Hybel 8th, 1513 – Merchant District, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Tawny twisted her hands around each other, her teeth cruelly locked around her bottom lip. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. All she was doing was meeting a friend of Annette’s who taught piano lessons. That was all. Maybe it was the fact that Miguel was not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of her taking the lessons in the first place. But for Wright’s sake, she was a sim. She needed something to do other than think of new and different ways to seduce her drunken husband!

That was more or less all she’d done for the past six weeks and they were so sick of seeing each other naked that she was about to take a blindfold to his bedchamber. Tawney released her hold on her lip to quirk them up into a something that was almost a smile, remembering what Annette had said when she’d told her that.

“If you don’t like Curran, you can find another tutor.” Speaking of the Grim, Annette appeared out of the nowhere as she frequently did.

“I know.”

“So what is it?” The redhaired woman asked, green eyes fixing her in place. Though they weren’t cat-like in color or shape there was something somewhat sharp in them that reminded Tawny of a cat. Not even a housecat, once–when they were riding in the carriage to visit a family friend–they’d seen a mountain lion basking on a rock. The look in it’s eyes when it raised it’s head and looked at them sleepily was a lot like the look in Annette’s eyes. Wary confidence. The more she got to know Annette the more she was reminded of something that one of her tutors had liked to say “You can stick a hawk in a songbird’s cage, but that doesn’t make it a songbird.”

Annette played the role of the songbird grudgingly, but she wasn’t one.

“And I already know that Miguel probably doesn’t like it, but despite what he’s thought previously, having a wife who is completely dedicated to getting knocked up seems to require a lot of him. He doesn’t like that either. I’m not sure he likes anything.”

“Himself, maybe.” Tawny said before clamping a hand over her mouth and looking horrified, she hadn’t meant to say that outloud.

“Nah, I doubt he even likes himself, look at how much he drinks.” Annette said cheerfully. “And I don’t blame him, if I were him, I wouldn’t like me either.” Tawny giggled behind the hand still clamped over her mouth.

Letting her guard down around Annette was one of the smartest things that Tawny had done in a long time. It was hard pretending to be the kind of girl that her mother had wanted her to be. And while that seemed to be held up as some sort of ideal, people didn’t really like you if you’re shallow and self-interested. And trying to pretend you only had your husband’s interests worked about as well as square carriage wheels when your husband had no interests. Besides himself–and wine–and bad clothing.

A knock came at the door and Annette shot her a smile before heading to the door. Tawny folded her skirt in one hand and stared at the blue floral paper on the walls. It had been beyond kind of Annette to volunteer her house as a neutral meeting ground for this. She’d have to think of some way to help Annette later. She was a lot better friend than Tawny knew how to be back.

There were two men following Annette when she returned, both tan, one with light brown hair in a very similar shade to her own, though he didn’t look mousey with it, the other dark haired with a very shy smile and candid gray eyes.

“Tawny, this is Kevin Finnegan,” She gestured to the brown-haired man. “He’s the artist who painted that portrait I sent to my mother.”

“Pleased to meet you, you’re very talented, Mr. Finnegan.” Tawny said. Mr. Finnegan had an infectious smile, as she felt the corners of her lips being tugged up almost unconsciously in response.

“Of course, I’m the best painter in River Sulis, just ask anyone.” He winked a blue eye at her.

“Hey, hey, space in here is limited, I’m not sure we’ve got room for you and your ego, Finn.” Annette told him.

Apparently ignoring that, he turned back to Tawny. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Cox. And you’re welcome to call me Kevin or Finn rather than Mr. Finnegan if you wish. I try not to stand on formality.”

“Because your ego’d knock you off it if you did.” Annette wrinkled her nose at him when he turned a mock glare at her. Something about the way that Annette almost smiled, the way her shoulders seemed a little less set decided for Tawny that he’d be Kevin to her, anyone who could get Annette to unwind, even just a little was obviously worth knowing.

“Annette’s told me a lot about you.” Kevin continued.

“I hope it wasn’t all bad.”

“She was uncertain about you at first, but it’s gotten a lot better recently. Besides I’d take all her bad-mouthing with a grain of salt anyway. You’re married to the illustrious Captain Cox of the River Sulis guard–and you haven’t smothered him in his sleep yet, that tells me you’re probably a saint in disguise.” Tawny covered her smile with her hand.

“And if Finn would quit running his mouth, I’d introduce you to the person who you actually expected to meet today.” Annette said shaking her head. “Anyway, this is Curran Hamilton. Piano tutor extraordinaire. Curran, this is Tawny Cox, my–cousin-in-law, I guess. And a friend.”

