#northerndisasters

That night felt much longer for Enjolras than he would liked to have hoped. As much as he tried to remain sat at his fathers’ desk pouring over a rather untouched copy of ‘A Tale Of Two Cites’, all of a sudden he couldn’t help but find his mind wandering. Just why had he never seen Laura before…? He thought he knew the majority of his servants by name and face by now, yet never once had they crossed paths before this… Had they simply just been keeping her out of his way all this time - and moreover why was he questioning this now?

He pinches the bridge of his nose in thought and closes the cover of the book before him which echoes with a thud in the silence. All of sudden the air felt awfully stifling and he found himself thinking that a simple walk around the house may do better for him instead, at least if the hour was right. He flicks a small gold pocket-watch from his his jacket - 10PM, so his father would more than likely be asleep by now after having ranted himself and his wife into some sort of stupor. Perfect.

He makes sure to carefully put his book back where he got it from, noting the gap in the shelves just a few rows across from him and pausing a moment before he finally turns to leave the library, unlocking the door before closing it behind him with a rather satisfactory click of the latch in the quiet of the house.

He walks alone around the estate, the marble corridors seeming much more labyrinthian and untouched in the dim candlelight - a stark contrast from the many servants that would be back-and-forthing around during the daytime. Now all he could hear was the muffled sound of the summer breeze through the slightly open windows and the sound of his own footsteps echoing as he walked. For once the walk was good, but the quiet was not. Would he ever run into her again..? She seemed nice from the initial first impression, albeit quite shy, but he wondered just what she’d be like in conversation… She certainly seemed intelligent enough if she enjoyed reading to be able to hold a discussion, much unlike every other woman he’d encountered who spent half of their time embroidering and wondering what they would be wearing for their next social event. Maybe Laura was different from them, wiser and kinder - maybe, just maybe, he could see himself getting along with her.

Of course there was the rather small problem of her being a servant… Ah… He’d have to find a workaround for that one, but for now his brain simply made a plan to see her again tomorrow that hopefully, wouldn’t cause any suspicion and all of a sudden he found himself looking forward to the day to come for the first time in a long while.

 At this moment in time, the girl in question was curled up on her bed with her nose buried deeply in the book Enjolras had given her. She was a remarkably fast reader and found herself getting lost in the pages for hours, enjoying escaping her rather dull reality of being a simple serving maid and thinking about what it would be like to be caught in the middle of such a whirlwind of romance and intrigue - of course that would never possibly happen. The ladies in these stories were all rich - the intrigue was reserved for them and the maids in their stories were usually there as onlookers or to end up being someone to further their romances rather than make their own. She sighs heftily as she places a feather between the pages as a makeshift bookmark - the grey plumage in question that she’d found on her first day making a more than adequate place-holder for her as she places the book beside her on her sheets. Even so though, she can’t help but think back to her brief encounter with Enjolras - just how he’d looked at her and treated her with so much kindness in that moment had really made an impression on her and as she heard the chattering of the other serving maids mentioning his name around her all of a sudden she would feel inclined to interject and derail the rumors about him that they had cultivated for so long. Jodie in particular noticed the sudden change in her attitude on the whole matter after she’d returned to their shared room, noticing her brow lightly furrowing when one of the other maids passed their door mid-rant about how aloof and stern Enjolras was and how she couldn’t really understand how all these girls his father would bring for him would be so drawn to him in the first place.

“Laura…? Are you alright?” Jodie would ask as she finished folding up her uniform for the next morning and placing it on her small chair in the corner of the room. “Seems like you have something on your mind… I’d know that look anywhere.”

It takes a moment for Laura to respond, simply watching as the short, blonde haired woman sits down on her own bed beside her and turns to look at her with a curious twinkle in her green eyes. Just for a second Laura wonders if she should actually say anything - but she knew if she didn’t Jodie would more than likely just follow her around until she did, like the last time she’d kept any kind of secret, as her curiosity was too insatiable in moments like these.

“I just…. I don’t know…” Laura starts lightly, watching as Jodie leans forward with her head in her hands and her elbows propped on her knees to listen intently. “…Don’t you think they’re judging him a bit too harshly…?”

“Who-?” She starts asking, but suddenly her face switches in recognition. “Oh! You mean the Master, right?!”

