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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Priscilla Moore's Northrend series debuts at a Stormwind art gallery, and Avrenne Esprit Fallon has come prepared to ensure its success and its secondary purpose to ensure the success of the navy. Unexpectedly, some manner of sentiment manages to reign over the duchess, enough that it might require some amount of chocolate by the end of the evening. 11,000-ish words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
“Oh, Lady Fallon, if your hair were a gold coin a strand, it would still not manage to outweigh the worth of your wit, nor be able to outshine the loveliness of such yellow hue.”
Flattery. Well, it was tiresome, but it was not unexpected, not now that she was not only a Duchess of Lordaeron, but the crowning jewel of the Stormwind Fallons, the combination of both power and wealth that would attract those who had held themselves apart from her influence, aware of her reduced circumstances, who had considered her nothing but an empty title. Men like Mr. Olenik.
“Your hair’s not yellow. It’s Zandalari gold.”
“I would hate to so disrupt the current inflation rate by introducing a foreign currency of blonde hair into the matter. Rather irresponsible, to begin with equating a strand to a gold,” Avrenne replied to Mr. Olenik, a man rich both in wealth and in years, old enough that he could have been Avrenne’s grandfather, assuming he started young enough. She did not let either the irritation at the flattery or anything that could even possibly resemble encouragement for him to continue into her face or voice. Her tone was cold enough that the rejoinder would feel more like a scold than wit.
Siamus would have laughed, feigning his own seriousness to deepen the joke, unbothered by the lack of flirtation back, although for him, it would have been a flirtation, and he would have known it. Mr. Olenik made a hemming sort of sound, color in his cheeks at her tone, but unable to find purchase to her words.
“Besides, when one has such other worthy investments to make, a fleeting element such as a woman’s hair surely fails to entice those with a truly discerning eye,” Avrenne continued, deliberately turning her head from Mr. Olenik to the closer work by Priscilla. This was one of the landscapes of Northrend, a place of snow and mist with a single bright gold light shining above in the mountains – a single hint of Wintergarde Keep. “I would expect you would know far more on the subject of such investment than I. You do have quite the collection of Mr. Kearne’s landscapes don’t you, if I recall correctly? Lady Moore’s style for some of these is so complementary with his darker works from three years ago, don’t you agree?”
Mr. Olenik preened with the compliment to his judgment, as men did, and launched into a technical discussion that nevertheless seemed to support Avrenne’s own assertion. Was it entirely true? She didn’t know. Avrenne had heard the comment earlier from Madame Havareil, who did know art, and thus she repeated it now to guide the conversation back into angles Avrenne wanted.
The Nexus of Art Gallery was, in essence, a ballroom with a theme, nearly the reverse of the game Not A Single Word, for all conversation must inevitably lead back to the subject at hand. There were around 47 people at her last count, possibly 48, although they grouped together in more fours than threes, as couples formed the predominant base, with few singular points, unlike the frequently unattached attendees of a usual ball, where mingling created different distributions. It made drifting through as a singular node a little more complicated, for she drew attention to herself as she did, which necessitated having remarks prepared for each grouping as she arrived to it.
It was an asymmetrical room with two gradually curving walls to suggest movement through it, like a river bending, to create incentive to continue walking along to see what was around the corner. The geometry of the room was aggravating, partial angles that obscured lines of visibility, and Avrenne suppressed a yearning in her chest at how Siamus might have enjoyed it, to make the game of Where’s Henri? all the more challenging for her to keep his fixed point.
The walls had been recently repainted into a cooler white tone than before, Priscilla had informed Avrenne hours earlier, to better work with the Northrend colors, the lights adjusted to be cooler as well. Avrenne prided herself on a very good memory, but she could not tell the difference at all. She had to trust in Priscilla’s expertise. Although the information about the glass for the lighting had been interesting, for itself, Avrenne knew that most would not have found it so. It was only something Avrenne might mention to those who had an angle of approach to want to know more about the gallery itself, those considering larger investments, or found curiosities of details fascinating. Or those, like Avrenne, who were there for other reasons than art.
Siamus would have possibly found the information about the glass of the lights interesting, particularly to consider it within a potential application for lights used in military contexts. Perhaps she would speak to him on it, eventually.
The Nexus of Art was not the largest or most prestigious of the art galleries in the Stormwind Kingdom, but that was an advantage in this case. Avrenne needed exclusivity, she needed control over the crowd, of who bought what, and for how much. The ships of the Fallon Fleet, posed among the icebergs of Northrend, with foes and sailors in dramatic scenes, or the single steady point among massive cliffs of ice, had been subtly positioned as The Alliance Navy in theme, if not outright claim. Those had to go to very specific people. There were those who simply could not hold onto excitement for long enough to be useful for it, to understand that one did not snap one’s fingers and have a fleet of ships appear. Every single ship took time to build, and raise up as a child was carried in the womb by a mother, the process unable to be rushed past a certain point.
Please do move with all haste, if you have not already, to expedite completion of the Lady Blanche and the two in slip.
Avrenne felt her hand on her waist before she could stop it, nodding along to Mr. Olenik as she dropped it back to her side. He was speaking about the painting in art terms that Avrenne heard and dismissed from her memory as soon as they landed. She did not need them. And he did not not need her to know them to do as she wanted him to. In fact, the less she knew and admitted she did not, the more he felt himself in control of the conversation, imbuing artistic wisdom upon her.
“Lady Moore’s sfumato in this is sublime, particularly for that field of depth. That’s what Mr. Kearne mastered, but in darkness. Lady Moore’s chosen light, and to say that the two would complement is, well, hmm, hmm, doesn’t quite speak enough of how it’d be a beautiful sort of chiaroscuro on its own in suggestion, if not in the strictest terms.” He chortled at his own comment. A joke, perhaps. Avrenne did not laugh, and she did not smile. She never did for men such as him unless it was for a purpose.
“Mm.”
He did not need to go home with one of the paintings of the ships. But she did need him to offer a substantial amount on at least one of Priscilla’s paintings. Once Mr. Olenik did, Lord Albellard would be more readily persuaded, and he did need to go home with one of the suggestions of a navy. Avrenne had selected the one Priscilla did of the Silverwind setting out on the water from the Stormwind Harbor, the crew dark shadows, with pinpoints of light flashing off the rows and rows of soldiers aboard, reinforcements for the war.
