LTSV - Side Stories - 7 - The Investigation and the Incident (Patreon)

Calming Randall down after Mira’s stunt took forever, but in retrospect Cecily was reluctantly glad that she’d done it. It meant that she had a powerful and invested ally who she didn’t have to keep at arms length until she mustered up the courage to say ‘my stepfather hit me.’ That could have taken months, if not years. Cecily was growing her courage, but it was taking a long time.

Randall had a lot of questions that weren’t easy to answer and he wasn’t always happy with the replies he got. Like Mira, he didn’t approve of her leaving the bruises behind out of choice. He didn’t like that she’d been hiding the marks at school and hadn’t come to him before, but admitted with great reluctance that there was very little an outsider could have done for her that wouldn’t have potentially put her in even more danger if their rescue attempt had failed. As annoyed as he was to find out that Mira had known about the hitting, he didn’t have any better ideas as to what she could have done to help. 

It was hard to separate a child from their noble parent at the best of times and Cecily couldn’t cut ties with her stepfather without giving up the chance to take her mother away from him.

More importantly, she was just so glad to have Randall back at her side. She could finally talk to him again, without minding her words. It was good to have a sympathetic ear who wasn’t one of her new sisters, especially when she needed to find out about something potentially dangerous.

“I beg your pardon?” Randall said, following the lovely luncheon they’d attended with his parents. He’d taken her on a walk around their greenhouse to show off the plants they’d gotten since she’d been there last, years and years ago. “I think I must have misheard you.”

“No, I think you heard me correctly,” Cecily said, glumly. “I said ‘acid attack.’ She lost a great deal of soft tissue; one eye and most of the workings of her inner ear on that side. The reconstructive work on her face is nothing short of a work of art. I’d be in awe of their flesh sculptor’s work, except it’s evidence of such a horrific act. That’s why she didn’t react the same as everyone else who was on the landing. I happened to be on her bad side when I fell and she didn’t realize anything had happened until the shouting got loud. According to Mrs. Byrde, Andrei’s valet was the one who attacked her.”

Randall stopped in his tracks. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he said blankly. “Of course, I believe you, but how did Lord Coventry not burn the entire Capitol down over this?”

“I’m given to understand that they did not want Andrei around Violet afterwards, at all,” Cecily explained. “The Prince Regent would make him visit her when she was sick and, for something like this, they were afraid that he’d even be forced to move in for a time to help with her recovery. That might also have been the Prince Regent’s idea of a punishment for Andrei, given how much he hated going to Fort Nightfall. They pretended that she’d gone overseas to a boarding school and closed the Fort to visitors for years afterwards so that Andrei would stay away and the Prince Regent wouldn’t try to interfere in her care.”

Randall winced and ran his hands through his hair as he pictured that. Cecily could only imagine what a pain in the rear a young Andrei would be if he was forced to attend the sickbed of a girl he already hated and Nanny Byrde had made it clear that Mira’s recovery process had been agonizing, especially at the beginning. 

“So, you’re saying the acid attack distracted the doctors from a head injury she’d received earlier?” Randall asked.

The conversation had started when Cecily had to explain why Andrei couldn’t be allowed to come anywhere near Priestly House, which meant explaining Mira’s seizures. She had permission to do that now, so she’d brought it up once they were alone since she trusted Randall to know best whether Lord and Lady Zorander should be made aware too.

“The valet apparently startled her pony and she was thrown from the saddle,” Cecily said. “They locked him in a closet and, once he’d escaped, he found a bottle of vitriol and…” she trailed off, feeling a little sick to her stomach.

“Poor Senior Priestly,” Randall murmured. He’d already softened towards her a little when Cecily explained Mira’s reasoning for not coming to luncheon with her. “I wonder what it is that the Prince Consort hoped to get through that marriage? He only has control of the Lord Warden until Princess Millica takes the throne so it can’t be that he expected Lord Coventry to protect his son. He’d have reined his son in better, if that were the case. Once Princess Millica is crowned queen, the Lord Warden’s oaths pass entirely to her and he could throw any son-in-law out on his ear without a sov to his name. The Crown Princess isn’t likely to feel sentimental about her stepfather's extramarital lovechild. He might have been born after the late Queen died, but he was surely conceived while she was still alive. Do you suppose the Priestlys are one of the Royal Bloodlines? Senior Priestly has the eyes for it, but so does Lady Vesper and they had different mothers. Maybe the Prince Regent is trying to get one of his granddaughters on the throne?”

