Page 41 of The Shadow of Breninsol
“Playing the piano like that. What lord is going to look twice at us now?” growled Lucy.
“Now they haveyouas an option,” Veronica added in a bemoaning tone.
From the looks on their faces, she’d missed something important, while the Bellas, despite Annabella’s purplish hue, looked positively gleeful at having some entertainment with their morning tea. Milk and Cookie seemed uncertain whether to jump in the middle of everyone or shelter under the table until the upheaval had passed.
Eleanor couldn’t be sure what position the Petals had taken. Although Calla and Lauressa thankfully weren’t in their usual giggles. Those pair were strangely subdued at the end of the table. Lauressa had draped her fawn brown hair over her face to hide her greenish eye. While Calla’s usually creamy complexion had a grey tinge to it. She looked like she needed coffee more than Eleanor.
“Eleanor will bag the marquis or duke now,” Iris said.
Eleanor focused her attention on the shrewd-eyed woman.
“She’d just have to compete with their orgies,” Annabella added in an all too gleeful tone. “See how long you can keep their attention, then.”
“Your little piano playing won’t impress them for long,” Mirabella added in a sing-song voice.
The Bellas also weren’t happy with her, they were either stoking the ire from the other women for amusement, or they were worried others would hear of the piano playing prostituteand that might affect their clients. If Eleanor had thought her musical performance would adhere some of the ladies towards her, she’d been mistaken.
Eleanor sighed into her coffee. She’d been foolishly thinking tonight would be a welcome reprieve from the party palace, where the court ladies wouldn’t be able to stoke the flames of jealousy. Eleanor now grasped the reason why the handsome noble with blue eyes appeared bored on her initial night at the palace. The novelty had steadily worn off for the courtesans, new cloudy dresses only distracted them for so long, the short-lived excitement presumably had been added to all of their debts.
Eleanor wearily pushed away from the wooden kitchen table and ignored the Bellas and their continued diatribe. She had enough of the way the women were behaving. It reminded her that this was exactly why she didn’t bother with anyone.
Julia rushed to her side as she deposited her porridge bowl in the sink and carefully poured a cup of contraceptive tea from the teapot, avoiding the chipped spout.
“Don’t listen to them,” Julia muttered so only she could hear.
Eleanor made a noise that sounded more like a grunt and quickly drained the pungent cup of cloying aniseed. She swallowed through the bile that threatened to rise, making Julia grimace.
Eleanor needed to clear her head, it felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and she couldn’t think straight. She left the kitchen as silently as she’d arrived and retreated to her room, alone, and with a cup of coffee and jug of water.
“Knock, knock.” An all too merry tune came from Eleanor’s doorway as the door creaked open.
Eleanor suppressed her groan, with a great strength that she didn’t know she had in her right now. The pounding in her head was lingering and drinking some wine, mixed with coffee and water, had somewhat eased the hurt, along with a brief nap. With bleary eyes, she saw Lauressa was standing in her doorway. The meagre sunlight shining on her indicted it was still daytime, and dawn was far off.
This is why we don’t get involved. One thing leads to another.
Even with a slightly green bruised eye, Lauressa looked too young. She had wrapped a faded dressing robe around herself. It had once been a fine robe. Only a large blossom’s outline remained, the floral pattern long gone. At some point, the tie had been lost. Undeterred by this, Lauressa had replaced the lost tie with an equally fraying scarf.
In the hallway behind her, the ladies were darting around giggling. The sound of numerous cupboard doors was being slammed shut as their owners hastily retrieved whatever they needed.
Eleanor pushed herself up, covering herself with her flimsy grey robe as she dropped her legs over the edge of the squeaky bed.
Lauressa’s tentative smile brightened as she ran a quick eye over the room. “The old bat’s opening the bathing house for us until tonight. Thought you’d like to come?”
Feeling the aches in her body, Eleanor stretched her neck first to one side and then to the other, realizing that a soak in the hot, steaming bath was exactly what she needed to sweat out the lingering throb in her head. A slightly ripe odour caused Eleanor to scrunch up her nose, immediately suggesting that a good soak and a thorough wash would greatly improve her current state.
“Ressa, you coming?” Calla called, poking her head into the doorway.
“Yeah,” Lauressa smiled as she looked at Calla, who had a frayed and thinning towel wrapped around herself. The greying colour looked murkier against the unblemished, pink-tinged blossom of her body. “Just seeing if Eleanor wanted to come,” Lauressa explained, prompting both women to look expectantly at her.
“I’m coming, I’ll see you down there,” Eleanor replied, so they could dismiss themselves as they were itching to leave together.
Lauressa’s smile brightened as Calla linked her arm through hers. In contrast to the subdued mood at the breakfast table, a newfound perkiness and cheerfulness was evident in both their demeanours.
A familiar pang settled in her chest as Eleanor took a breath to force some necessity into herself and get her body moving downstairs. The collection of empty bottles that were usually strewn around the room had gone. Eleanor tried to pinpoint when that had happened. She was certain no one had been in the room while she’d been asleep.
She ran a hand over her face; wondering about disappearing bottles was pointless, and it was not getting her any nearer to the baths. Begrudgingly, Eleanor held onto the handrail as she followed the steady stream of ladies heading downstairs withrobes or towels wrapped around them, despite the lack of fires in the house.
Eleanor bypassed the closed door that led to the client floor and headed into the kitchen, where Julia heaved a straw shopping basket onto the wooden kitchen table. The smell of freshly baked bread mixed with sugary sweetness filled the kitchen. The saccharine and fresh scent indicated it originated from the Centre, as evidenced by Julia’s sweaty forehead and upper lip, a clear sign she had just walked from there. With a heavy thud, the basket’s rounded bottom hit the table, and some of its precious contents rolled out from beneath the red cloth.
