28-03-2019, 03:21 PM
A guy in his late teens wearing a servant's uniform had been the source of the knocking. In the hand he hadn't been knocking with, he'd held some clothes that he'd found coming up the steps that I admitted were mine and took back from him.
"Lady Maria urgently requests your presence at the castle, Signorina Bailey. There is a car waiting." He said before I could come up with a decent angry reply to the knocking. I'd seen him at the castle before. I think he was a page. Did they still have pages? Maria can't send Jeanne to do everything. I muttered that I'd figure the clothes thing out and shut the door. I found something for my head in Colleen's bathroom, did a brief clean-up, and put my clothes back on. There was no waking Colleen to say goodbye, and no time to leave a note, so I put the leprechaun next to her. She shifted, flopping her tail, and hugged it as I stepped out into the San Finzione daylight. Whatever Maria needed, it couldn't have been as bad as that felt.
* * *
"It is horrible, Susan." Lady Maria Louisa Francesca de San Finzione said to me when I got to the castle. The stuff from Colleen's medicine cabinet had started working on the way here. Something from Jeanne's beverage cart helped with the rest by the time Maria was free to see me.
Jeanne Carpentier was Helen's personal maid; and when Helen was away and she was in charge, Maria's. (There are special reasons that Helen picked Jeanne for the job, but I'll let others tell that story.) The first time we met, we didn't share a common language, so she was a complete mystery to me. Since then, we've both learned Italian, and I've gotten to know Jeanne a bit better. She seemed pretty stiff and robotic to me when we first met. I've learned since that this is a fetish of hers, which makes her a natural choice to work for a woman who's attracted to other women and also able to take control her mind and fulfill that fantasy. (Hey, no judgment here. Last night, Colleen asked me to ravish her on the deck of a pirate ship. I don't recall if the mermaid tail came before or after that.)
Another thing that Jeanne brings to the table is her beverage cart. Helen doesn't really "do" alcohol, and I tend to save it for nights out, myself, for similar reasons. She prefers hot beverages to cold ones, so Jeanne's cart is equipped to make coffee, tea, or hot cocoa; which is Helen's favorite drink. There used to be a hot plate on it too, but that was removed after an incident you probably saw on TV a year ago. It's been upgraded since then, and she had a choice of coffees for me. I picked Colombian because I recognized it, and all the others sounded too fancy to waste on a primary objective of hangover elimination. I also served myself rather than asking Jeanne to do it for me. Eleven years of waitressing experience left me qualified to handle the machines on her cart.
"I got up and came straight here, Maria." I told her, sitting up on the couch in Helen's study. It's sort of her office in the Palace Wing. She's also got a Throne Room and an office over in the Business Wing of the castle, where as she puts it, they KEEP the Sackville San Finziones. "I haven't seen any news, nobody's told me about a crisis."
"This would not be on the news." Maria explained. "My cousin Lucinda stopped by the Palace Wing last night."
I got a tighter grip on my coffee cup. Lucinda de San Finzione had been one of the eight or nine that Helen had mentioned by name as extra-specially not to be trusted. There was a Benito and a Sabrina in there somewhere too, I think. Essentially, any member of La Familia not named Helena, Maria, Vincenzo, or Byroni, you can save a lot of time by distrusting immediately. Maybe not everyone; she died long before any of us were born, but I hear Contessa Sofia was quite nice.
"How long was she here?" I asked, causally looking around to see if I noticed anything missing.
"A few minutes. Long enough to complain that the rest of La Familia have not yet met the twins." Maria looked down. "And to pressure me into a reception for La Familia to meet them."
"You couldn't say no? Or say that Helen said no?"
"Unfortunately, Lucinda knows the right things to say." Maria responded. "Great-Grandmama usually deals with her, si. She has um... la mente di un ladro, she is better equipped to handle La Familia."
I almost choked on my coffee a little. Maria doesn't say negative things about La Familia. It's a "they're a bunch of evil, greedy backstabbers, but they're still my family" thing. Admitting that Helen's "mind of a thief" made her uniquely qualified to deal with them was something of a breakthrough for her. (I know she loves Helen too, and didn't mean anything insulting there. Saying that Helen has a criminal mentality is just a statement of fact.)