Laura quickly nods, hushing her as she glows with excitement in the dim candlelight that lit the room - all of a sudden seeming incredibly interested in what Laura would say next. Laura had to admire her enthusiasm about these sorts of things, even if it was usually rather misguided - but normally it wouldn’t bother her if she saw her friend getting so excited in something for a change.

“You promise to not tell anybody this…?” - Jodie more than knows the tone Laura suddenly takes up and if there’s one thing she understands it’s when Laura really wants a secret kept. Sure she was the one who provided all the gossip, but she still knew her limits on occasion - which would be rather surprising to anyone who didn’t know her personally.

“.…Swear on my life.”

“Well… I spoke to him briefly in the library earlier and he’s really not like everybody says he is! Just hearing them talk like that about him just-!” Laura feels herself getting worked up at the thought, but just remembering that moment when his hand touched hers seems to restrain her in a way - her anger at the moment suddenly turning to a distinct softness that Jodie seems to instantly pick up on. “He’s really not like that… He actually seems… Rather sweet.”

Jodie blinks slowly at the statement, almost as if she were trying to process the whole thing incredibly slowly. Was she sure they were talking about the same person…? The few times she’d actually served Master Enjolras herself he was always curt with her and seemed rather abrasive - not that he was particularly one for making much conversation outside of his parents and the occasional friend who would come to visit him every now and then. She always thought his friends obviously saw something in Enjolras that Jodie most certainly did not - but maybe she could take Laura’s word for it…? That’s when the rational side of Jodies’ brain decided to kick in and… Oh - oh dear, that doe-eyed look was definitely not something she’d ever seen from Laura before. She’d have to do a bit of digging here.

“By any chance are you hoping that he’ll talk to you again? Do you feel like-... Like you were missing something for a long time and you just found it?”

“That’s…Very oddly specific for you-?”

“Laura! Answer the question! It’s a matter of life and death! In a totally non-exaggerated sense!”

Laura is rather thrown for a loop by her question, that and the fact Jodie had leaned so close to her all of a sudden that Laura was sure she would have fallen off the bed if she’d leant any further. Laura fumbles for a moment, quite bewildered until she finally comes up with some semblance of an answer.

“Okay, okay! Yes! T - To both of those things, I guess?! I - I’m not sure!” Laura stutters defensively and if Laura wasn’t blushing before it was pretty much an undeniable fact that she was now. Jodie could probably catch her friends’ blush from the opposite end of the estate without using any binoculars if Laura hadn’t have buried her face lightly in her hands in embarrassment at the question.

“Yep... This is already way worse than I thought - most definitely.”

“W - What?! What do you mean?!”

Jodie debates on if she should tell Laura about her own denseness on the matter, but on the other hand she rather wants to keep things interesting… She knows what’s going on with her - it was pretty hard to miss it. Laura had never paid any mind to any gossip about the Master before and her turnaround on it was already a massive red flag, but the fact she suddenly seemed so defensive and would get flustered as soon as she started talking about her own emotions just put everything into place.

“G’night Laura!” Jodie chirps as her expression switches so quickly from seriousness back to her usual jovial nature that Laura probably would have got whiplash - not that it leaves her any less confused as she tries to get out some sort of protest. After a moment of watching Jodie slip into bed and promptly ignore her though, Laura gives up - whatever Jodie was thinking she wasn’t going to find out about any time soon and this was probably the most tight lipped about anything she’d ever seen her. For once, Laura admits defeat, placing her book on her small bedside table before extinguishing the candle and bundling herself up in her own bed. Maybe she’d figure out what that meant sometime soon, if it was really so important.