“A pleasure to make you acquaintance, Mrs. Cox.” The hither-to silent young man said with a formal bow.

“And yours, Mr. Hamilton.” Tawny said. “Though–I don’t suppose we have to stand on ceremony either.”

“I wouldn’t presume. Some people like ceremony, my mother for one. There’s not a ceremony or formality she’s met that she hasn’t liked.” Curran ducked his head, not entirely hiding the shy grin quirking his lips.

“He’s right, Mrs. Hamilton’s written the book on formality for the sake of formality.” Kevin said solemnly. “I’m pretty sure that Curran’s father called his wife Mrs. Hamilton from their wedding to his death by henpecking thirty-four years later.” Annette snorted and Curran shook his head.

“Well, unless you’re fond of formality for the sake of it, you’re welcome to call me Tawny.” She said, extending a hand to him. He took and bowed over it, causing a faint bit of color to rise in her cheeks.

“And please, call me Curran.” Curran told her when he looked up, their eyes locking for a moment.

“Well, there’s the piano if you want to dive right in.” Annette said sitting down in her chair, a cat with a bowl of cream smile on her face. “It’s even tuned.”

“Thank you, Annette.” Tawny said. Curran pulled the bench out for her and she sat on it, smoothing her skirt in a nervous gesture.

“Sit up just a little,” Curran suggested, “But keep your shoulders relaxed, it’s a piano, not a firing squad.” She did as he suggested, he pulled a sheaf of music out of his bag and set it on the wooden music rest.

“This is the C major scale.” He quickly and easily tapped out the keys, managing somehow to lean over her shoulder without it feeling like he was hovering over her, which was kinda amazing, considering Miguel could hover over her from clear across the room.

—

“So what did you think?” Annette asked after Curran and Kevin had left.

“He was–very nice–and I think he’ll be a good teacher.” She added the second part in a rush as if saying that Curran was nice was somehow leaving something hanging that she really ought not to leave. “I liked Kevin too.”

Annette smiled and nodded.

“He’s–more than your friend isn’t he? Kevin, I mean.”

“Not–exactly. We are friends, he is someone I can talk to and he’ll listen and understand as best he can. And he knows that being friends like we are is all I can offer.” She sighed and sat down in her arm chair.

“I meant you’re sleeping with him.” Tawny covered her eyes. “I’m sorry, that was out of line.”

“I think, considering the first few conversations we had and how you reacted to them, you’ve spent too much time around me.” Annette looked up at her, eyes shadowed. “Yes, I am.”

“I like him. Not that that has anything to do with anything.” She stubbed her toe at the carpet.

“No, but it’s nice to hear. No one ever says it about Masen. Then again, I’m not sleeping with Masen, so…” She trailed off with a shrug.

“You–,” Tawny sat down on the settee and looked at her for a long moment. The sunlight coming in the window set off the paleness of Annette’s skin, making the copper of her hair shimmer like metal. And just like that it was back, the marble-and-metal armor that Annette always kept around her.

And just like that–Tawny’s whole life seemed to spread out in front of her–if she did succeed in having a child with Miguel in a decade she’d be where Annette was–even her closest friends at arm’s length, wrapped up in armor and and respectability.

“How do people do this?” Tawny whispered, as reality crashed down.

Annette didn’t seem puzzled by the non-sequitur. “The same way they do anything unpleasant, all the other choices are worse. C’mon, it’s not all bad. And it’s better when you can remember the good stuff, too.”

“Aye.” Tawny agreed. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Tyves 4th, 1513 – Edge of Merchant District, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

“Finn?” Kevin peered around his easel, eyes narrowed almost to slits before tipping his paintbrush ninety degrees to the side then righting it again. He made a vague noise in the back of his throat before putting his brush back to the canvas. Considering how simple the painting was, well comparatively, it was not wanting to pour out like usual. Or maybe it was just that normally when he was doing a portrait seating, he wanted to get the subject in and out of his studio as quickly as possible.

He wouldn’t care if this one took all week.

“Finn, I know you can hear me. I’m starting to lose feeling in my legs.”

“Just hold it for a little longer,” He scrubbed along an edge, trying to capture the loose waves of burnished copper hair that were just escaping him, the bright color refusing to flow with half the light and life on the canvas.

“You know, I have enough sadistic men in my life.” He tipped to the side and peered around the edge of the canvas. He met the ever-shifting green eyes set under brows with a permanent cynical tilt to them.

