I Will Save you my Lady

Chapter 6 - A Spy or a Friend

Summer was a long, boring, and all too hot season. June had dreaded the arrival of this specific summer more than usual, due to everything planned to occur during it. Of course, her plan had been perfect, as it accounted for several points of failure, including her own disappearance, or the sudden death of one of the two other major players, that bastard Basil, or her good friend Cedar. If she really wanted to, she could run away, and ask Lude to make it look like an accident; splattering some blood on the train tracks, or under a chandelier seemed like a good enough way to go. And truth be told, she had been considering doing exactly that, up until that woman had showed up at her doorstep.

As she sat on the balcony of her oversized and empty manor, sipping on some gin-spiced tea, and admiring the train tracks that would soon be Cedar's, a knock came from the sliding glass doors.

"Ah, Naomi." June spoke without turning around, "Would you care to share a cuppa tea?"

"Oh, of course, my lady!" The other woman replied, all too overjoyed.

She hurried over, and refilled June's cup, before dropping two sugar cubes in it and doing the same for herself. She took a seat at the small, round, table, at an angle that allowed her to face June without obviously looking like she was doing so.

That fact might have slid unnoticed to the eyes of someone less well-versed in social mannerisms than June. The woman smirked, as her eyes travelled to Naomi's miss-matched hair buns, one of which was missing its signature red ribbon, as usual.

June did not comment on the fact. She liked it that way; she found the maid cute, in a disorganised and hectic sort of way. She also didn't shy away from admitting that she liked the way Naomi called her 'my lady', as if she truly meant it; as if June was really hers.

Naomi choked on the tea, before discreetly spitting it out back into the cup.

"I think there's something wrong with the water," she said, wiping her lips with a napkin.

Of course, there was this formal speech, and the fact that she knew all too much, that prevented June from trusting her.

"It's gin." She said, in a tone that purposefully did not explain anything. "And it's not in the water."

She leaned closer to the other woman, causing her to blush. With a well-practised gesture, she performed her favourite party trick. With one hand, she pulled out and flipped open her lighter (whose main purpose in life was this trick, as she did not smoke nearly enough to justify carrying one), and with the other took a sugar cube.

The sugar was infused with a special crystalised form of gin, developed decades ago by some scientist whose spouse did not approve of their drinking habits. The invention never made it to global markets, but it was traded in large enough quantities to prevent June from overpaying for it.

She lit a corner of the cube on fire and flipped it up in the air. It spun on itself, the flame quickly propagating through the alcohol-saturated crystals. It burned for a second, bright like a miniature sun. Speckles of burnt sugar fell onto the tablecloth and were quickly swept away by a discreet hand gesture.

"And this is why they say that I burn as bright as a star," June concluded, with a cheesy one-liner.

When she looked up at the other woman, expecting an amazed, or at least a mildly impressed reaction, she was instead met with a Naomi on the verge of tears.

"My lady..." She muttered, in that tone, people take when they try not to cry, as she grabbed June's left hand, which still had her lighter in it. "You went th-" she cut herself off and shook her head.

She then pulled away, with the slightest touch of reluctance, and wiped away the tears that had somehow managed to pearl at the corner of her eyes, despite her best efforts.

"I'm sorry." She apologised after a moment. "That trick was very impressive."

June sat back in her chair, hiding her confusion behind her tea cup. When she realised Naomi was waiting for a response, she quickly spoke:

"No worries." Then, deciding that the other woman had sufficiently calmed down, she decided to redirect the conversation towards what she really wanted to know. "So, Naomi, you've been here for almost two weeks now, but you've never written, or called your home. If it's inter-dukedom tax rates you're worried about, I can assure you I'll cover those."

"No," Naomi shook her head. "That's not it. Even if I did ... call ... there wouldn't be anyone home to reply."

June did not fail to notice the strange pause around the word call. She noted that it could either reflect Naomi coming from a very remote village or her family not being able to afford a radio-phone.

"Oh? Your parents, or perhaps a sibling, wouldn't?"

Naomi pressed her lips together, and looked aside, in a manner that made June immediately regret the question.

"No. It was just me, and a now dead lily plant." Naomi finally replied.

"You should have brought it with you. You seemed pretty decided on working for me, I'm sure the plant would have fit nicely somewhere in the mansion."

"I thought you didn't like flowers," Naomi replied, still with sadness in her eyes, as she twirled around her cup of gin tea.

"Well, somewhere in the mansion far away from my sight." June joked.

Naomi twitched her lips up, in the saddest imitation of a smile June had ever seen.

"If I could have brought it with me, I probably would have." She replied.

June wanted to pry further into her background, but she decided to give the woman a few moments of quiet to collect herself. There was definitely no other reason, especially none related to how bad June felt after not only making Naomi cry but also forcing her to remember something clearly very painful.

"Well anyways," Naomi suddenly spoke, as her usual upbeat smile returned to her face, "Do you often take tea with gin at this hour of the day."

It was June's turn to choke on her drink.

"What do you mean by this time of day?" She asked, refraining from adding a comment about how she didn't have a drinking problem.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm just asking so I can better serve you." The woman replied with an innocent smile.

June put her cup down, and looked away, hiding her red cheeks with the back of her wrist, as she pretended to sneeze. She liked that too, how Naomi said those words. Perhaps more than gin tea right after breakfast on a sunny summer day.