“I'll summon Silverwind up to Stormwind, and have Dorian take Storm's Daughter direct to Menethil. Silverwind can take on troops here, and Storm will lie in at Menethil for cargo, as fast as ye can lade her; I'll have any other munitions the Alliance wants delivered sent up by Menethil as well.”
The pang hit with such force at the memory that Avrenne closed her hand over the seastalk case and fought back the urge to open it, to lay eyes on the bloom itself. She needed to remain focused on her conversation partner for a moment or two longer. Mr. Olenik was nearly there.
“That sounds to be quite the potential for a focal point of a parlour,” Avrenne agreed with what he had already been saying, but turning it a little more into what she wanted. If he placed it in the parlour, where more eyes would turn naturally to it as they waited, more would see it, and perhaps give conversation for a morning visit. They would need to avoid the overt discussion of the war, of course, as many seemed to think that speaking of soldiers risking their very lives and immortal souls against oblivion was not conversation fit for the early hours, but the painting would remind them, and would turn them to Priscilla. All of benefit.
“Just the thing, I do say,” Mr. Olenik said. “A lady of taste, Lady Fallon, just so, I’ve always thought you so. A parlour focal point, indeed.”
As if she had not planned this exact ending, Avrenne turned her head like she had only just now caught sight of Lord Albellard – he had, in fact, been one of her five Henris and she had known where he had been for all of the past twenty minutes that he had wandered through the gallery – and drew herself up slightly. “What a delightful idea, Mr. Olenik. You must excuse me, I see Lord Albellard has managed to come, and I must say hello. Please do tell your granddaughter that she must come to call on me in Stormwind when she has finished her studies at the academy. My ward Isla would be so pleased to make Bertina’s acquaintance.” She didn’t wait for agreement, or for Mr. Olenik to secure an actual date, as she swept onward with the authority afforded by her station.
Lord Philip Albellard had been once, in another world half a lifetime away, a man that Avrenne’s father would have potentially approved of for his youngest daughter, had the baron held onto his title in truth through the Third War. House Albellard had been a southern barony, on the edge of Stromgarde. They had chosen to marry into Stromgarde military nobility rather than remain purely of softer Lordaeron provincial nobility stock.
But, they had surrendered most of their title already before they finally fell entirely, and now but for the courtesy of “lord” in recognition of their noble line, they were essentially nothing more than merchants with a prestigious history. Their lands were not only uninhabitable, they no longer belonged to the House at all, he was baron of nothing but a memory of a name, surrendered as though Lordaeron were a bath to step out of once it had grown cold and allowed to drain away.
He was wealthy enough to have managed a place on Sophie’s list of bachelors, but only just barely. Avrenne’s loans would have nearly bankrupted him, costing him all he had thus far accumulated from shipping trade, and Avrenne had dismissed him as an option early on. But he was useful now for that reason that she was fully secure in Siamus’ House, that money of Lord Albellard’s as a merchant wrapped in nobility. He had a measure of intelligence to not be too tiresome to speak with at length, and Avrenne suspected that his ledgers were fairly well maintained, if not to the exactness that one would wish, as some men did.
Goodness. She mustn't think of Siamus’ ledgers here, in public. One might misconstrue the look upon her face.
In any case, Lord Albellard himself was not wholly disagreeable to look upon either. He was only just this winter to turn forty, within quite reasonable range of Avrenne’s own thirty years, though he showed the years much more heavily than some, deep lines carved into the pale quartz of his face, light gray adamantite like colored eyes that might have once been fierce but now only seemed tired, his brown hair so liberally sprinkled with gray that it would be more accurate to say it was gray with brown according to the precise ratios, which he still wore long in a low ponytail that had gone out of fashion some twenty years ago, but suited his thin form well enough.
Avrenne stroked a finger along the seaglass of the case, and forced her hand away. She would let herself look again at the blossom after Lord Albellard. She could wait.
“Duchess Esprit,” Lord Albellard said in that soft, velvety voice of his that for a moment there was Zath interposed over his form, glacier blue eyes in the place of the gray, an image of a form articulated in lean lines that concealed a thousand equations, and Avrenne’s face must have done something in that second before she banished the warlock’s memory back. Lord Albellard gave her a deeper bow, a frown creasing his forehead. “Forgive me, I – Lady Fallon,” he corrected, misinterpreting her moment of foolish sentiment for some displeasure for her title. Well. She would not admit to the truth, and so she would let him draw this conclusion. “It is very good to see you.”
“Lord Albellard,” she returned with a curtsy appropriate to his station before, a gesture of flattery in its own way, offering out her hand to him, which he took, as he had always done before. “A delight to see you again.”
“You know that I cannot resist a showing of beautiful works of art,” he said, as he pressed the barest touch of a kiss to her hand, which he had never done before.
Interesting. Odd, but interesting. He had not seemed a man to grow bolder with a married woman, but she supposed that it was true that she had never been a married woman before, and perhaps he had made similar such gestures to others that she had simply not paid close enough attention to. After all, it had been subtle. She could feel the pressure, of course, the press of warm lips against her skin, but from afar, it might have looked as though he’d simply bowed over it, close but not quite anything else.
His eyes deliberately lingered on her dress, just shy of impertinent, only barely within the realm of someone ostensibly looking at the material and composition of it and not the woman beneath it. “My compliments to your tailor, as always, Lady Fallon. A creation of artistic beauty indeed.”
The dress in question was not the most impressive she might have worn. It was not intended to be a subject of discussion, to fix her in memory deliberately, beyond the usual amount to ensure they remembered what she was. It was a dark gray silk chiffon treated in such a way that there were suggestions of deep purples and blues within the material of an in between sort of moment, a little of twilight, the silhouette a higher line than her usual to let the rest drape in soft, sweeping sections down, Lordaeron Chantilly black lace darkening the bust and hem, as actual slivers of silver decorated the arms and skirt of it, white crystals suggesting chips of ice building up from the hem, and tapering down into smaller beads like drops of water on the lace.
It was an incredibly expensive dress, speaking something of who she was now, the silver and gray setting off the strings of blue pearls of her earrings, the way her hair had been swept up from her face to trail curls down her neck where the dress dipped down just enough to suggest the tops of her shoulder blades. She wore nothing else of jewelry but her wedding ring, the star sapphire too precious for what she was saying. This time, at the least.