“Pardon?”

“The baron, the Captain of the guard… my husband–all sadistic bastards when they set their minds to it, even they don’t tell me I have to sit exactly so and can’t move for hours.” Annette said, though there was definitely a teasing tone in her voice. “If I can’t feel my extremities after two hours, the root is usually boredom.”

“Well, it’s just so infrequently that I get beautiful half-dressed women in my bed.” He grinned at her.

“Right.” She drew the word out comically.

“Just a couple more minutes, please, Annette?” He pleaded.

“And my legs?”

“Are really nice.” Kevin said distractedly, bringing the brush back to the canvas to rough in the lay of the hand, he hesitated for a moment on her wedding ring. I can always add it in later. He told himself.

“If I had a shoe, I’d throw it at you right now.” She sighed. He echoed it, looking at the scribbles on his canvas. She probably would throw something at him if he didn’t let her get up soon. But he probably had enough done to work on it when she wasn’t there.

“All right, you can get up.” He continued to work on some of the lines as he heard her clamber over the trunk at the foot of the bed. She stretched, the long line of her back popping softly as she did so. Her feet were nearly silent as they padded across the tile floor and over to one of the chairs he kept for portrait work where she kicked her feet out stretching the back of her legs.

“You are really are cruel.” Annette told him.

“It’s just the subject matter, it–captures me.” Annette snorted cynically. Inwardly Kevin cringed, even if she looked like a young girl with her hair loose and soft like that, like an angel in her floaty petticoats, the black pattern on her corset like slashes of shadow only serving as accent to the pale perfection of her face, all she had to do was say something and it was readily apparent that she was not. “Just how often do you think I have pretty girls in my bedroom dressed only in their unmentionables?”

“Often enough.” She said blandly, though there was something in her face when she said it, something he couldn’t read.

“Not really, no, honestly!” He told her before she could be derisive again. “It really doesn’t happen that often.”

“Maybe it’s your bedroom then.” She smirked at him. He stuck his tongue out at her. “Really, I would think twice about coming to a place like this and stripping down to my shift if I had any virtue to protect.”

“This place might not be in the best neighborhood, it might be a little rundown, it might even have a few disreputable people living in the lower floor, but has the best light in the entire city. As you would know if you ever spent the night with me and could see it at sunrise.”

“And you know why I can’t do that.” Annette told him sighing and looking toward the window that if it had bigger than a copper sized panes of glass in it, would look toward her house.

“Right, the husband, the kid.” Kevin didn’t sigh, but he wanted to. He knew how much Annette loved her daughter and how, often, it was probably having Lyssandra in her life that got her out of bed and going in the morning. But that husband of hers was a–he lacked the proper words for what Masen Cox was because–as the old saw went–it was insulting to whatever he might try to compare it to. In fact they should be calling old rancid bags of shit Masen Coxes as an insult to such bags.

“Keeping the kid away from the husband.” Annette added softly. Kevin grimaced–but only to keep from shivering at Annette’s comment. He couldn’t imagine–doing any of the things that Annette said or implied that Cox did. Of course, he could have written if off as a bitter wife trying to get revenge on her husband for not loving her, but there was something about the way that she shut down when Cox came up in conversation–something that only borne out Kevin’s impressions from the first time that Annette had sat for a portrait–a gift for her mother–and Cox had come with her.

“But doesn’t your husband go to court with the baron? And didn’t the baron leave this morning for a whole month?” Kevin asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“I can’t leave my daughter at home by herself overnight.” She glanced over her shoulder at the big double window.

“You still have a good three quarters of an hour before Lyssa is out of lessons.” He didn’t even have to look over his shoulder–for all that he often got involved in painting, he had always had a very, very accurate judgment when it came to time.

“I still can’t stay.” She looked down at her hands. “That’s why you shouldn’t get involved with middle age married women.” She shook her hand at him like a school marm scolding a little boy who’d done wrong.

“You’re not middle aged.”

“You obviously haven’t met my father-in-law.” Annette shook her head and leaned back against the chair, eyes fixed on the embossed metal ceiling tiles.

“And I shall add that to my prayers of thanksgiving tonight.” Kevin promised earnestly. “But what does your father-in-law have to do with pointing out that you are not middle aged.”

“All he could do was remind me about how I’m not getting any younger, how old I am.” Annette sighed.

“Well, he raised your husband so if he knows his ass from his elbow, it’s probably by accident.” Kevin told her. “But I’m still not seeing the connection.”

“He wants Masen and I to have another child, a boy. Masen needs an heir.”

