#;;thread

"Call HR! Kade Conroy new mystery girl is confirmed and it's his assistant!

Chloe Redwood, was hired as Kade's assistant early 2024-" Standing quickly she accidentally knocked her chair back. "Kade!" she called, grabbing her laptop and making her way back to the bedroom.

“You’re not very smart, huh?”

"Morning."

Aqua greeted Ruby as he heard her footsteps coming from across the house. He was sat at the kitchen table, clearly following his customary Saturday morning routine.

A bowl of rice porridge, a mug of black coffee, and the day's newspaper; the only things he seemed to ever have in front of him at breakfast. When you pair his habits along with the fact he wakes up at 5AM, well, you can tell he does a bad job of not acting like an old man.

Mug all but slamming down back on the table, Aqua paused, blinking in an unusual moment of self-awareness at this fact. An awkward moment of silence later, he managed to shrug off his own thoughts and continue talking to Ruby.

"There's, uh, more porridge on the stove if you want some. I didn't make any eggs this morning, I'm afraid."

DATE: 11th of June, 6:08 P.M. PLACE: Fairford House, St. Maur STATUS: Closed @valentin-talbot

Benny was pacing. He had been since his afternoon tea, no doubt wearing a hole in his father’s prize oriental rug, his walking so fast and so unending that Mr. Norris had appeared in the doorway to not-so-tactfully suggest he go for a hike, or a ride. Of course Benny had already been out with Clever that morning, for he had awoken with such energy he felt he might leap from his skin without some way to burn it off. What’s more he had awoken with such impatience that the nigh-on ten hours it would take for Valentin to arrive had appeared endless. The only way he could think to overcome that eternity was to distract, distract, distract, until it ended. But that had been the morning, and now it was evening. That had been then, and now it was now. Benny couldn’t go out, he couldn’t distract anymore. He had done his riding, he had had his bath, he had scanned the paper, he had had his lunch, he had played the piano, he had had a nap, he had smoked four cigarettes, he had had his tea. And now there was no time left for distractions, there was only time left to wait.

He had just turned on his heel, beginning to walk back away from the door leading into the entrance hall and towards the wall with the curio display when the bell rang. A clanging, ringing, beautiful sound, which had Benny tripping over his ankles to turn back around. He positively threw himself out of the drawing room, pausing only to yell an ‘I’ll get it!’ into an ajar servant’s door, hoping to put off Mr. Norris from raising from the cellar and interrupting. Then he walked briskly to the front door, adjusted his waistcoat, smoothed his hair, made sure the glinting chain of his cigarette case was showing (this was the most important part), and pulled it open.

DATE: 19th May, Early Evening PLACE: Buckingham Palace Ballroom STATUS: Open to all attending the Ball

She’d been waiting for this moment. Augustine was often remarked upon as the picture of her mother, when she was her age. They had the same eyes, the same mouth, the same figure, even the same blonde hair. And, just like her, she had a love of public appearances.

Call it vanity. Call it narcissism. Augustine did not care. She worked hard to be the woman she was. To show it off in public, before Royalty, in the company of her peers and in front of what few gentry had managed to scrape in, made it all worthwhile. She stood at the edge of the newly remodelled ballroom in a dress of creamy satin and shimmering embroidery, neck long, chin up, each finger precisely posed. Her dance card was carefully held against her palm. Her lashes, darkened for the night, fanned over her cheek with each slow blink of her eyes. All she had to do now was wait, and like moths to flame, she knew the suitors would come.

In the meantime, there was conversation.

Pride cometh before the fall. That’s what this was. It was the fall. Her fall.

Annie wasn’t a proud woman. She wasn’t a cruel woman. She wasn’t a bad woman, either. Sure, she’d made mistakes. Horrible ones, sinful ones, and – like her daughter – beautiful ones, too. Everyone made mistakes. The difference was that Annie owned her mistakes. She repented for them. She struggled for them. She payed for them.

Missus Rosalinde Forester wasn’t paying for her mistakes.

But Annie wasn’t a proud woman. She wasn’t a cruel woman. She wasn’t a bad woman. She knew that people made mistakes. Everyone made mistakes. And so, approaching Fairford House, she was willing to strike a deal. A place within The Lighthouse Society, and she would be silent. A position she could excel in, doing something she knew was good and worthy, and could wipe clean her soul of the black sooty spots of sin. That was her price. That was her price.

The Foresters always took extra time to arrive back from church on Sundays. Annie knew this, because you didn’t get to be Housekeeper for St. Maur Castle without forming connections, and Rose down in Fairford’s kitchen was a dear heart with a knack for brewing damn good tea. So it was past lunch when Annie made her way towards the house, her hat upon her head, her hands within her gloves, her feet within her boots. Shined. Primped. Proper. There was a bag held in the crook of her elbow, and she had embellished it with a scrap of ribbon, purchased many years ago on the date of her daughter’s sixteenth birthday; a gift, never given. Mrs Forester, on Sundays, did not receive callers. Mrs Forester, on Sundays, took time for solitary contemplation in the afternoons. Mrs Forester, on Sundays, would be exactly where Annie wanted her to be; alone.

Fairford House rose like a great, boxy beast of a house, and Annie stood before it. There were two ways to enter, for one like her; properly, and improperly. Round the side, Annie knew the steps that led down to the servant’s corridor and kitchen well, from chores and trips and tea. In the front, Annie was unfamiliar with the steps that led up to the front door, reserved for family and guests and good folk, better folk than her. Better folk than Rosalinde Forester. Annie stood, and stood, and then turned and headed for the side of the house. Later. She could know that route later. For now, there was bargaining. For now, there was accusal. For now there was-