Bloodsuckers & Ballrooms

Chapter Three

Roslin

"To the dear and esteemed Lady Roslin of house Adair," read Roslin for the fifteenth time since retiring to her room. Late had grown the hour, and the storm without had only worsened as those hours ticked by, but still Roslin paced her room—back and forth, back and forth, around the bed and padding across the carpet—with the letter in her hands. Her way was lit only by the candle on her bedside table, which she had spent months savouring for a special occasion when she needed to pace in the night.

If there was ever such an occasion, then surely it was summons from a king.

A king of a faraway kingdom she knew little-if-not-nothing about, whose summons were calling her to participate in—what? A social season to marry his son? His son, a prince?

His son, a prince.

Roslin went to the window and looked out. She saw nothing. The stormclouds hid the moon and stars and choked out their light.

But had there been light, she still would have seen...

"Nothing," she said aloud to herself. She would have seen nothing. Fallow, infertile fields home now only to coarse sandgrasses, a garden home to three pumpkins withering on the vine, and a barrel of potatoes. Beyond, she might see a forest they were forbidden from touching by a lord who cared not if they lived or died. 

In fact, he was like to prefer it if they died, actually.

Roslin turned away and resumed her pacing. Could she convince her sisters to go? Gia, probably. But Wyn...?

What chance did she have of wooing a prince, anyway? She had no money and she lacked a lifetime of training and refinery that the other ladies were likely to possess. She had not looks; she was plain-faced and had not the bosom her sisters had been blessed with. A village boy had described her as "perfectly peasantly" once, and she had no capacity to argue, for there was no argument to be had. He had the right of it: she was peasantly.

Should she be so foolish as to go, and twice as foolish as to pursue the prince, all she'd have in her corner was personality and personality alone.

Well, she also had good birthing hips.

Which, to be fair, was also a peasantly trait to possess.

She knew the letter had to be discussed and decided upon as a family, but she couldn't shake the feeling that this opportunity, however unexpected, could be their salvation. Roslin's thoughts raced so quickly, so frantically, that even she struggled to take them one at a time.

Again she looked down at the letter in her hands. I stand no chance of securing a prince, she thought to herself, but where there are princes, there are courtiers.

"I could meet a lesser lord." She looked up at her reflection in the mirror as she spoke aloud. 

The candle cast terrible shadows on her face and hollowed her eyes. Often Roslin wondered who this ghoul of a woman was looking back at her. 

"Someone who could provide for us, someone who could help us start over."

She imagined a life where they didn't have to worry about their next meal or the impending, ever-looming threat of the coming winter. A life where they could find peace and, perhaps, happiness. Roslin stopped pacing and stared out the window again, her reflection barely visible in the glass. The same scary woman looked back at her, and beyond that scary woman was the same nothingness she'd looked at moments before. 

There is nothing here for you, said that scary woman. Only the dirt you will return to if you do not leave this place.

Her heart ached at the thought of her sisters. They couldn't suffer the same fate. They wouldn't. Roslin knew they all needed something more stable, something more secure.