"Lady Maria urgently requests your presence at the castle, Signorina Bailey. There is a car waiting." He said before I could come up with a decent angry reply to the knocking. I'd seen him at the castle before. I think he was a page. Did they still have pages? Maria can't send Jeanne to do everything. I muttered that I'd figure the clothes thing out and shut the door. I found something for my head in Colleen's bathroom, did a brief clean-up, and put my clothes back on. There was no waking Colleen to say goodbye, and no time to leave a note, so I put the leprechaun next to her. She shifted, flopping her tail, and hugged it as I stepped out into the San Finzione daylight. Whatever Maria needed, it couldn't have been as bad as that felt.
* * *
"It is horrible, Susan." Lady Maria Louisa Francesca de San Finzione said to me when I got to the castle. The stuff from Colleen's medicine cabinet had started working on the way here. Something from Jeanne's beverage cart helped with the rest by the time Maria was free to see me.
Jeanne Carpentier was Helen's personal maid; and when Helen was away and she was in charge, Maria's. (There are special reasons that Helen picked Jeanne for the job, but I'll let others tell that story.) The first time we met, we didn't share a common language, so she was a complete mystery to me. Since then, we've both learned Italian, and I've gotten to know Jeanne a bit better. She seemed pretty stiff and robotic to me when we first met. I've learned since that this is a fetish of hers, which makes her a natural choice to work for a woman who's attracted to other women and also able to take control her mind and fulfill that fantasy. (Hey, no judgment here. Last night, Colleen asked me to ravish her on the deck of a pirate ship. I don't recall if the mermaid tail came before or after that.)
Another thing that Jeanne brings to the table is her beverage cart. Helen doesn't really "do" alcohol, and I tend to save it for nights out, myself, for similar reasons. She prefers hot beverages to cold ones, so Jeanne's cart is equipped to make coffee, tea, or hot cocoa; which is Helen's favorite drink. There used to be a hot plate on it too, but that was removed after an incident you probably saw on TV a year ago. It's been upgraded since then, and she had a choice of coffees for me. I picked Colombian because I recognized it, and all the others sounded too fancy to waste on a primary objective of hangover elimination. I also served myself rather than asking Jeanne to do it for me. Eleven years of waitressing experience left me qualified to handle the machines on her cart.
"I got up and came straight here, Maria." I told her, sitting up on the couch in Helen's study. It's sort of her office in the Palace Wing. She's also got a Throne Room and an office over in the Business Wing of the castle, where as she puts it, they KEEP the Sackville San Finziones. "I haven't seen any news, nobody's told me about a crisis."
"This would not be on the news." Maria explained. "My cousin Lucinda stopped by the Palace Wing last night."
I got a tighter grip on my coffee cup. Lucinda de San Finzione had been one of the eight or nine that Helen had mentioned by name as extra-specially not to be trusted. There was a Benito and a Sabrina in there somewhere too, I think. Essentially, any member of La Familia not named Helena, Maria, Vincenzo, or Byroni, you can save a lot of time by distrusting immediately. Maybe not everyone; she died long before any of us were born, but I hear Contessa Sofia was quite nice.
"How long was she here?" I asked, causally looking around to see if I noticed anything missing.
"A few minutes. Long enough to complain that the rest of La Familia have not yet met the twins." Maria looked down. "And to pressure me into a reception for La Familia to meet them."
"You couldn't say no? Or say that Helen said no?"
"Unfortunately, Lucinda knows the right things to say." Maria responded. "Great-Grandmama usually deals with her, si. She has um... la mente di un ladro, she is better equipped to handle La Familia."
I almost choked on my coffee a little. Maria doesn't say negative things about La Familia. It's a "they're a bunch of evil, greedy backstabbers, but they're still my family" thing. Admitting that Helen's "mind of a thief" made her uniquely qualified to deal with them was something of a breakthrough for her. (I know she loves Helen too, and didn't mean anything insulting there. Saying that Helen has a criminal mentality is just a statement of fact.)
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