Pride and Percabeth

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Annabeth noticed that Dona Reyna wasn't drinking coffee like everyone else but rather a special tea brewed from mashed ale-hoof, chopped ginger, and anise seeds. Served with honey, it was a remedy for the lingering symptoms of the cold Dona Reyna still suffered from.
I wonder if her secret rendezvous was worth it, Annabeth thought.
Piper entered the dinning room, dressed in a wine-colored gown with a white fichu tied across her chest.

She looked a little bit the worse for wear after the night before. Lord Skye poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her.
"Good Morning, Piper," he said.
"Thank you, Jason," she replied, taking a sip of coffee.
They had started calling each by their christian names when they became engaged. Piper stood up so that Lord Skye could kiss her. Dona Reyna lowered her eyes and turned away.
"I heard something last night which put me out of countenance," Annabeth said to Lord Skye. "Some were saying your sister shouldn't have danced last night since dancing is inappropriate for an old maid."
"What a cruel thing to say," Piper replied.
"They have a point," Dona Reyna added. "She's going to be four and twenty in December and she still hasn't found a husband. At this point, she should've even bother trying."
Dona Reyna only had the courage to say such a thing because Lady Thalia had not come down to breakfast. Annabeth knew that not even Dona Reyna was brave enough to call Lady Thalia an old maid within her hearing.
"I don't think she should ever give up. Love is never late, it comes precisely when it's meant to."
"I think you've read too many novels.  Still, you're lucky to be marrying Lord Skye when you are. Young ladies are like spring flowers: they begin to fade as soon as they've bloomed. By the time we're four and twenty, we'll already have begun to wilt. No one wants a withered bloom."

A/N by the new you're reading this. I will have turned 24.

"A flower needs to be careful she's not plucked too soon," Lieutenant Jackson said.

The drawing room of the Chase family's townhouse in Olympus was done up in shades of chartreuse, rosy pink, and white. Gilded picture frames containing portraits of the previous duke and duchess hung on the walls. A cut glass chandelier was suspended in the middle of the ceiling.

Annabeth sat on the rosy pink sofa, working on her sampler depicting a sailor with a spyglass. When she reached the bottom of the pattern, she realized that she'd made yet another error. She'd placed the pattern too close to the edge of the fabric and the sailor was missing his backside. Another piece of fabric needed to be added so that the pattern could be continued.
It was a clumsy fix: the weave of the extra fabric was looser and the stitches which made up the sailor's backside were bigger.
While, Annabeth did her needlework, Piper, Lord Skye, Mr. Di Angelo, Miss Levesque, and Lady Thalia played faro at the card table. Dona Reyna sat at another table, bent over a bowl of steaming water and peppermint oil. A towel covered her head and shoulders and trapped in the steam coming off of the bowl. This steam bath helped treat the congestion and post-nasal drip caused by her cold.
Lieutenant Jackson sat by the fire crackling in the Carrara marble hearth. He smoked a pipe filled with an exotic, spicy-scented tobacco and leaned back in his chair.
"Are you feeling better this morning, Miss Chase?" He said. "You worried us all last night with your flight from the ballroom."
"I'm much improved," Annabeth replied. "That ballroom was terribly hot and close- I needed some air."
"Yes, and a cloak room is less hot and close."
Annabeth's cheeks turned bright pink.
"See how she blushes. You'd think she were a modest girl."
"Pray sir," Annabeth replied. "What do you mean by that?"
"Rachel saw you with Captain Castellan."
"The nosy ginger trollop!"
"You're one to call her a trollop."
Lord Skye put down his hand of cards and rose from the table.
"Miss Chase," he said. "Is all this true? Has that blackguard damaged your reputation?"
"Leave the poor girl alone," Lady Thalia cut in. "She only met with Captain Castellan because he had a message for me. I've been sending him letters through her."
Piper shrieked when a wine glass shattered at her feet.
"How could you, Thalia! First, you disobey our father and allow yourself to be seduced by a worthless wretch. Then you and your seducer drag poor Miss Chase into your schemes and expose her to ruin. You are never to see or hear from Captain Castellan ever again."
Lady Thalia sized up her brother.
"You might be grown, little brother, but I can still box your ears like I did when we were children."
Lieutenant Jackson and Dona Reyna  swept in to separate the two siblings.
"When we return to Skye," Lieutenant Jackson said. "I'll go and challenge him. Castellan has to answer for his actions."
"You're right, Jackson," Lord Skye replied. "Will you be my second at the duel?"
Lieutenant Jackson put a hand on his shoulder.
"I will. I hate Castellan as much as you do."
Tears ran down Annabeth's cheeks and she fled from the room.