Why Scheme When I Can Sleep?

Chapter 2

A Reputation With No Effort

In which Virelle naps through two scandals, earns three alliances, and becomes a terrifying mystery entirely by accident.

The morning after the ball, three separate gossip letters were already circulating.

The Courier de Luxe printed the headline:

"Lady Virelle Declares War on the Court — Silently."

The Whisper Wire, slightly less dramatic, opted for:

"A D'Argent in the Drawing Room: One Sigh, One Throne?"

Meanwhile, The Idle Needle, known mostly for embroidery patterns and social speculation, published an entire illustrated centerfold of Lady Virelle D'Argent slouching on the settee with the caption:

"The Posture of Power?"

By noon, no fewer than five noble daughters had attempted to lounge in the same corner of the ballroom at various social calls. None of them managed to look remotely asleep, only mildly constipated.

The court's consensus?

Lady Virelle was brilliant.

Lady Virelle was dangerous.

Lady Virelle was planning something.

Lady Virelle was, at that precise moment, drinking lukewarm tea in a parlor she didn't remember walking into, wearing someone else's hair comb, and wondering whether she could sneak out of the estate through the servant's corridor without being noticed.

"Are you listening to me?" asked Briony, adjusting the tea tray.

"I'm blinking very slowly," Virelle replied. "That's similar."

Briony set down a plate of spiced honey biscuits. "You've received nine invitations, three challenge letters, and a flower arrangement shaped like a lion. Do you want to reply to any of them?"

"Which one has cake involved?"

"The lion, probably."

Virelle considered. "Send it back with a note that says 'Roared too loudly.' Sign it with my mother's name."

Briony didn't flinch. She simply pulled out a quill.

Outside the drawing room, the house steward was fielding a line of visitors, most of whom wore too much perfume and all of whom claimed they just happened to be passing by and thought they might pay their respects to the lady of the house.

They didn't mean Rhoswen.

They meant Virelle.

Inside, Virelle had just curled into an armchair sideways and was using a folded napkin as a makeshift eye mask.

"You are aware," said Briony, in the tone of someone who'd had this conversation more than once, "that the more you ignore them, the more power they think you have."

"I know," Virelle mumbled. "It's exhausting."

"That's the thing, my lady. You're not even doing it on purpose."

"It's still exhausting."

By midday, three notable events occurred:

First, the daughter of House Clarendon fainted at lunch after trying to deliver a thinly veiled insult to Virelle's lack of dancing. Virelle hadn't replied — she'd just blinked, taken a bite of bread, and said, "I've never enjoyed music that required movement."

The poor girl, unsure if she was being insulted or outmaneuvered, swooned into a bowl of orange glaze.

Second, a minor baron tried to gift Virelle an enchanted fan embroidered with thorned roses — a subtle challenge. Virelle accepted it with a smile, snapped it open once, declared it "a bit drafty," and handed it to a passing servant to give to Briony.

The entire gallery gasped.

Third, Duke Lorian Thorne came to call.

No one saw him enter. He simply appeared in the D'Argent parlor like a stormcloud in boots.

Virelle was, predictably, half-asleep in a chair, one leg draped over the armrest, her hair falling out of its braid and a biscuit resting uneaten in her hand.

He did not announce himself.

He did not clear his throat.

He simply sat in the chair across from her and waited.

After several long seconds, Virelle cracked one eye open.

"Oh," she said, flatly. "You're real."

Lorian didn't answer right away. He was studying her — not the way people did when they wanted something, but the way one might regard an unfamiliar object in a museum. With suspicion. And maybe admiration.

"I expected something different," he said at last.

"I expected cake," she replied. "Yet here we are."

Silence stretched between them. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly. Just... soft around the edges. Like a moment that had forgotten what it was supposed to become.

Then Virelle asked, "Are you here to flirt, threaten, or propose?"

Lorian blinked once. "None of the above."

"Refreshingly honest," she murmured. "Stay as long as you like."

She closed her eyes again.

By evening, two noble families had called to apologize for "any previous misunderstandings," four others sent gifts, and at least one rival began drafting a plot to discredit her.

Virelle never noticed.

She was asleep by nine.

And the court, in all its glittering, scheming, overdressed glory, could only whisper in confusion and dread.

Because nothing was more terrifying at court than a girl who didn't need to try.