LTSV - Lost & Found 23 (Patreon)

“At a future date,” Mira chuckled. She now knew she’d chosen the right reporter. There were all kinds of journalists, but Greer was a man in a cheap suit who could still land on the front page of a major city publication even while criticizing a member of the royal family. That said ‘investigative journalist’ to her, rather than ‘scandalmonger.’ “When I’m more recovered. I’m sure you understand, Mister Greer.” She gestured to the stool near her bedside. “Please, sit.”

Mira was an old hand at softening up a sympathetic reporter. She let her head hit the pillow and looked sideways at him, shoulders relaxed and gaze soft. ‘See?’ she said with her body language, ‘I’m not afraid of you and that means I have nothing to hide, so you don’t need to go looking.’

Greer likewise dropped his shoulders just a hairsbreadth in response. He might still dig into her, just because he’d be a bad reporter if he let himself be swayed by a pretty face, but the important thing was that he wanted to believe her. “Thank you, Lady Coventry.”

Still, just because she didn’t want him digging into her background didn’t mean that he wouldn’t. She’d need to feed him a bit now so he didn’t get hungry later. “It’s Miss Priestly, now.”

Greer froze. “Forgive me, I had thought the rumors weren’t true when Lady Vesper was at your bedside. Congratulations on your marriage—although, I had thought you were promised to the Fenby family?”

Mira nodded. Leather creaked somewhere in the room, but she couldn’t spare attention for it. She needed to maintain eye contact with Greer. “It was, but the agreement fell through at the last minute. Priestly is my mother’s name. Vesper is still my medical proxy. I was getting married, not disowned.”

“Really?” Greer started writing again. “What happened with the Fenbys?”

“I’m not certain,” Mira said with a shrug. “My condition made itself known around the same time when that happened so I haven’t had the opportunity to question it. I’m sure they had a good reason, but it was disappointing to find out in such a way. My lord father is furious, of course, but I haven’t been privy to any conversations they’ve had about the matter, although he did promise to have an answer ready once I feel better. My doctors are worried that my condition is triggered by stress, so they’re controlling any upsetting news I might hear.”

“Then your encounter with the fourth prince yesterday was not planned?” Greer asked and, when Colvin turned to glare at him, hastened to add, “I have to ask for clarity’s sake, miss Priestly. I’ve been receiving letters asking why Miss Rousseau was present at the time, given your history together.”

Mira was sure he had. “She volunteered to act as my companion while I’m in this state. She was my junior at the academy and holds an advanced certification in emergency medicine. There could be no one more qualified that isn’t a nurse or doctor already and we have no personal animosity.”

“Yes, of course,” Greer agreed quickly. “No one can deny that she was a heroic presence that day along with your—aide?”

“Colvin Adelram,” Colvin introduced himself brusquely. “I am Miss Priestly’s companion.” The way he said it made it sound like he was her bodyguard. 

“Mister Adelram assists me in the matters that I can no longer handle in person,” Mira clarified, lest Colvin ended up being branded as her personal thug in the papers. “I’ll be staying at home until we better understand my illness, and there is always the fear that I’ll have another sudden relapse.”

“Oh, I see,” Greer said, sounding like he did. He softened a bit further and Mira could see the image of her forming in his head; delicate, sensible, and wounded. A flower blighted by misfortune. Another reporter would smell blood, but Greer just saw an unfortunate person in need of a champion. He’d already half cast Andrei as the villain in his first article so he had the blood he needed. This revelation just meant he wouldn’t have to change his tone later. “It would be good, then, to have a dedicated guardian and agent.”

“You understand,” Mira agreed with a smile.

Greer had a few more questions, mostly about Mira’s feelings, but also about Cecily’s unexplained presence at her side.

“Please reach out to my older sister,” Mira told him with a smile to soften his disappointment. “I believe her office can make a statement on the matter.”

“Of course, I understand,” Greer said, thankfully choosing not to insist. He was probably used to being redirected to more official mouthpieces. “I think I have used up your guardian’s tolerance for the afternoon. Please accept my best wishes for your recovery and I look forward to meeting with you again in the future.”

“I as well,” Mira said with a parting smile that she maintained until well after Colvin had showed him out. Then she laid back down to resolutely catnap until anyone else needed her for anything.

“My lady is formidable,” Colvin observed when he got back and she cracked her eye at him to see if he was being impertinent with her. “He was all but eating out of your hand by the end.”

“It was the right time and the right person,” Mira said as she shut her eye again and settled in with her hands crossed over her stomach. “I’ve been letting Andrei have his way for too long. I may not be able to confront him in person, but I can do this much.”

Colvin was quiet for a little bit, but then said, “You will never have to be afraid of that boy ever again. So, please, put him out of your mind.”

Oh, she wasn’t scared. The biggest reason she had to avoid her former fiance was over and done with. She just smirked with her eye still shut and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not the one who should be frightened.”

000

Mira was released bright and early on the third day of her stay. The second design of her temporary inscription seemed to be working well, but she’d need to go a bit longer before they applied a permanent version just to be sure. 