 The next morning seemed regular enough - Laura would wake up early and help Jodie and few of the other serving maids prepare the families breakfast with Laura, of course, being on tea duty. Not that she minded the fact she was put merely on tea duty by Javert merely as a small jab at the fact she was British because she actually rather enjoyed picking out different flavours each time - today she’d picked a rather nice loose leaf Earl Grey, her own personal favourite, at least when she actually got to have any. There was only one slight change that Laura wasn’t expecting - Egon told her rather offhandedly that she’d been requested personally to bring their breakfast up to the house this morning and it’s safe to say she was rather surprised. Usually that job was reserved for him, mostly in case anybody happened to overhear something over the breakfast table that might be rather scandalous and the family seemed to know that Egon could be trusted… Why had they just all of a sudden called for her? Laura nervously takes the tray from his hands at the bottom of the stairwell which ascended to the main corridor of the house and he can see the tremble in her hands and the worry in her eyes as she looks up at him, her friend simply giving her a reassuring nod before she ascends the staircase and makes her way to the doors of the dining room - stopping for a moment to calm herself and placing the tray aside her on a table to give a light knock on the door.

“You may enter!” The distinct voice of Lord Enjolras is heard rather clearly from the other side of the door before she opens it, picking up the tray and re-entering before lightly closing the door with the heel of her foot behind her. For just a moment, she’s in awe - the dining room is spacious, open and decorated with paintings all over the walls - aside from the one side wall which is latticed with vast open windows that let the light pour in. In the centre of the room stretches the dining table, coated in a rich white tablecloth, which Lord Enjolras sits at the head of - his wife at the left side of him and Enjolras at the right… Laura feels her heart stop a moment as she passes behind him, removing each plate of food, cup and saucer and the pot of tea she had made and setting them down on the table in meticulous neatness.

If you were paying attention at this particular moment, you would notice Enjolras’ eyes brighten slightly - the recognition in his mind setting in merely by the sight of her hands, her slender fingers and smooth skin performing such a simple task with an air of dexterity and slight showmanship was rather mesmerising to him and all of a sudden he felt glad that he’d managed to switch Javerts’ itinerary for this morning rather cunningly to include her… It was quite a stroke of genius if he did say so himself.

“Ah, thank you-” Lord Enjolras is caught rather off-guard when he catches Laura stood beside him, her hands crossed in front of her in an air of readiness… Okay… So this wasn’t the usual routine - not too much of an issue, she seems to focus on her work enough… Still though, he didn’t reckon he’d seen this young lady before. “….Miss?”

“Laura, my Lord.” Laura answers, curtly bowing to him in response. Enjolras feels a blossoming in his chest when she speaks - like he hadn’t heard her voice for years when in fact it had barely even been a night since they last spoke. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Such a polite young lady… Sometimes I do wish my son would take a leaf out of your book.”

Enjolras looks up at him at the remark with a light scowl as his father begins to take his breakfast, his mother looking at him from across the table in a way that indicated that she would have chided her husband if this weren’t a family gathering.

The entire time through breakfast, Enjolras finds himself occasionally trying to watch Laura as she uses the time whilst they eat to do some smaller bits of cleaning. She was actually here and he was pretty sure she’d noticed him looking judging by the fact she’d occasionally and subtly try to stop what she was doing to catch a glance at him… He needed to find some kind of way to talk to her in private - he hadn’t exactly planned this far ahead and he could absolutely tell she wanted the same thing.

Maybe it was a sheer moment of bravery or stupidity, or the fact his father had particularly been grating on his nerves as of recent - but Enjolras decided that the best course of action was to not so subtly slide the entirety of his breakfast onto his fathers’ lap.

His father of course was absolutely livid, instantly shooting up from his chair to berate him while Enjolras offered a rather sarcastic sounding “Ah Father! I apologize I’m so clumsy!” before his father promptly left in a rant about his clothing with a rather bemused Nicolette following behind him.

Laura watches in rather abrupt shock as the two of them leave, immediately dashing to clean up all the newly created mess - what she doesn’t expect though is Enjolras immediately swooping in afterwards to help her.

“Did you really have to do that? You do realise it’ll take some poor soul hours to get the stain out of the carpet…” Laura asks, a hint of amusement gracing her tone that she really can’t hide. “ Your father will most definitely murder you later, by the way.”

“Well, it got us some time to talk didn’t it?” Enjolras chips in with a playful smirk as he helps her clean the last few stray bits and pieces and place them back onto the tray she’d brought up earlier. “Isn’t that well worth it?”

Laura chuckles slightly, nodding slightly in response before the both of them finally pick themselves up off the ground - all of a sudden feeling the need to neaten themselves up… Laura could already feel her heart racing in her chest - just the way he looked, framed by the morning sun that blazed in through the window and set the gold of his hair alight like a halo already made any words she wished to say catch in her throat.

