Page 27 of The Shadow of Breninsol
Those were stories for children.
Eleanor lived in the real world where handsome princes didn’t save anyone except himself, and the princess would stay where she belonged, with the villain, alone and forgotten, forever.
“Well…at leastIhave a lord interested in me,” Veronica said.
Before Iris could say anything, Annabella replied for her. “Look at you, one lord looks your way and you’re all high and mighty.”
“And what about you? Are any of your clients interested?” Lucy said, although her question wasn’t one she wanted an answer to. “Didn’t think so.”
Eleanor moved from the bench, trying to ignore where this conversation was leading to, and placed her plate in the sink for Julia to wash.
“You think you’re all high and mighty now you’re acourtesan,” Mirabella said in a snide tone that stemmed from a place of jealousy.
With a sigh, Eleanor refilled her chipped cup with the aspiring coffee, its muddy appearance caused her to gaze into the depths of the liquid. She felt the storm brewing.
“Really? That’s what you got from what I said?” Lucy snapped.
As she returned to her seat on the bench, Eleanor cast a watchful eye over the Bellas, her attention now focused on the unfolding conversation.
“You think you’re better than us now?” Annabella added.
“I know I’m better than you, and when I become a Favour, then I’ll have the jewels to prove it,” Lucy shot back.
A grimace twisted Eleanor's features as she recoiled from the unpleasant, gritty taste in her cup.
“We know where you came from. No matter how many of those fancy-arse jewels you wear, you’ll be just like the rest of us.”
“We’ll see,” sneered Lucy.
Eleanor wasn’t surprised that it had come down to this, and she was intimately familiar with this type of fighting, even though there were now more positions, but at its core, there were similarities. For some reason, being chosen to attend the party palace led the courtesans to believe they were all friends due to the shared experience. In turn, making Eleanor their ally in this growing rift in the pleasure house.
She was tired of it all.
All the fighting, snide remarks, and bitter looks that were shared between the courtesans and ladies in the pleasure house. The open hostility wasn’t limited to The Ladies Grace, there was squabbling between all three factions of women: The courtesans, who were each vying for a Favour’s position. The Favours who were protecting their precarious positions. The noble ladies, who were competing for special attention for a suitably wealthy husband. Eleanor had seen the veiled animosity between them all, though they’d done their best to mask it.
All in the name of pursuing and furthering their own status in the world. To improve their status meant power, and that’s what this was about. For those who had it, those who wanted it, and those who coveted it.
None of them fooled Eleanor. On the surface, it might appear that they desired a complicated title, shiny jewels, and sparkling dresses, but these were merely decorative adornments for what it represented.
Power.
And the handsome-looking lord was the gatekeeper to this world for them.
Chapter Twelve
Red Handed
Eleanor was lounging on her rickety bed, reading a book she’d managed to find in the rubbish pile near the bookshop in the Centre. She had no idea why someone would throw out a perfectly good book. Although the cover was gone and she had cleaned off a wet, slimy substance, yet the pages remained undamaged.
An evil curse haunted a ruined kingdom in the story, compelling their royal line to live only at nighttime. As Eleanor was getting to the good bit, where the heroine was being married off to her kingdom’s greatest enemy, when she heard her namebeing hesitantly called from underneath her closed door. With a sigh, she carefully placed a dried leaf between the pages and heard the voice once more.
“Eleanor?”
“Come in,” she called.
Lucy stood in her door and uncharacteristically shifted from foot to foot. “The city guards are here. Iris said to come quick.”
Shit.