“I’m not sure,” Cecily admitted, honestly. The thought had crossed her mind too. Almost everyone knew about the Lancasters and were pretty sure about the Morrowoods, but the third Bloodline family had done a better job of covering their tracks. “I hope not. Violet is the only Priestly left, which is why the Coventry family excised her. That fluff about them disowning her out of shame was all Andrei’s fantasy and he was just loud enough to get other people to believe it. It was so she could take over her mother’s name and properties. It would be a medical nightmare if she was meant to be one of Princess Millica’s surrogates. I’m not sure her health will even be up to repopulating her own family by herself, much less providing children for the Crown. Neither Vesper nor I are related in the right way for us to help, either. I think Vesper’s mother was a Morrowood. Julia wrote me a very surprised letter when the news that I was a Coventry broke.” 

If the Priestlys were the last hidden bloodline, then the implications of the Prince Regent deliberately making Violet, the only living Priestly, ineligible to fulfill her civic duty were too horrible to consider. (She would feel very silly about this line of thought in a few weeks.)

She paused and pressed her fingertips together, nerving herself up. Be brave, Cece. “I wanted to ask you about something else, actually.”

Randall leaned over to look her in the eye. “What is it?”

Cecily took a breath. “I want to learn more about that valet,” she said in a rush. “Trying to keep Andrei from finding my house isn’t a permanent solution. He’ll find me eventually and I don’t want that to happen until after Mira’s seizures are better controlled. I still don’t understand why he hates her so much and I think the valet is key to understanding their schism. I don’t think he’ll listen to me, so long as he thinks he’s in the right.”

“Cece…” Randall’s tone said more than words could possibly have.

“I know!” she huffed and clenched her gloved hands. That had sounded too much like a snap and Randall deserved better. She blew out her breath, adjusted her tone, and tried again. “...I know he’s stubborn and proud. It might not work, but I have to try.”

“Alright.”

She felt gentle fingertips brush the shell of her ear as he brushed a lock of hair away from her face and it sent a pleasant jolt all through her body. Her cheeks were hot when she looked up to meet his eyes. Her stomach twisted, but not in a bad way. She always got lost in those green eyes when he looked at her like that and it was getting harder to ignore these feelings. 

On the other hand, she was Cecily Coventry now, not Cecily the unwanted Rousseau girl. Cecily Coventry had a family name and things to offer the Zoranders in an alliance. Vesper hadn’t been opposed to being more friendly with Randall’s family either, so their family interests weren’t opposed to one another. Maybe, just maybe she could dream a little?

His fingertips trailed from her ear down the curl of her hair and he let a coil slide around his fingertip. If there was a silver lining to losing as much hair as she had, it was discovering that Randall liked to play with it. He couldn’t have done that if she wore it up in a tuck or arranged down her back. She might never let her hair grow out again at this rate. 

She couldn’t help but compare her reaction to the slightest touch from this boy to an entire moonlit garden kiss she’d received from another and had been unmoved by. She really had been a dummy to think about settling, even for a moment, for less than what she wanted.

Propriety said that she shouldn’t encourage this behavior, but—well, propriety could go hang. She wasn’t even sure that was an actual rule in society and not something her stepfather had just made up to make her ashamed of herself. Mira had Mister Adelram hanging from her fingertips at all times and no one batted an eye at them. Surely she was allowed to let the boy she liked play with her hair a little when they were in private. 

She tilted her head slightly to give him better access and smiled so he knew she’d done it on purpose. The dawning look of surprised pleasure on his face when he realized what she’d done made her daring worthwhile.

000

Cecily was less happy, a few days later when Randall gave her a thick folio of old police reports and handwritten interview notes that had been compiled by his man, Smythe. 

She’d met Smythe a few times by that point. He was a grizzled former constable with a facial scar hidden under his thick beard and did work for the Zoranders that couldn’t be safely entrusted to a normal agent. The fact that Randall had felt it was necessary to call him in was a bad sign. The fact that Smythe was reluctant to share the investigation report with her was another. He looked angry and tired and embarrassed, which was an intimidating look on a man like him.

“It’s ugly,” he grumbled. “Nothing a young lady should have to see.”

“Being ignorant of what all he did won’t help me, either,” Cecily said gently as she took the folio from Randall. He didn’t seem like he wanted her to read it any more than Smythe did, but he understood why she needed to. “I already know how he died.”

“A fitting end,” Smythe grouched. “Its a shame the other girls couldn’t see it.”

“The other…” Cecily started to ask before she thought better of it. Of course, there had been other girls. Evil people never started their abuse with a big target. They worked their way up and became emboldened by their success with smaller, softer targets. 

The folio confirmed it. The valet’s name had been Emilio Shae, a distant relative of the Wraithwood family. He’d been seventeen at the time of his death, which was both older and younger than Cecily had been expecting. She supposed it made sense if he’d been expected to take care of a Prince, but it had sounded like he was more of a play companion for Andrei than he was an actual body servant.