“I do hope this isn’t going to become some sort of common occurance..” Laura starts after taking a second to get her mind back on track. “I’m pretty sure they’d get sick of cleaning the carpet after about a week.”

“Don’t worry… That was just a spur of the moment decision… I apologise if this makes more work for you or anybody else than necessary though.”

“You really don’t need to apologise..! I suppose it was rather funny…” Laura giggles, brushing a stray length of her hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. She always wore her hair up in the mornings, as that was when she’d normally be doing more of her hands-on tasks. “Maybe next time we can just…. meet up somewhere though?”

“How about down by the lake in the garden…? About ten… That’s usually when my parents retire for the night so we won’t need to worry about them.”

Laura smiles widely as she nods in response - there it is, that warmth in his chest again when she smiles at him just makes the whole ordeal worthwhile.

“Perfect…! I’ll um-…. See you tonight..?” Laura says, gathering the tray to bring back down when she returned to the servants quarters.

“Of course.” He replies, giving her a light and reassuring press on her back as she moves towards the door before moving to hold it open for her to step through. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“As will I.”

As she steps through the door and she hears the click of the latch behind her, Laura can’t help but feel overjoyed - her mind racing over the whole experience as she makes her way down the corridor.

When he locked himself in the library, Master Enjolras would have been led to believe that he would be alone for a while, with nothing but his own thoughts to accompany him. He always came here to be alone - the walls lined with dark oaken shelves full of books of varying colours and thickness’ seemed to be much more comforting to him than the presence of actual people in these kinds of situations. Books often held views akin to his own and he found a great kinship in them - often just reading one for a while would calm him down immensely, at least until he’d be face to face with one of his fathers’ lectures again. The breath he didn’t even realise he’d been holding until he got the door shut barely even registers in the room, the relatively small size of it and the ornate blue rug draped across the polished wood of the floor doing plenty to muffle any smaller sounds - aside from the light crackle of the fireplace on the western wall. The servants always kept it lit during the evenings and it did much to comfort him at the moment, a small smile gracing his lips as he steps in and enjoys the quiet…

Of course you notice I wrote ‘would have been led’, meaning he most definitely was not alone at this particular point in time. In fact, at this moment of time a young serving girl was rather intently running her finger along the ridges of the book spines on the upper shelf, barely even registering his presence until he finally decides to approach her.

“Excuse me?”

The girl jumps rather suddenly, quickly turning to face him and looking as if he’d just caught her committing a robbery judging by the way her deep brown eyes flicked him up and down so quickly.

“O - Oh!” She stutters, her hands rushing to smooth out the plain white pinafore that covers her black dress - standard attire for all the maids that served on the estate. Her uniform was quite clean though without much creasing, so he assumed she mustn’t have been here for too long… “M - Master!… I’m so sorry! I really thought I’d locked that door-!”

“It’s quite alright...” He replies, noticing just how nervous she actually seems to be beneath his gaze as she struggles to bring herself to meet his eye as he speaks.

“I - I was just-… Looking… I promise-...” She continues as she wrings her hands nervously before her. He swears he can catch just the faintest tinge of an embarrassed blush creeping across her face in the dim light of the fireplace and for a moment he wonders just why he’s noticing that particular detail… He’d been introduced to many women who in comparison made her look rather ordinary, yet he still found himself admiring the minute detail of her expression - at least until her demeanour suddenly switches to one of immense worry and realisation.“Please! D - Don’t tell his Lordship! I won’t ever come in here again, I swear it-”

The girl dips her head, moving as quick as she can to leave up until he finally decides to turn upon his heel and touch her lightly upon the shoulder, causing her to quickly turn around in shock. He just touched her…?!

“Calm down! I won’t say anything, don’t worry..!”

“H - Huh..?” She pauses a moment, her eyes widening in surprise. This clearly wasn’t what she’d expected him to say by any means and it seemed like she was at quite a loss of what to say next… In fact it almost seemed like this was getting quite out of hand in her mind. “You…. You won’t…?”