“Mr. Latour will be gratified to hear it,” Avrenne replied. It was true. Mr. Latour had been well for the past two weeks, enough that she had finally begun to relax somewhat. Routine had helped. He had been the only other person besides herself to notice that she had grown at the waist, a small curve of her belly, the first real sign of the child she carried. The dress was designed to conceal it; tonight was not a night that she wished to speak of it. There was no use here for it. “Are you still seeing Mrs. Cruishank for yours?”
“Of course.” He tugged at his sleeve, intended to demonstrate the snap of the fabric. It was a gray herringbone, made of wool, if she had to hazard a guess, the shirt some soft dark blue, the waistcoat and cravat more of the same gray. It occurred to her as she looked at it that it echoed something of her own dress. She let the thought arise of what Siamus would look like in it – his cravat at perhaps this time of something of a 130 degree angle with a suggestion of points like an alternate segment theorem in demonstration, a lovely little question of math at his throat – before she set it aside. “Has she forgiven you yet for that extraordinary dress you wore some time past, when was it? At the Thenedains, wasn’t it? Not the last one of the charity event, of course, I speak of the one before your marriage.”
“Yes. You remember correctly. She has, I believe, been mollified. Your compliment was very much appreciated, Lord Albellard.” Avrenne could not remember it in full. Something to do with the color of the fabric, perhaps? He had not seen the lighthouse, that she recalled at least, particularly not the way Siamus had seen it. All of the dance with Lord Albellard had been a blur, just another face of another man pretending they didn’t know what she was doing in his arms, dangling an offer that he was declining while pretending to entertain the thought of it. She had assumed the interest had been lacking on his end, which had not been surprising given his lack of ambition for a title of Lordaeron. She had known, or thought she had known at least, she was no draw on her own. But, now, the way he stepped into her space at that, as though her words had been an invitation, suggested otherwise.
“I am very pleased to hear I was of service to you, Lady Fallon.” Warmth in his tone and in his eyes that had not been there ever before, a small emphasis on his words. An entendre, a flirt.
She caught a scent of brandy mixed with rosemary, something beneath it that was spicier that she couldn’t place.
Whiskey and breath of vetiver, green herbs and oakmoss, and always that touch of salt air.
Blackcurrant and wormwood.
It was unexpected to realize how deeply she could miss a scent of a man lingering on her skin, in the sheets she slept in, and she found herself in the thought of what Lord Albellard would leave. It was a pleasant scent.
She tipped her head back more than she needed to, letting the line of her throat be exposed to him as she considered.
She could take another lover. But would she? Every lover was a risk. A woman with lovers had feelings, at least of some sort, motivations that were not something of business and numbers, not only a woman of cold logic. Would Lord Albellard be the sort of man who could respect that the woman in his bed was not the woman the rest of the world was to know of, or was he the sort of man who would need to speak of his conquest, as though she were not the one who had made the decision, that he would attend to her at her permission only.
He was another connection to the shipping world, mercantile and investment, one that would be of great benefit to both Siamus and Morgauna. His interest in the arts would place him within use for Priscilla and to draw in Lord Tennerow further, perhaps even for Finley, eventually. His money could be placed to use as she thought it might better be, another touch to nudge the markets into the places she wanted without needing it to be Fallon directly. There were many reasons to consider the angle of a lover able to influence him, more than only a soft siren song of suggestions of a woman of discernment.
Siamus might enjoy him. There was that to consider as well, if Lord Albellard had some interest in the company of men. Lord Albellard did play the Game of Flirtation at the least.
For Avrenne though, the interest in him was not so deep as it could be, such that she might be able to afford him passion without sentiment. He was a pleasant enough company, attractive enough to be appealing, but he had never caught her in a thrill of feeling. It did not, of course, need to be love for him to fit in her bed. But, there was the truest possible hurdle of them all, for a man – most men – would insist on a woman’s feelings for him if she shared his bed, unable to comprehend a world where he might not feel so for the woman, and that she might feel the same lack of deeper feeling. Men were always ever so quick to ascribe sentiment to a woman, and even when one was able to demonstrate that one was not plagued by it, she often would find that rather than respect, a man recoiled from it as though she were a defective being.
"And even if what ye were told was true — 'circuitry instead o' veins' — I expect circuitry's the better investment."
Some men knew better, but Siamus was a rare prize in many ways.
The math did not work in Lord Albellard's favor, so she pulled the refinement tighter, changing the angle of her head so that now she was not inviting him to look at the fragile skin of her neck, to imagine kissing it and feeling her sigh, but so that she was somehow, for all of the height difference between them, looking down at him. “Mm.” She made it sound dismissive. “I was just speaking with Mr. Olenik. He is considering “Beacon of the Faceless and Nameless of the Alliance” for a parlour piece to go with that other one he bought some time ago, from an artist named Mr. Kearne, if I recall the name correctly.” Of course she did. She had spent a vexing summer three years ago chasing behind him in art galleries that he’d secured before she could get Priscilla the spot, forced into second and third rate places. He had dropped off significantly in works since the opening of the Dark Portal. Some business there, she suspected. The end result had been less competition for Priscilla.
“The – “ The information and the change in her manner shocked Lord Albellard out of the flirtation, as he glanced over to the piece in question. “For a parlour?” One would think that Avrenne had suggested that Mr. Olenik was considering placing it above a commode. “What a waste of a haunting reminder of the northern horrors, to relegate it to nothing but polite comments.”
“Some pieces are meant to provoke thought, but one does not have to speak of every thought that crosses one’s mind for the art to be effective. One might carry the thought with one after such viewing, to speak of after dinner, perhaps, as the image lingers in one’s mind,” Avrenne suggested.
Lord Albellard’s lips twitched in a faint smile, and he gave Avrenne a dip of his head, something condescending in the motion, as though indulging her opinion on art and people, like she could not possibly know what she spoke on better than he. “I would never wish to contradict a lady of such discernment,” he said in a way that suggested that he believed she was wrong. “I cannot help though but to express that I am of the nature to find myself unable to entertain the thought of placing such evocative works of thought and expression where I would be unable to speak of them at length.”
