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Le Pieu quite frankly disgusted her, and several other courtiers if rumors can be believed, despite his riches and high rank. Yet Rodmilla steadied her countenance and features into a benevolence that would make the great sculptors of Europe beg to take her portrait. After all, she was used to receiving leering looks in the prime of her youth, and in the later years, judgemental and pitying stares which only increased since she had acquired two dead husbands and three daughters in less than a decade.
“Well Baroness, I must say these wares are quite fine indeed. One would not be able to acquire such rare and quality artworks without journeying far from France itself, but your late husband is still renowned for his skills in trading and prediction of new tastes.”
She lets her lips curl into a pleased smile, nodding at the servants to unroll the next paper batch of delicate paintings and wood carvings to display. “Good sir, you flatter us with your strong memory. Indeed I often find myself in awe with the many treasures he had collected over the years.”
The lord smiled wanly at that, “But, if I recall correctly, he was most notorious for his private collection, which he was so vexed to be parted from apart from the rare loan, though I suppose hard times such as these call for necessary economies to be made”
She felt the delicate smile stretch ever so tighter across her face at the oily voice digging a slight into her side that was extremely plain and obvious to any who knew the family. “Why Sir, when one has daughters, it is only a mother’s natural instinct to be prepared for the future”
There’s a certain look of hunger glinting off Le Pieu’s gaze- even as he marks a particularly fine scroll painting of inky grey mountains- one that Rodmilla was intimately, uncomfortably, familiar with. “Ah, yes your motherly virtues must be praised to the high heavens in light of the tragedies which have befallen your family... Might I be so bold, Baroness, to offer my aid to you in the form of an offer of marriage-”
Her first husband, the Baron de Ghent had such eyes when they finally met on the morning of their wedding, a thrice widowed and ill-tempered man who was old enough to be her father. Leering and hungry as he demanded sons, fine strong sons from her each time she gave a daughter.
“Danielle has grown lovelier in the intervening years, and I believe such a union benefits us both -Of course, of course Rodmilla knew the revolting man would never deign a thought of marrying someone of such high birth as Marguerite, but strangely her heart still does not ease completely at the mention of Danielle- “Why my rank and age can withstand any naysay about her merchant class birth or the rank of any sons she gives me, and to do so will ease your motherly burdens to rightly focus on your younger daughters as they come of age-.”
How old had she herself been then? At her most triumphant moment, when her son had finally been placed in her arms, now the Baron de Ghent himself, unwed and free to do as he pleases without a care in the world for the welfare of his mother or sisters, save allow her the continued use of the title Baroness in the absence of a wife.
“No,” The single word tumbles firmly out of her mouth, splashing into the tirade of Le Pieu‘s words, a boulder blocking a river’s path.
His surprised pause gives Rodmilla enough time to scrape together a passable excuse for her refusal, “It shames me to admit that Danielle has yet to develop the refinement required to even consider offers for her hand despite her education,” she smiles apologetically, knitting her dark brows together in mock worry, “perhaps… in a few years time, for she is still five and ten and requires a mother’s gentle hand and stern guidance”
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As the carriage rattles along the ill-kept country road, Rodmilla slouches on the velvet seat, fingering her single strand of fine pearls in a manner that would have sent her own mother frothing at the mouth.
Marriage.
Marriage for
Danielle
at that. She had not even spared a single thought about that girl’s future, so consumed with their dwindling fortunes and how Marguerite's prospects could outbalance their debts.
Both of her husbands had the choice to remarry, not out of necessity, but for the sake of it. They had the economies to provide for a large household and ensure stability for their children. Her choices relied solely on her good breeding and temporary beauty, the supposed goodwill of men.
If only she had been allowed to stay at her son’s side as his tutor, his protector until he came of age. Would he have at least known them well enough to take his sisters under his brotherly protection? Found them good husbands without the need to present themselves like mice to be courted by men twice their age? Given them a role and standing within his own household?
Or, with her noble education in letters and numbers, Rodmilla could have easily taken up the mantel of August’s business accounts, if it had not been whisked away by his guild and trade partners. Had her mother’s painstakingly given education been naught for her daughter but to further embellish a future wife in-making?
The carriage finally trundles past a dust-streaked and flushed Danielle as it rolls to a halt in the courtyard, who tends to the garden with her skirts and apron caked in dirt and other such unmentionables. Some small part of her gut squeezed dully, as it always did, thinking of a little girl who once upon a time trapezed through the same gardens in clean linens and velvets.
But such discomfort dims to a mere whisper, insignificant, compared to the sharper pain resonating through her soul when she imagined Marguerite or Jaqueline reduced to such circumstances.
Once the door is swung open by the timid and gangly boy who helps write her correspondence, Rodmilla sweeps down the steps of the carriage as if she were the very Queen of France herself, and pretends to alight her view with Danielle for the first time that afternoon, displeased grimmance settling on her lips.
“DANIELLE! Stop dithering in the dirt and do come tend to my bath at once”
The girl, to her credit, does not flinch anymore, but bobs her head in her Stepmother’s direction, murmuring some farewell to the other serving women before scurrying into the manor through the backdoor like a rat.
Hmph.
Was it too much to expect that girl to remember not to run like some errand boy? At least this should save her skin from the grime and midday heat for today.