He gives her a small nod and she seems to relax instantly, all the tension she was holding in her shoulders seeming to evaporate in an instant. Now she’s not so tense and her body language is more open he can really tell how tall this girl seems to be, the pinafore around her waist doing plenty to show off just how slim she actually was… She starts absent mindedly fiddling with some of her long ,brown hair - perhaps a sort of nervous tick as she still seems to be trying to process the fact of the entire situation along with the reality that he was actually speaking to her. She’d probably been told to not even speak to any of the family members unless spoken to and she probably wasn’t used to having the opportunity to talk so freely to someone of higher status - especially a man.

“Were you looking for something in particular, Mademoiselle?” He asks softly, giving her a small smile in an attempt to let her know that she could talk to him. Judging from the slight closed lipped smile that seems to grace her lips after a moment, she seems to take it quite well, deciding to brush just lightly past him as she returns to her position near the bookshelf she was searching before.

“Well, ‘Wuthering Heights’ sounded quite interesting from what I heard-…” She muses as her hand returns to tracing the books with her finger, her brown eyes squinting at the light gold lettering on their leathery spines. Her speech is quickly cut off though as she feels him press against her back, his hand and arm stretching over hers to stop her hand in it’s tracks.

“I believe it’s just here.” He says, not even registering just how close he’d actually got to her until after he’s already there… Wait- he never intended to get this close to her, oh god - if anyone found out this would definitely cause some kind of scandal somewhere down the line. She freezes up a little in surprise beneath him, feeling as if she should say something but not being able to bring herself to do so as he gently guides her hand to remove the volume from the shelf. She obviously thinks the exact same thing, being able to feel his body heat against her back, the smooth fabric of his red jacket against her wrist and his breaths as they trace past the edge of her ear… “You know, I wouldn’t have thought of you to be the Gothic novel type on a first glance, but feel free to take it.”

“Take it…?” She responds in surprise, looking at him over her shoulder and- oh goodness she really didn’t realise just how close his face would be to hers, the faint glimmer in his eye from the light of the fireplace almost making her forget just who she was actually talking to for a moment… “Won’t your father-?”

“He won’t notice… If he does, I’ll gladly take the blame on your behalf.”

She turns back to him with the book held tightly to her chest as she looks up at him in astonishment, her long fingers lightly brushing against the leather cover as she tentatively takes a step back to get a bit of distance between them and her back almost meets the bookshelf as she does. She couldn’t help but wonder just why he was doing all this - after all she was merely just a servant and nobody of any particular notability… Surely there were people of who were much more befitting of his time and kindness than she was.

“Master, you’re…. Really too kind to me…” She says slowly,offering a slight bow to the much taller man stood before her - a common gesture of respect used by all the servants to any of the family members.

“Please, just call me Enjolras… I’ve always hated the titles.”

She nods lightly in understanding - to say she was caught off guard would be rather the understatement… Being on a last-name basis rather than using a title was something totally unheard of to her and it would take a while for her to get used to, but it turns out that the son of her employer was much nicer than the gossip from the other serving maids had led her to believe and - although she’d never admit it out loud, rather good looking as well.

“My name is Laura…” She says, offering him a small smile that he gladly returns before she finally makes her way to the door, stopping just a moment to peer back at him as he watches her leave. “And…Thank-you, Enjolras…” 

With a light click of the door as she goes, Enjolras finally gets the solitude he was looking for after all - yet somehow, in some strange way, the room seems all the more empty to him than he would have hoped...

 The Servants Quarters of the Enjolras estate were what could only be described as a small network of rooms and tunnels that ran beneath the house - yet these were always bustling with activity, almost as if a completely separate and more chaotic ecosystem ran beneath the house that not many eyes were able to see, a complete juxtaposition of the orderly nature of the house that sat atop it. This wasn’t much of a bother to Egon though, or at least it wasn’t when he wasn’t trying to get some most valued time to himself to simply read about a few of the flora and fungi he’d get to see on his occasional walks around the gardens of the estate during whatever free time he may have. Tonight however was not one of those quiet nights as Jodie burst onto the corridor and instantly begun to spread word of those earlier documented events in the parlour to any other serving maid that crossed her path.

“Must you really always have your nose in everything, Jodie?” He’d ask her, once he finally got a break between her sentences. “Surely there must be better things to spend your time with than gossip.”