“And which piece would you speak on, Lord Albellard?” Avrenne turned her head from one work of the Northern Lights in an ink dark sky, her eyes deliberately skimming over another of snow drops closed and bleak in a snow drift, to land on the painting of the soldiers on the Silverwind. She held her gaze there for two beats, before she looked at another, one of the few intended to go to Bertrand, courtesy of Avrenne’s work as his proxy of an “anonymous buyer.” It was one of the birds of Northrend, caught in flight between two buildings, looking up from the village of Wintergarde – now destroyed – the lines a very pleasant symmetry. Lord Albellard, however, had no interest in birds. And Avrenne knew it. He had never bought a single one of Priscilla’s works with birds in them.
He, predictably, instead looked back at the painting of the Silverwind. “Now that one, do you see there, that ship with the soldiers as the focal light sources, how she’s done them so that they catch the light like the water on the peak of the day? Like a shimmer on the ocean, where you can almost see the movement of them, that action of line and light.”
Avrenne obediently turned her head back to it, keeping her face impassive, as though she could not still hear Siamus’ voice, decisive and sure, constructing the circumstances that gave that very painting the action the former baron described as though brushstrokes could come close to the feeling of watching the Vice Admiral himself at work.
Lord Albellard set his hand on Avrenne’s lower back, and took two steps towards the painting, ushering her forward with him.
The shock was first. Indignation, however, had to make war with pleasure. She enjoyed being touched there, the feeling of a man’s palm on her skin, warm with that particular pressure. Siamus’ touch made her knees go weaker, each time, a shiver coursing through her as though he’d set an electric pulse through the circuitry of her. This, however, was a liberty that Lord Albellard had not been given to take, and Avrenne considered her options.
She wanted him to buy the painting. She did not want him to walk away. She also, however, could not allow him to feel free to treat her so, particularly in a public place, with her husband across an ocean unable to take his place to make the claim more obvious. So, she compromised on something in between. She let him take those two steps, and then deliberately stepped out of his hand, rotating enough in place now that she seemed to be turned to him, as though in interest, while taking away the access to her back without needing to step or reach around her.
“Surely too much action would not make it the most inviting of artworks to have with all company. One would not want to give one’s guests an impression of something they might not wish to make greater study of. They might not enjoy art the way you do.” Avrenne let her tone dip colder than her words should be, a mild reproach. “Is your interest in conversation for the soldiers’ armor as an artistic technique then? Or does your interest in ships extend to art of them?”
Lord Albellard set his hands behind his back, rocking slightly onto his heels, a wry smile turning up his lips. Some of the message had been received then. “I find the whole of this quite fascinating, in truth. To think of these brave soldiers on the pride of the Alliance’s best galleons, turning into the frozen wind. Lady Moore had captured that inherent tremor of the fickleness of fate for a soldier with such grace.”
Avrenne bit back the words on her tongue. It was not a galleon. It was not even the Alliance’s, not directly. She was a Fallon Fleet ship, in service to the crown and to the Alliance through the unbreakable tether of Siamus’ honor. Silverwind was a barque, and while Siamus used both of the Fleet’s barques more for cargo and transportation – and Avrenne could recite then and there the averages of their inventories – they were still not the galleons that the Alliance had been forced to conscript into the pitiful attempt at a navy that they had.
But men – most men – did not enjoy being corrected by a woman’s knowledge, not when they were using that tone in particular, and Avrenne’s purpose would not be served in showing that she did, in fact, know what she was looking at better than he ever could. She knew who those shadows were, the men and women of the Fallon Fleet who would have been on the Silverwind then, the tidesage that shepherded those ships and those soldiers safely to Wintergarde.
“Mm.”
It was all the encouragement he needed, because what he wanted to attempt to display was his own expertise, to impress her perhaps. But it was all words to speak on the color of it, the composition involving some other artistic concept that was meant to convey something. Avrenne let the words wash over her as she kept her attention on the painting, mentally dividing the rectangle into triangles, until the lines all made sense, checking them against the angles of the frame, estimating the areas of the triangles by sight. It made her look like she was surveying the painting, so it served.
“That is why with a piece like this, you place it in your library,” he concluded. Avrenne raised her brows. “I have a pair of swords, from my grandfather’s own issue in the First War, that would complement this piece to give it that final touch of meaning.”
“I am certain Lady Moore would be delighted to know that you have considered the tone of the work to such a fine degree,” Avrenne lied. Priscilla would probably find the entire idea that this man could improve on her own message extremely tiresome, but that was not worth mentioning. Lord Albellard would buy the painting. He would have it in his library, and he would encounter it often enough that in a year from now when there were questions of the navy, of the worth for the money it cost, and he was asked to consider an investment in a shipyard, he would remember the sense of the glory he saw when he bought the painting. He would have spoken to guests enough times of the painting over that year to have worked himself into a fantasy of it, using the art to impress those among his acquaintance, spreading the little tendrils of remembering the potential power of a real navy, doing the work for Avrenne to keep the concept alive.
“Where is Lady Moore? I don’t believe I’ve seen her this evening, and I should very much like to pass on my compliments,” he said.
Avrenne pretended to look across the room, deliberately directing her gaze away from where Priscilla would be according to the line of angle she had been walking last. Avrenne still had her fixed. “Mm. I will be sure to say so, when I see her next. She must be taking some time to work out some details with Mr. Olenik.” In fact, she was likely showing a piece to Mrs. Julier, who had been a long time appreciative audience of Priscilla’s smaller works, the little paintings that were often part of a larger series. Mrs. Julier only ever bought one of them, always something purple, but she was a woman with a genuine love for every piece she bought, and Priscilla would be pleased to sell her something.
Lord Albellard frowned, as Avrenne intended, and he stepped a little closer to the painting, as though to safeguard it from Mr. Olenik’s grasp. He need not bother. Mr. Olenik did not favor paintings of ships.
“Oh, there is Mr. Harreon. You must excuse me, I have some business I must take advantage of this chance of meeting to address while I am here. Do please tell me if you do place the work in your library,” she said, as though it were a decision made, but still in a suggestion only so that he might convince himself that she had not told him to buy the painting, sweeping away before he could respond, refusing him the time of a curtsy or her hand.
There was Mr. Harreon, standing a little off to the side at one of the paintings of the village as it was. She could have looked at the blossom in that route, but it would have given an impression of hesitation, or distraction, as though she were checking the time, and that would not do for Mr. Harreon.
