a few minutes after their desserts were cleared away when the carriage back to the Academy was announced. Lora curtsied to Regan. “Thank you for your hospitality, Prince Regan. Good to see you, Master Dain. It was a pleasure, Master Geoffrey.” Her mouth twitched when she got to Sylvane. “Thank you, your highness.” She wasn’t sure what to say, since any compliment would be insincere and way too hard to vocalize. She looked to Louis who was just accepting a glass of brandy from a servant. “You’re not coming?”

  “Nope,” said swirling it in his glass. “Brandies with the boys.”

  Lora frowned. If brandy tasted as bad as it smelled, she was glad not to be invited to stay. She was not keen on going back alone though, even with the prince’s private carriage. “I will see you tomorrow then, Master Louis.” She curtsied to the room and followed a servant out to the carriage.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sylvane turned sixteen a few days after the fall term resumed. She piled her hair on her head and wore her corset during all of her classes. Not to be outdone, the other girls followed suit as they could. Catty’s nut brown tresses knew no bounds, whether it be bun, pompadour, braided upsweep, twist, or whatever she could dream up and Genea, who had the deftest fingers, could produce. As Genea and Lora could not wear their hair up, their focus was on tying their corsets tighter than Sylvane and wearing their hair as high as they dared.

  The boys thought they were absolutely ridiculous, but they admired the effects all the same.

  “Isn’t it a huge waste of time for you to put on that getup only to take it off every afternoon?” Peter gestured to Genea’s abnormally small waistline. “Same with the hair.”

  The girls rolled their eyes. “As a wielder, I don’t change every day after lunch,” Genea explained gently. “But if you think on it, I mean think really hard, you might realize that every woman takes off this getup every evening before bed.” She shook her head. “Same with the hair.”

  Peter’s color rose. “Still seems like a
waste of time,” he muttered. “Plus, the swordsplayers put it all back on for dinner again. Twice in one day. That stuff is not easy to get off and put back on.”

  Catty grinned wickedly. “It’s not?”

  “No, it’s not,” Peter replied, oblivious to the gleam in Catty’s eye and the warning glances from the other young men.

  “Spend a lot of time getting into women’s bodices and under their skirts then, Peter?” Catty shook her head and tsk’ed. “Shocking. What would your mother say?”

  Peter flushed even redder. “I never pretended to be a monk,” he sheepishly said after a moment.

  The group teased Peter unmercifully about his conquests, of which he would divulge no additional information, for the entire term. He was good natured about it, since he’d walked right into the trap in the first place. But he was much choosier about his wording after that.

  Midterm, Regan made his apologies to Genea as he handed invitations out to everyone else for the midwinter ball at the palace. Genea took being left out in stride and just shrugged. “Your sister will invite me next year,” she said. “You’re not my only in to the palace, you know. And in the odd event she and I have a falling out, being your cousin, it will be difficult to avoid coming whether I want to or not.”

  “Why wouldn’t Regan invite you himself next year?” Lora felt sure she was missing something.

  Regan nodded. “I’ll be nineteen this spring, so I’ll be sent out on assignment next fall. More than likely,” he yawned, “being sent out will just mean being sent to work in the palace where my father and his advisors can still keep an eye on me. So I’ll still be around—and with more freedom to cause havoc.”

  “Surely the Academy and your father both know you need more experience than you can get at home?” Catty asked, her voice heavy with indignance.

  “I’m sure they do,” Regan agreed. “Having me assigned to the palace makes them feel better about it, I guess.”