Greer’s article had come out with the evening edition the day before so he must have raced to make the printer’s deadline, but Mira couldn’t be happier with the results. The article wasn’t overly favorable to her, which was ideal otherwise it might look like she’d paid Greer off to say nice things about her. Still, he portrayed her as calm and sensible, with a sense of humor about her circumstances. 

One article wasn’t going to change the tide of public opinion regarding the notorious ‘Violent’ Coventry, but it was a welcome foot in the door towards being able to move on with her life.

The only bad news was that Vesper confirmed with Greer that the Lord Warden recognized Cecily as his biological daughter and that she’d been discovered during the recently mandated blood testing of young women in the city. No comment yet on whether Viola would also undergo testing yet. She didn’t live in the Avenon city-state so it wasn’t required yet and the Lord Warden didn’t plan on it unless the Veiled Goddess expanded the scope of her demand, so as not to confuse matters.

That, there, was the real reason Madame and her children were refusing to leave the outer territory.

Colvin took Cecily back to the townhouse in the coupe, which was driven by one of the Bowler Hats. Mira got a better look at him than she had any of them before. He was short and densely muscled with a severe underbite. He did not look like anyone she wanted to meet in a dark alley and, for that, she liked him already. Anyone who approached her carriage would only do it after thinking it through several times in advance. 

The Townhouse was located within the Gold Quarter and so was made of the same streaky gold and white granite as all the other buildings. Several city blocks away from the hotel and the royal hospital, heading towards the gates leading to the silver district and other parts of the city, the densely packed streets opened up into city-sized parks and garden lined avenues. Among those green spaces were small neighborhoods of tall semi-detached row houses shaded by old trees and secluded by tall privet hedges.

Mira’s house was located in the private cul-de-sac of one such neighborhood and was the only one on their street that didn’t share a wall with anyone. It was slightly larger with a Mansard roof and a fourth level where the other houses nearby only had three. 

“That’s not a townhouse,” Mira murmured to herself. “That’s a small mansion!” What had her mother been trying to pull by calling it a townhouse?

“Not according to tax law,” Colvin replied, blandly. “The classification is determined by the building’s footprint, not how tall it is or how large the lot the building occupies is.”

Mira’s townhouse had easily twice the grounds as any of her neighbors and it was all confined within a tall stone wall with a private drive that led past the house to a small carriage house behind it. The neighbors must have loathed seeing the house stand empty all these years. At least Boots would have a comfortable and private stable.

“To think that I was surprised we had enough bedrooms for Vesper, Cecily, and I to still have a guest room,” Mira commented as another Bowler Hat opened the wrought iron gate for them. He was dressed like a stablehand, aside from the hat, but otherwise had roughly the same body type and jawline as her driver. Were they related?

The front door flew open as Colvin handed her down from the carriage. Nanny bustled down the front steps to enfold Mira in a lavender scented hug. Mira melted into the embrace and allowed herself to be rocked in full view of the street. What reputation did she have left? Why should she care if the neighbors found out that an old lady cared for her?

“Oh, what am I doing, keeping you outside?” Nanny clucked at herself when she was feeling a bit calmer. “Come inside and cool down. Miss Cecily is on her way down to greet you. She’s been very worried, but Lady Vesper confined her to the house for now.”

“Confined her?” Mira asked as she let herself be hustled inside. “Why?”

The foyer had a cheerful mosaic floor that let out into the front hallway. There was a stairwell leading up that was decorated in a lush rose-colored runner with shiny brass carpet rods to hold it in place. The hall was done in honey-colored parquet and pale blue satin-stripe walls with white wainscoting. There were a few pictures on the wall, mostly landscapes of gardens and a few strategically located mirrors to carry light in from other parts of the building.

Mira liked it.  

“The fourth prince has been asking his contacts for her whereabouts and Lady Vesper was afraid one of the neighbors might see Miss Cecily and snitch to him,” Nanny sighed. “It’s likely he knows where she lives now, after that article yesterday.”

“Has Cecily met with papa?” Mira asked as a little maid (small, tow-headed, densely freckled, and fourteen at the most) that she hadn’t met yet arrived to collect coats and hats. Mira recognized her from the pictures that the staffing agency sent over. “Thank you, Delia,” she added and the girl curtseyed with a cute blush.

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Priestly,” she chirped and scurried off to take her burden downstairs for brushing. 

“Yes, they met yesterday to decide on what to tell Mister Greer.” Nanny pursed her lips. “Your lord father does not recognize her mother’s name, nor does he recall having relations with anyone other than Madame during the time when Miss Cecily would have been conceived. They did another test with the Temple just to be sure the sample used earlier wasn’t compromised, but the clerics returned with the same results.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Mira sighed. The Veiled Goddess would soon demand that women outside the Capitol related to those girls who were found to have an abnormal heritage that couldn’t be explained by an open adoption or planned surrogacy submit to testing and Madame Coventry’s efforts to keep Viola out of it would finally fail. 

Mira heard footsteps overhead and called up the stairs, “Cecily? Is that you?”