He’d once managed an enviably complex network of commerce, before the first opening of the Dark Portal, some thirty or so years ago, out of Stromgarde. Avrenne had not known him before The Fall, but after, he had proven to be one of those shrewd men who could smell profit as though it were a perfume. He and Avrenne had a working relationship, two sharks within the same ocean, their purposes often aligned enough to not need to destroy the other, but nevertheless never quite allies.
“Lady Esprit Fallon,” he said as she drew in closer, sweeping her with a quick look that Avrenne could feel was likely the most accurate in the room at estimating the cost of the dress and the pearls she wore. He made a sound like a low cough, suppressed behind his lips, a lung condition that had plagued him for three years now, nothing a healer could do anything about, that dragged on and on. He set out a hand for a handshake, as he usually did. Avrenne took it, giving it a firm enough shake to remind him that she and he were meeting on even footing, even if his hand might have been large and meaty enough to crush hers within it.
“Mr. Harreon, what a delight to see you again.” She kept her distance, to better allow her to look up at him without seeming to – he was a bear of a man, just about the same height as Siamus, but twice the Vice Admiral across, with arms that were thick enough to suggest that in his youth, before he went more to fat, that he had been a very physically adept man. He just grunted back, an ambiguous sound for what seeing her was, pleasant or otherwise.
“Lady Moore’s worth getting out of the weather for,” he said, a gruffness to his tone that undercut the compliment, but Avrenne suspected the sentiment was genuine.
“And have you seen anything that has made the journey through the weather particularly worth making?”
“Quite a few things,” he answered, and now amusement warmed the tone, as he swept her another look, and then past her to Lord Albellard. Oh. Fel damn the man and his touches. Someone had, indeed, taken note of his interest. Well, so it went sometimes. “And a few paintings beside. Looks like old Philip’s gotten into his mind to reach a bit higher than he’s had an inclination to for years, maybe putting in a good offer for something a bit more substantial than a bit of pretty paint for the walls.”
Avrenne raised her brows. “I believe Lord Albellard has ever had his sights turned to substantial works of art, but Lady Moore’s subject matter at present might feel more suited to his mind’s turnings than pure decoration. We were just speaking on the very great inspiration of heroism of those depicted in one of such works,” she said, her tone cold enough to suggest the glaciers of the other painting they stood near, as she deliberately spoke as though she’d missed his implication.
“I’m sure,” Mr. Harreon said, in a tone that made it clear he was already convinced of what he wanted to see. Well. He wasn’t wrong, either. Avrenne had seen Lord Albellard’s intentions as clearly, so she could not fault another for observing it. Her own actions at least were not reproachable.
She was beginning to muster the next line of direction, to set away from Lord Albellard’s interests when Mr. Harreon made an unpleasant little cough again, stroking his tongue over his teeth and swallowing audibly. There was a sudden jolting memory of Siamus in Wintergarde, the way his breath had rattled in his chest with the pneumonia, hovering on the cusp of what could have become his second death, and Avrenne felt the words she intended to speak halt in her throat. The pause gave Mr. Harreon space to speak again next.
“Couldn’t blame any lady more willing to sell some art to a proper man of the Alliance, good Lordaeron and Stromgarde stock, than to someone of a traitor nation, for all that he might be willing to invest in ‘art’,” Mr. Harreon said and Avrenne felt her blood go hot in her veins, rushing through her as the fire woke within her.
Controlled. Calm. Composed. Unfeeling. The fire heated her hands, the metal of her wedding ring growing warmer with it, as Avrenne froze her face in place as surely as a true mage could with a frost nova on her enemies. Frost for her veins, however, was something that was always just beyond her magic, and the coldness she forced into herself was nothing more than the will of the human woman who housed an elemental force within herself.
“I should certainly hope that we have not begun to reduce an individual, no matter how significant, to a nation’s actions,” Avrenne said, her words lances of ice in the air. “Or what shall one think of those of Alterac, and those associated with them?” Mr. Harreon’s sister had married a merchant out of Alterac, decades ago, and their children were favorites of Mr. Harreon. “We must all remember that for all that we might take pride in our cultures and histories, it never means that we agree with the decisions of those that propel a nation’s actions. Surely we should all be judged on our own actions of loyalty and honor, when we do so apply ourselves in that manner.” Her tone was set to cut, and she saw the way Mr. Harreon’s mouth compressed.
“When we do,” he seemed to agree, but he was sneering, a curling up his lips, a flaring of his nostrils. He loomed over her, emphasizing his greater size, a threat meant to cow her back. “But even an orc will fight on the side of righteousness when he thinks he has no choice, to get at the scraps he thinks he’s due.”
Avrenne knew in the moment when her hand started to move that she had lost control of both the conversation and the refinement. She could almost feel the way his cheek would feel on her palm, how much heat she could put into it, burn him enough to leave a mark.
But Avrenne Esprit Fallon had not gotten to where she was without knowing how to swallow down her feelings into a place they did not show to men like Mr. Harreon. She tipped her chin up to hold down the vitriol, setting her shoulders against the rage coursing through her, setting her hand to her hair as though that was the place she had intended it, catching at her earring on her right lobe like she’d felt it slipping. “What a comparison,” she said, nothing but the frozen wasteland of Northrend in her voice. “I should not have thought you one to sympathize with the Horde to think them able to act with such deep honor and loyalty to adhere to a principle in action.” Her voice was just a little louder, a twisting of his words that he had not said, and had not implied. She knew that Mr. Harreon was no supporter of the Horde, and his complexion went mottled.
“I – “ He started, but Avrenne was faster.
“Of course, I would never dream of accusing you of likening any of those brave enough to defend our existence from the likes of the nightmare of the Scourge and Lich King, to a race that you did not respect in some way, for to suggest that you do not hold our Alliance soldiers in anything but the highest regard would be entirely untrue, would it not?” She wrapped the words around him as tightly as a noose around his throat, binding him into a place where to refute any one part would require him to either speak too plainly, or risk painting himself in a light that in these days would affect his business.
She knew in the way his face went darker and then everything shaking with rage, his hands in fists, that she’d done it enough to halt him there. There were heads turned to them, curious as to what the Duchess Esprit, Lady Fallon of the Stormwind Fallons, was remarking on with such coldness, speaking about the war that way, her voice just audible enough to be sure they had something of an audience, and why Mr. Harreon looked as though he wanted to strike her and could not.