“Nonsense!” Jodie exclaims, the twang of her northern English accent was much more pronounced whenever she was outraged, which was always rather comical as it would be accompanied rather often with a frown that lightly scrunched her round face. “Hardly anything else goes on around this estate now does it, Spengs?”

Egon pauses and is rather inclined to hate the fact she’s so right on that matter - well, that and he really wished she’d stop using the nickname that Laura had so affectionately thrust upon him the first time they met. Currently Laura was under his supervision, being the most experienced of the servants and so he was naturally the first one she was introduced to when she was first employed a few months ago. From there she seemed to have formed a sort of curious friendship her superior that could only be described as ‘very unconventional banter’ by Jodie and which she’d often take the opportunity to poke fun at him for since it was so outside of his usual nature.

“That’s what I thought you’d say!” She quickly interjects with a hand patting lightly against his shoulder, barely even giving the much taller man a moment to breathe before she quickly catches a couple of servants passing her and instantly calls across to them asking if they’d heard the latest news. Egon always wondered how Laura had such a close friendship with her, considering they were almost polar opposites - she seemed rather the introvert compared to Jodie yet they somehow clicked together in a way that he could never quite put his finger on… Maybe it was just a northern English thing, he supposed… Speaking of which though, where was Laura…? She was supposed to be back down here roughly twenty minutes ago and he hadn’t seen her since she went to, apparently, make sure that the waiting room was clean….Even though it had just been cleaned a few hours ago, but he was he to question her rather strange motives?

He moves to flick open the pocket watch in the upper pocket of his jacket, but barely before he does he catches the distinct clicking of shoes and panting that could only belong to the girl in question, yet again being rather terribly late.

“S - Sorry! I-…. Ugh!…. Let me just-!” Laura gets out between breaths, she’d obviously run here as fast as her legs could carry her and was rather out of breath as she hunched over the book that kept rather firmly between her hands.

“I’d tell you you’re late but you probably already know that…” Egon starts, watching as the shorter girl finally regains some form of her composure after a few moments of rather slow breathing. He looks her up and down as she runs a hand through her hair in order to get it into some semblance of neatness before he finally notices the book she kept held so tightly to her chest the whole time. “Laura - please don’t tell me you were poking around the library again… You know what happened last time-”

“I know but it’s alright this time!” Laura seems oddly pleased, looking at the book in her hands with a tenderness in her gaze he hadn’t seen from her before. “I had some help from the Master-”

“You what?!” This comes off as much more confused rather than whatever form of putting his foot down he’d originally intended to go for. “You… Spoke to him?”

“Oh yes!” Laura says with an eager nod, her eyes seeming to light up as she speaks. “You know, he’s really a whole lot nicer than all the gossip lead me to believe! The other ladies all talk about him as if he’s some kind of unbreakable marble statue with no heart - but in fact I dare say he’s rather polite and quite agreeable! He spoke to me very respectfully and he even let me take this book without so much as asking for anything in return!”

Egon wants to be mad at her for so blatantly breaking pretty much every rule in the book - if the Lord of the house caught wind of absolutely any of this it would most certainly bring grave consequences for the both of them, but at the same time seeing just how happy she seemed somehow made him unable to do so… Ah damn it, he couldn’t bring himself to ruin her mood at all - not when she looked at him like that.

“Well…” He starts slowly, still searching for where he was actually intending to go with this as Laura smiles up at him expectantly. “So long as his Lordship does not find out, I will let it slide just this once.”

After quickly placing the book beneath her arm and with a light squeak of delight, Laura hugs Egon with a force that probably would have almost knocked him over if he didn’t manage to press a hand back to the wall just in time, hugging him quite tightly and for a time-frame which probably would have been quite long if she didn’t suddenly remember the book tucked beneath her arm.

“Ah, Spengs! I have no idea what I’d do without you!” Laura chirps, bouncing lightly on the heels of her black shoes in happiness.

“End up getting into more trouble than it’s worth, most likely.” Egon replies, a soft smile gracing his lips as she quickly turns and rushes off down the corridor in the direction of the main womens’ dorms with a quick and rather elongated ‘thank you’ echoing down as she disappears.

Egon simply smiles with a light sigh and a shake of his head.