“To what? The throne as King of all arseholes?” Kevin shook his head as Annette snorted back laughter.

“I dunno, maybe it’s Ellan’s way of saying that he hopes that I get pregnant and die giving birth leaving his precious son open for a better, younger, more docile, sweeter little mouse of a wife who’ll make him happy.” Annette folded the fabric on her lap like a fan and stared at it.

“I don’t think that any woman who would make your husband happy technically qualifies as a woman–not if she’s old enough to marry him.” Kevin said. “Besides younger isn’t everything.”

“Younger means more you’re fertile, like you’re a bloody field, more time for bearing sons.” Annette restlessly lurched to her feet.

“Which I might worry about if I were trying to get someone pregnant. But as I’m kinda trying to do the opposite, I don’t see where that even factors in. Besides, despite what those lovely Cox boys might’ve told you, being young and a brood mare popping out a boy every year is not what every man is looking for. Some men are looking for women who keep a man on his toes and argue philosophy with them in the middle of the afternoon because they can–and threaten to throw shoes at them because they’ve been posing too long.” He had stood up as he was speaking and followed her across the floor, putting an arm around her shoulder

“I’m busting my ass trying to raise a daughter in a world where people will look down on her because of what she doesn’t have between her legs. Trying to tell her she’s just as good, as smart, as capable and then her grandfather comes for a visit and she asks me why her grandfather hates her.” Annette said. “I don’t want Lyssa to have to be hard. I don’t want Lyssa to have to explain to her daughter why her grandfather hates her–or for that matter why she can’t call her father “father”–or if…” Her voice trailed off.

“If?” He prompted.

“If she wished that she had never met her husband.” Annette looked up at him. “And I don’t, I might wish that he will fall into the river and drown while in Camelot, but I don’t wish that I had never met him. Because I can’t imagine me life without her. But I don’t want her mother to be the only one who ever thinks of her that way. I want her to have the–faerie tale.”

“I was raised to be charming, not sincere.” Kevin quoted softly.

“And not with one of those princes!” Annette said. “I want her to have that, though.”

“And she will. When she’s old enough, she’ll find a guy who loves her for her heart, admires her mind and her strength, adores her quirks, and all of that in spite of her smart mouth.”

“What makes you think my daughter has a smart mouth?” Annette narrowed her eyes at him.

“Her mother.”

“I guess I kinda walked into that one.” Annette admitted. “But you really think so? Not every girl does, I mean I…”

“Found me.” Kevin said as cockily as he could.

“I don’t know whether to hit you or hug you.” Annette shook her head.

“Hug me, the world needs more hugs.” She laughed and just briefly buried her head in his shoulder. But his conscience told him that he should tell her that it was time to head home to her daughter.

After she dressed and fixed her hair, two things that never failed to make her look like a prim schoolmarm, for all that her hair was loose around her shoulders, he lead her to the front door and down the stairs, though there was a staircase that lead directly up to his bedroom, they never used that one because it looked rather improper. And she was a moderately well known person being so closely attached to the Baron.

By the old overgrown garden, he gave her another hug, they always said their goodbyes here–again because of possible impropriety.

“I swear the man who built this place was macabre.” Annette commented as they walked out the side gate. “What’s up with the gargoyles–and why do they face in?”

“I think they’re mooning the people walking by.” Annette looked at him then up at the gargoyle arses above her head.

“So he just had a twisted sense of humor?”

“Well, he probably was macabre and had a twisted sense of humor, you did see the fresco of the churchmen and the decapitated heads in the vestibulum, right? And the one of the girl impaling herself on a sword in my bedroom?” Annette was still chuckling when she turned and walked off home. She was one of those women that as much as he loved to see her come and hated to see her go, he loved to watch her leave.

He felt restless as he tried to think of something else to do with his afternoon, so he returned to his bedroom and picked up painting where he had left off. In some ways, the fact that she wasn’t there made painting her all the easier. It meant he spent less time worried that he could never do justice to the curl of her hair or the sparkle of humor and cynicism in her eyes and more time trying to capture the fire he could see all to well in his mind and that was all the better.

And when he finally laid the brushes aside and stepped back from his painting, Kevin figured he knew exactly how Pygmalion of legend had felt. His fingers, with mind of the wet paint, hovered just over the canvas, tracing the line of her jaw before falling to his side. Then his eyes, managing to peel away from hers which had pinned him in place from the canvas as easily as they did in person, slid toward the north and he sighed. His painting wouldn’t come to life, but maybe–someday…