Emilio did not like noble women, that was for sure. His victims included a baronet’s daughter, the young wife of a knight, and more in that vein. He’d leave them ugly notes and dead animals in their bedrooms. He’d jiggered the step on one girl's carriage so it snapped under her and spilled her onto a sharp gravel drive. The girls’ fathers, brothers, and husbands were enraged to say the least. The fact that Emilio hadn’t died in their hands long before he could ever darken Mira’s window was a minor miracle. Andrei’s steward had shielded him whenever the families of his victims followed him home, but the interviews made it clear that if they’d ever caught him in the act then his body would have been found floating in the river afterwards so that steward’s protection could only carry him so far. 

As much as Emilio seemed to hate women with a station above his own, he adored his charge. The reports Smythe had managed to put together painted Emilio as Andrei’s patient, caring older brother. He was the one who taught Andrei to ride a pony and play polo. If a young Andrei fell and hurt himself, Emilio was the one he went to for comfort. Andrei’s father was a distant figure by necessity and Emilio was the cornerstone of his emotional support as a little boy. 

‘This won’t help me,’ Cecily realized as she read through the notes and facsimiles Smythe had collected for her.

Andrei wasn’t the sort of person who could accept that two things could be true at the same time. If Emilio was his beloved relative and caretaker then he’d never accept that Emilio was also terrorizing young women when out of sight, especially if one of those women was the fiancee he already hated. All she’d accomplished here was wasting Randall and Smythe’s time and reading a disgusting story.  

At least she knew that Nanny Byrde had been telling the truth. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Mira’s elderly servant, but if she had learned nothing else these past weeks it was that people didn’t know what they didn’t know. Sometimes they didn’t even know what they thought they knew. Mira couldn’t give reliable testimony anymore and it was bad enough that she’d already remembered as much as she had. 

She’d have to think of some other way to deal with Andrei, but, heaven help her, she didn’t even know where to begin.

Of course, she needn’t have bothered when, not long after, Andrei finally tracked her down. 

It had been a whirlwind week that forced Cecily to juggle her personal errands with her scholarship hearings. Mira had her final inscription appointment and Cecily was already crabby when her scholarship meeting ran so long that the hospital closed its doors to visitors by the time she was excused. She’d wanted to sit with her and take her mind off the pain. She had to console herself that Mister Adelram would have been working hard to distract her. 

So she went home. Neither she nor Ginger had been given an opportunity to eat lunch, which stung her pride. Vesper and Mira had been a good example to Cecily in making sure the staff was taken care of. It was easy to get swept up in her personal affairs and forget that her people needed food and rest too, but she had good role models and was annoyed with herself for not having thought to call a pause in the interview to send Ginger out to get herself a handpie or something. 

She was so annoyed and preoccupied with herself that she failed to realize that someone had followed her cab all the way back to Priestly House until she was just inside the door and a familiar voice hailed her from behind.

“Cece!” Andrei was in the process of hopping down from his spider phaeton as he tossed the reins to Bryn. His smile was as bright as the summer sun as he waved to her. “Wait up!”

Cecily’s stomach dropped into her shoes and she grabbed Ginger’s arm. “Inside,” she hissed, pretending that she hadn’t seen him. “Get inside.”

Ginger didn’t argue and closed the door sharply behind them. She rang the bell for Delia and said, “Miss Cecily isn’t at home to visitors!” as she rushed Cecily up the stairs. “Get out of sight, Miss. Delia, you tell the gentleman behind us that our Miss is laying down with a migraine and cannot entertain today.”

Anna came down the hall from deeper within the house, where she’d probably been inspecting the charwoman’s work. She was taking on more of Nanny’s work as the head housemaid, now that Mister Adelram was at Mira’s beck and call, and that now extended to checking the salamander beds were made correctly. They’d had to sack the last charwoman and hide it from Mira when some of the salamanders took ill and they caught her mailing a letter to the Daily Post offering to sell them an interview, so now all the new girls lived under a microscope. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

“The Fourth Prince tailed us home!” Ginger explained in a rush. “He’s coming across the lawn!”

Anna’s expression chilled. She might not have worked for Mira long, but the Byrde family had a long history of semiformal vassalage with the Priestlys and she was every bit as protective of her mistress as her Aunt was. Cecily let herself be hustled out of sight and hoped Anna would be valiant enough to get Andrei out of their house before Mira came home. It would be the crowning disaster of the evening if he was still there, squabbling with her staff when Mira finally made it home after a long and painful day. 

So, obviously, that was exactly what happened.

Everything happened so fast. Cecily felt like she’d been suspended outside the moment, helpless to do more than watch events slide past her, until she heard the slap of Andrei’s hand striking her sister’s cheek, the crash of crystal as she was thrown into a side table, the maids’ startled screams when she landed hands down in the shards of the fallen vase, and the thunderous slam of the door when Mister Adelram caught up to her. 