He was considering a response, and the longer he had to think of it, the more likely he would note the gaps in her rope around his neck, and so she turned her head to another Henri, Madame Havareil, and made a little sound. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mr. Harreon, there is Madame Havareil, and I must ask her some thoughts of artwork for the townhouse in Stormwind, now that the Vice Admiral is there more often with his work in the House of Nobles.” Reminder after reminder of who Siamus was, of the man that Mr. Harreon would dare insult to his wife’s face. “You will excuse me.” The words were a shield thrown between them as she walked away, her bearing kept tight to hold the fire down under in her blood where the only person it could hurt was herself.
Mr. Harreon had been just another shark in the ocean, and Avrenne did not, as a rule, make an enemy where a strategic ally would serve. But he was clearly Siamus’ enemy, and now he was Avrenne’s. And eventually, he would see her real teeth when he felt them dragging through his fins, leaving him as nothing but food for the bottom feeders to finish tearing apart.
Madame Havareil was an easy maneuver after Mr. Harreon, for all that she was there with her much younger wife and their neighbors. Madame Havareil was always going to buy the three paintings of the Northern Lights in the three rectangular panels, the right and left 25% smaller than the center one in a pleasant ratio of sizing of shapes, and Avrenne had no intention of anything more than the lightest of hands to increase the cost slightly, which she could do even in such a mixed grouping. Madame Havareil willingly took the bait, and when Avrenne excused herself, it was with a gentle, natural ending to the conversation, and an estimated 30% chance that Madame Havareil’s wife would actually come to call on her at the House sometime soon.
Avrenne withdrew from the main room, surrendering the grasps of the tethers to her Henris.
The powder room of the gallery was richly furnished, of materials that had come from Duskwood, at least in the wood – you could always see the extreme disparate shift in the grain from the trees that had been there before when it had been Brightwood – a separate room entirely from those with the commodes, and Avrenne sat down on a plush bench made with a fabric that must have cost around 13 to 14 silver per yard when it was purchased four years ago and would now run closer to 27 silver per yard with the increasing shortage of mageweave. She opened the seastalk case as though it contained a breath of air that she had been holding too long.
The blossom was as soft and supple as it had been the day Siamus set it in her hands.
“This is yours.”
She closed her eyes as she set her fingertips on the blossom, a faint memory of his fingers on her chin, his lips on hers, as light a touch as the one she laid on the petal.
“And this is mine.”
She was. She had been from that moment he stepped to her side in the Stormwind Harbor, some part of her signing herself to him before her pen had ever touched the page of their contract.
Avrenne closed the seastalk case, letting it fall back to her hip on the silver chain there, and set both hands on her face, pressing her fingers hard enough against her skin that she knew it would leave faint marks behind, but she needed the pressure of it, to feel something physical to hold back the fire.
If only Siamus could have touched her. Anything, a hand on hers, just for a moment. Nothing held back the fire like the seawall of him. Fear. Rage. Neither of them could keep a hold on her so long as Siamus was there to hold her.
Oh, Light. She wasn’t going to cry in the powder room. This could only be the fault of the pregnancy, this trembling in her, this force of sentiment in her throat closing, her shoulders feeling oddly small and weak, aching for an embrace that was an ocean away.
Avrenne should have taken her hands off her face, but she couldn't, as her shoulders curled inward rather than squared off, her spine bent in a way that was all too obviously vulnerable, and not at all like the untouchable duchess she should be.
The door did not open quietly - a warning. "It's me," Priscilla said, and shut the powder room door behind her. "Renne, are you feeling unwell?"
Avrenne looked up, and she pulled everything back so hard that she knew without even that look on Prisiclla’s face that it was obvious, even if the marks on her face wouldn't have given her away already – a long held tell that something had hit her hard enough inside that she had tried to physically push it back inside her. Avrenne hesitated, considering it. She could be unwell. The baby, perhaps, a convenient enough excuse.
Except that it would be a lie, and as a general rule, Avrenne did not directly lie to Priscilla.
"No, not precisely. It's nothing to do with — " She waved a hand vaguely at her midsection as she took a deep breath. The tears that had burned in her eyes had been shoved back where they belonged. "A moment's disarray of sentiment, that's all."
"Mm-hm." Priscilla reached out to clasp Avrenne's hand in both of hers, her hands pleasantly soft, and oh no – relatively cool, which meant Avrenne’s own could only still be too warm, the fire’s grip on her too strong. "Missing Siamus?" She claimed the spot on the bench next to her.
More than Avrenne could express even if she could dare to speak the words out loud in a public place.
"Oh, damn, is it that obvious, Priscilla?" Avrenne exhaled in a gasp, trying for a smile, and finding it failing to find purchase on her lips. She could not fault Priscilla for seeing it. How many times had Avrenne seen such sentiment reflected in Priscilla? How many times had she seen her friend watch Lord Bertrand leave, and watch her already begin to wish that the door just closed would open again?
"Not out there," Priscilla promised, reassuringly. "Not to them, I highly doubt it."
To anyone else had they been in the powder room though, they would have seen not the duchess, not a cold unassailable entity, but a woman of some feeling. It was forbidden, but she could not force the refinement back into place where it belonged. She stared down at her hands, still too warm.
"I must admit that I nearly lost my temper. Mr. Harreon — " Even his very name on her lips felt like poison, and she looked at Priscilla, holding the other woman’s eyes. "You mustn't let him go away with a single work. If he asks, you have a higher bidder. If he presses, you may tell him that it is House Fallon."
She had no right to demand it of Priscilla. Mr. Harreon was a wealthy investor, not only for the price he might offer, but for the prestige of his purchase that would lure others of his ilk into making their own offers on some. She ought to have only suggested it, but no. The thought of any of Priscilla’s works in that man’s ownership, let alone any of the Fallon Fleet – she could not bear it, not even for the potential benefits.
Priscilla patted Avrenne’s hand gently, not letting go. “Not a single work,” she agreed passionately with none of the context other than this statement, and Avrenne felt something uncoil within her. Priscilla had always been the most loyal of friends that Avrenne had ever had. She paused for only enough time to let that hang in the air before she asked, as curious as ever, “Goodness, what did he do? Or say?”
The question brought the vile words back to mind, too clear, too recent, and Avrenne felt the fire crackle to life enough to fear burning Priscilla should it keep rising, and she pulled her hand from her friend before it could grow, pushing back on it. Cold. Composed. Unfeeling.
