A New Hero

Bad Penny

Three of those handlers sat around her, Evie in top form as she began to berate a few of Teagan's servants for some slight. Tess sat on the opposite side, often blowing her hair up in annoyance because that blighted cousin was at it again. Rosamund prayed every day for Evie to finally find a husband and leave her service, but all the men seemed to be onto the woman's peccadilloes and wisely stayed away. Was that to be her curse? She'd be trapped with her blighted spinster cousin until both were wrinkled and grey?

Trying to shake the foolish thought away, Rosie let her eyes drift towards the dark woman with her shoulders leaning onto the wall, her hips thrust out for balance. What she wouldn't give to be able to grab onto her thighs and part those legs. The improper thoughts brought a real flush to her cheeks, Rosie trying to wave it away while she began to wonder if maybe Myra's idea of using the kitchen wasn't such a bad one. If they were careful, and avoided the fire, or any errant knives.

She moved to stand, when the door to the library burst open. Rosie barely glanced over, assuming it to be either Karelle, one of the knights, or the Arl himself looking for his son. When a lip curling voice coughed and called out, "My Lady," her head snapped up.

Eldon stood framed in the doorway wearing the finest garments he no doubt possessed. Maker's sake, what was he doing here? She left him behind at Highever. A refusal of a proposal tended to send a man scampering back to his den to lick his wounds until he wanted to try with another woman. Then again, perhaps he wished to apologize, to reclaim a more friendly relationship with the crown.

"Lord Eldon," Rosie greeted him with as patient a voice as she could.

"I have come to discuss a grave mistake," he said with his hands perched behind his back. The pose reminded her of a little boy with no easy outlet who found himself forced to confess that he was the one who broke a vase.

"Please," she waved her hand, attempting to calm him and cut off the rising tension, "there is no need to apologize..."

"One that you have committed," he spoke right over top of her, not listening to a word.

The bonhomie turned to ice, Rosie's hand freezing as she glared at him, "Excuse me?"

"In refusing my offer of marriage. You clearly did not think through the implications of what such a decision would have."

He couldn't be serious. Rosie glanced around the room, trying to find someone who would be laughing at this farce. All the faces were still, mouths locked in tight as if they feared speaking a word. Only Cailan she caught rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

Sadly, Lord Eldon was not finished, "My family is well established within the Ferelden line of nobility. We are nearly as ancient as Calenhad itself, in fact. Some would say that would put us as having proper rights to the throne, which we graciously allowed your father to take during the civil war."

At that Rosie rose up to her full height, her chest thrust out and shoulders back as if she was about to attack the man. "You graciously allowed?" she repeated, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. Their family was minimal at best, inbred at worst, and a dying tree. If Eldon was to be their last hope of glory, they failed spectacularly at it. Probably why his father was shopping for anyone else to take the reign.

The man opened his mouth, no doubt about to spew more claptrap of his family, but Rosie talked over him. "Master Eldon," she sneered his name as if it was mud stuck to her dress, "When a woman makes her decision about who to marry, it is not proper for the man to storm back to her and insist she was wrong. I attempted to let you save face for that travesty of a proposal through a letter in the first place, but this is..."