After that, it was like she had wings. She passed by Andrei without a second look, although she felt his hand graze hers as she passed him, as if he’d been reaching for her. She didn’t care. All she could see was the blood on their foyer tiles and the clear shards embedded in Mira’s palms when she lifted her hands to look at them. 

The girls assembled around her like the finest of field nurses; clearing the debris, creating a space for Cecily to send the shards, and barricading Cecily and her sister with their bodies in case the altercation on the stairs got too close to them. The damage wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t anything Cecily couldn’t fix, but Mira was in a strange state like she was barely conscious of her own injuries. She kept staring in the direction of the stairwell. Was she looking at Andrei? Was she about to have a seizure that the new inscription couldn’t stop?

Cecily couldn’t spare any attention for Andrei or Bryn. The most feeling, other than her own white hot fury, that she could muster was a distant hope that Bryn wouldn’t be hurt protecting Andrei from the consequences of his own actions. The law might insulate him from legal consequences and retribution from anyone he ever hurt, but it didn’t look like Mister Adelram cared about consequences much at the moment. 

To be honest, Cecily didn’t care about anything like consequences right now either. Mira’s focus on the altercation between the men had shown her something she hadn’t noticed before; the handprint on her sister's face. Specifically, she saw which side of her face Andrei had struck. Mira’s hair had mostly obscured the mark because it was on her blind side, which was usually hidden under her hair because she didn’t enjoy people looking at the flesh-sculpted closer eyelid she had on that side. She thought it was unsettling to look at. She let Cecily and Vesper see it in the evenings when Anna had put her hair up in a cap for the night, but that was the exception. 

Everything Mister Adelram and Andrei had said to each other up to that point had been like static or distant city noise. Then Andrei said something that drew him back into the same universe as her.

“I—didn’t intend this,” he said.

Didn’t intend? Was he really daring to say that in front of her, in front of all of them? Was he going to claim that Mira just walked into his palm?

“Didn’t you?” Cecily hardly recognized her own voice. She felt hollow and icy, but also like she was made out of fire at the same time. Andrei didn’t look like a cheerful, pleasant boy anymore. The change was so sudden, she could hardly recognize his face. It was like there was a stranger in her house, pleading with her. All her worry and anxiety about how she’d ever merge the two halves of her lives blew away on the winds out her outrage. Why had she been so concerned with maintaining their friendship? He’d hit her sister. “Ginger, please contact my oldest sister and tell her what’s happened. She has her walking crystal with her.”

Vesper would be able to handle this. If she let Mister Adelram throw Andrei out with the other garbage, their family could feel the blowback. 

“Cece,” Andrei started towards her and then stopped when Mister Adelram wrenched Bryn’s shoulder to remind Andrei that he had a hostage. At least he’d stop for that. “Cece, please, believe that I am not in the habit of raising my hand to women.”

That was the moment when any last hope for reconciliation between them froze over in Cecily’s heart and shattered. 

He’d lied to her! He’d lied to her face just now! He reached out to her with the same hand he’d struck her sister with and dared to say he didn’t hit women!

“You lied to me before. You hit my sister just now. I don’t know what else you’re capable of. I’m not even sure that I know you anymore.”

Andrei reared back like he was the one who’d been slapped. “I have never lied to you!”

“Oh?” her voice trembled, but for once it wasn’t with fear. “If you didn’t know that she’s blind and deaf on that side, then why did you aim there when you slapped her?”

000

In another time, in another place, and in another kind of reality there was a little screen on a handheld device. That screen showed a picture of a girl, much like Cecily, and there was a little display of meters next to her portrait. Each of the meters was tracking the name of a boy she knew and the meters were labeled ‘affection.’ Most of them were at least half full, except for one. That meter had already been near to empty. On that screen, the meter labeled ‘Andrei’ was drained of its last few points and then flicked out to black. 

An alert appeared on the screen that read: Cecily’s affection for Andrei has reached zero. The Andrei Route is now locked.

The girl who’d been playing the game rolled her shoulders and sighed, “Took her long enough. Maybe now he’ll finally stay out of the way. Mama needs that 100% Completion achievement.” 

She switched to a different screen that showed an overworld map. The floral border around the screen changed from white roses to green clover and she smiled.  

-Fin | Cecily Side Story 7

000

Note: The border flowers are a hint about which boy you have the most synergy with. Andrei is white roses. Randall is green clover. Alan is red poppies. William is black roses. Bryn is blue harebells. If Cecily has either synergy with no one or synergy with everyone, her border is pink roses. 

Remember, in the OG game you have to actively discourage Andrei in order to keep him from messing up the other romance routes. I like to imagine that an unchecked Andrei that Cecily has lukewarm feelings about forces the player into the mediocre ‘normal’ ending where he’s Cecily’s uncomfortable situationship, but not really her boyfriend.