Tears burned in her eyes and Avrenne was genuinely shocked at them. What on Azeroth’s green face was going on, that she was this reactive? She shoved the tears back with such force that she felt the blink of her lashes keenly.
To repeat the words was beyond her. “He made rather impolite insinuations that I would be best served allowing Lord Albellard to attempt to seduce me away from Siamus as a Kul Tiran and other such…comments to his loyalty and honor on behalf of Stormwind.” It was a far too charitable representation of what he had said, but Avrenne could not, and would not, give his word another gasp of air.
She needed not do so though. Priscilla knew all too well what must have been said, as she cried out, “How dare he!” Her hand went to Avrenne’s shoulder. “Do you want me to have him removed from the gallery? I don’t mind causing a bit of a scene.” Avrenne’s expression must have twitched enough to suggest that this was not the right course. What a disaster that would be. “But only if you think it would help,” Priscilla continued. “You’re the political minefield-navigator, I’m just here to set off the correct mines. Or none!”
“Goodness, no,” Avrenne said. She felt a touch of a smile escape that she could not fully repress in time. “It would not serve at all, you or myself. He would take at least, oh, six or seven with him today, and they would not be back for the next. No, simply let him stew for a bit. I expect it likely he shall leave empty handed, but on the chance that he thought not to — well." Avrenne would outbid on everything. She would not even need to explain herself to Siamus. He would trust that she had a reason. With that thought, she felt her conviction rising up in a fortifying wind. Siamus would support her. He would never let her fall, never let her reach behind her for a hand and feel nothing but empty air. He was always there with her. The thought steadied her, and the fire lost its grasp on her.
“No, I will remove him from the scene entirely, eventually,” Avrenne promised.
Priscilla took Avrenne’s hand, which was something of a small surprise, as Avrenne did not recall setting it there. “Stewing it is. He shan’t walk out with a thing. Was Lord Albellard being a nuisance, or was that merely Mr. Harreon’s conjecture?”
“Oh, that was…” Avrenne let her other hand articulate an oval in the air, as she organized her thoughts in her head. How to explain it to Priscilla? “I suppose that the intent of the gentleman could be interpreted in such a manner. He was far more attentive than I can ever recall him being. He was not a nuisance, but I do believe that he was flirting not only with me but also the boundary of propriety in such a place.” That was accurate, and perhaps really the only truly vexing thing he had done. She allowed at least, honestly, “He did withdraw at my refusal to engage in it.”
The thought that she had perhaps missed a sign of it tugged at her. Had there been evidence that she had failed to account for? She checked the door – still closed, no sign of someone about to enter, no shadows on the floor near the light of the threshold – and turned her attention to Priscilla. “Do you recall him ever speaking of me in any terms at all? Or recall seeing him do anything of such a manner with another married woman?” She considered that for a moment, thinking of Siamus. “Or man?”
Priscilla stared off into space for a long moment. “I…I don’t /believe so.” She returned her focus to Avrenne. “But I could have missed it,” she said, apologetically. “I do listen, but I’m not as good at it.”
Avrenne did another brief recall of Lord Albellard’s actions that evening. A kiss on the hand. A hand on her back. A closer range of speaking than he should have done. Very easy to miss, if someone hadn’t been watching so closely. Mr. Harreon clearly had been, but he had reason to watch Avrenne’s room circulation. Avrenne could not recall seeing Lord Albellard do such in review of her own memories of him, but he had very rarely ever been an Henri outside of an art gallery. She filed the information away into a section of her mind for later. Perhaps she would have him be an Henri at the next ball they both attended and see what occurred.
“Well, no matter,” Avrenne dismissed. “I ask because I could not recall any such sign myself, but it occurred to me that I had not been looking closely enough, or that I had simply missed a small such thing here and there glancing away. I have never heard of any rumor of him engaged in such, but that may mean he is simply skilled at discretion in such matters.”
She mentally revised the math to potentially account for this. It did not tip the scale by any stretch, but one did like to keep an accurate tally in one’s mental ledger of such things, in case one needed it to make a decision in a moment.
"Well, I have been instructed not to cause any scenes tonight, and you did say he withdrew, so I shan't hold whatever liberties he took against him quite as much as I would have otherwise." Priscilla had that protective and somewhat indignant air about her.
"That is reasonable," Avrenne agreed easily. "I was more surprised than anything. You know, he was number two on Sophie's list? Very easily confirmed to still be a bachelor. He was quite uninterested in me at the Thenedain Remembrance Ball this past spring. Or so I thought. With his attention earlier, I suppose it is possible that it was more a disinterest in marriage itself." It was an oddity, to have to consider that she might have held some potential interest at all, and now having removed an obstacle of her marriage that she was more attractive for it, when she had long supposed her greatest attraction was her marriage on offer.
Well, the mysteries of what men did and did not want would persist at times.
Priscilla hummed thoughtfully. "Well. The man knows about art," and she gave Avrenne a thumbs-up, "but he doesn't care for birds," and the thumbs-up transformed into a thumbs-down. Avrenne noted the evaluation, adding it into the tally of the positives and negatives. Although, not knowing about birds was not quite so weighted as not knowing his ships, but one must account for his inability to impress one of Avrenne’s closest friends. Siamus had won Priscilla over within mere minutes. "Showing interest in you shows excellent taste," and it became a thumbs-up, "except that only choosing to do so now that you're wealthy makes his motives quite suspect." Thumbs-down. "You used to have rather the opposite problem. I don't know if this is better or worse."
Avrenne laughed. "I suppose that is part of the surprise. I rather expected the removal of my marriage as to be the end of all such interest. I will need to adjust the account of that potential influence accordingly as I observe the reaction to me in society." Ah, social math.
"He will buy the one of the Silverwind. He is under the impression that the barque is a galleon, and it would not detract from the purpose if he continues to do so. Mr. Olenik will take Wintergarde in the mist, and Madame Havareil will take the three of the aurora, as I expected she would. Which of two purple ones did Mrs. Julier pick? The one of the inn with the berries, or was it the one of the cloak on the wall after all?"
Avrenne had speculated earlier that Mrs. Julier would take the one of the berries. The cloak had been purple, but the wall was the greater ratio of color, and if one was going only by maximizing the color purple, the one of the berries beat it by an approximate 14% of the overall surface area, as Avrenne had explained to inform Priscilla of her reasoning for the expectation.
Priscilla chuckled, leaning against Avrenne's shoulder, a pleasant warmth of another person that eased something in Avrenne’s chest. It was not the same as Siamus, nor as Zath, but it was comforting to feel it all the same, a faint enough echo, if through friendship rather than a lover. "It was the cloak on the wall. I'm glad that one's going to a good home."
Avrenne raised her eyebrows. Well. That made very little mathematical sense, but Avrenne could never truly account for the mysteries of art buyers when they did not seem to have any completely clear motive. If Mrs. Julier wanted the most purple, she had certainly made the wrong choice. Perhaps Avrenne should have consulted with her. It was not especially essential, of course, that she bought the berries painting though.
“Mm.” She patted Priscilla's arm with her free hand. "Have you had any other offers from anonymous sources? The one of the bird in the village or the one of the gryphons?"
It was, of course, only the bird in the village. Priscilla had lingered on that one, and Avrenne had known that Lord Bertrand would have wanted that one for that reason alone. The bird had had some sort of name as well that seemed possibly one of their little Languages In Between of jokes with bird names but Avrenne had felt the name slip away almost as soon as Priscilla had said it.
"I have," Priscilla said proudly. "The former. Mrs. Mysterious has once again proven her good taste." She did not bother to tell Avrenne what kind of bird is in the village a second time. If it didn't stick the first time, it probably wouldn’t stick now, and they both knew it.
Avrenne tried. She did, for Priscilla. If these birds would just be named numbers, or mean something in another coded language, she probably would retain them better. But there were the numbers of the optimal prices for the paintings and the names of the buyers they should and should not go to, the full estimation of the numbers for the commission to the art gallery according to the contract Avrenne had negotiated, and so the bird’s proper name had fallen to the side, and was beyond her ability to recall. Mrs. Mysterious, at least, did not need to know such things to make her bid, and Avrenne knew the exact price that the painting should go for to best suit Lord Bertrand’s budget and Priscilla’s reasonable original pricing.
"I am still not so convinced that it is the same person," Avrenne said for the dozen or so time. "Statistically, it would not be at all unreasonable for there to be more than one source buying without attaching a name." The math was very obviously supportive of this, as she had explained many times, using formulas to explain how the probability worked. "Still, I am glad to know that you approve of the potential home for that one. I know you cared for it, especially after…well." After the village's destruction. For a moment, the village passed in front of her eyes, the view of the geists crawling over the snow, dragging their bodies along the path, as the beat of bones in the air of undead, unnatural gryphons sounded above her. She patted Priscilla again. At least Priscilla had never needed to see it for herself. "Let us assume for that reason alone that it is your Mrs. Mysterious this time."
"I just like thinking of them all together in the same home," Priscilla said, as she had said many times before. Avrenne allowed herself a moment of congratulations for herself. Someday Lord Bertrand would show Priscilla where these pieces had gone, the little birds and the ones that had not found their most loving home, and Avrenne would bask in that glory of being an exceptionally good Mrs. Mysterious.
"Do you want a cold cloth for your eyes?” Priscilla asked. “They're a little red. Just a little bit."
“They're wha — " The words were like a dash of cold water, which unfortunately would do nothing at all for her if it were the case. She did not doubt Priscilla. But she did need to see the extent of the problem, as she rose to a stand and crossed to the mirror. They were a little red, around the rims, faint. Avrenne watched her reflection’s lips move and form the slightest little 'oh' at the sight. "Damn it."
She looked behind her to Priscilla, frowning. She should have thought to bring her makeup in case anything happened, but she had assumed between the temperature of the gallery and her own self control she would not require anything. "Oh, do you have any of your kohl with you? Cold water will wreck this mascara. I can cover it, if you have any."
"I've got my whole kit, Renne, don't you worry." Priscilla opened her purse, moving to join Avrenne by the mirror. "We'll get all freshened up, and we'll sell the right paintings to the right people, and then we can go home and pine longingly over Siamus and Birdie."
What did it say about her that she did, indeed, wish to go home and do just that? Indulgent in the greatest degree, to wallow in such sentiments, as though she were gorging herself on fine chocolates like some lovestruck girl.
Well, and was that entirely incorrect a designation?
Avrenne laughed quietly, and turned to face herself in the mirror. "Well, in that case, we shall have to have Mrs. Cook make some sort of chocolate confection," she teased. "Otherwise, I believe we'd be too firmly in the 'moping' territory, and surely we must save such for the winter season. I do have the proper couch for it, assuming the chocolate is in place to elevate to pining."
And truly a box of chocolate, or brownies, or cookies with her feet up on the couch, letting herself read through Siamus’ letters another half dozen times, looking at the portable desk portrait of Siamus, did sound extraordinarily appealing. This must be the pregnancy. It had to be. Clearly the baby interfered with circuitry veins in some manner.
"Everyone knows autumn is for pining," Priscilla agreed, taking out her cosmetics kit and carefully unfolding all the little trays. She nudged Avrenne's shoulder with hers. "That sounds wonderful."
They made quite a pair standing there. Avrenne, small and a plain sort of attractive with her narrow face and sharp features, her dress the most captivating part of her, speaking loudly enough to announce the woman in it, with no distraction from her face or figure. Her hair had some interest on its own, but she kept it deliberately tucked away.
Priscilla, on the other hand, cut such a statuesque figure in her suit, tailored into such lovely geometric lines, flattering to her rounded form, creating angles and lines that drew the eye into pleasing motions. Her face was, as always, a study of symmetry, a beauty not only of physical form, but of sweetness of soul that shone from her warm eyes.
No matter what would be coming for the rest of that night, Avrenne knew that Priscilla would not leave. Priscilla had held onto Avrenne with a grip so strong that if it could have been transmuted to some physical material, it would outperform any adhesive yet invented by any race in all of Azeroth’s history. Priscilla would be there with her. She would understand.
And so Avrenne carefully selected her weapons of choice, adjusting her makeup to hide the woman with feelings until nothing but the cold, unfeeling duchess remained. The world did not have the privilege of seeing that woman that her most beloved people knew was there beneath the refinement.
When she was done, the Duchess Esprit, Lady Fallon of the Stormwind Fallons, set the tools back into place, and returned to the fray with her war paint firmly in place.