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Lorenz is far too well-bred (well-trained) to be bored at these sorts of events, but even he cannot deny that these formal balls are monotonous. The food, the music, the dancing, the decorations… the eligible ladies lining up to be introduced to him by a suitably respectable brother, aunt, mother, uncle… The perfect, powdered smiles, the casual mention of their families’ loyalties, of their estates, of their child-bearing hips.
He does notice when she steps into the room. Not because there’s a stir, or because there’s a sudden hush—there isn’t. Not because her ensemble is impossibly fine—although it is. He notices her because she steps into the room and gazes around like she’s never seen anything so splendid… and then cuts a direct route from the door to the food.
The eligible maiden in front of him clears her throat, and he drags his gaze back to hers, pastes on his third-best smile.
“...onions?”
“Not in an ordinary garden, unless you’re from the southern lands,” the serving-girl is saying, “They die at the first touch of frost.”
“Then how are they—” the mystery woman starts to ask.
“Greenhouse,” the serving-girl says, and she is smiling. Lorenz realizes uncomfortably that he’s never seen any of the serving staff smile like that—smile sincerely—at an event like this, and he’s been to hundreds of balls. (This is accompanied by the realization that perhaps a handful of the people in this room have ever seen him smile sincerely over the course of all those balls.)
“A greenhouse? With real glass? Is it nearby? Can I see it?” the mystery woman asks. The serving girl’s smile widens.
“It’s through the door over there, past the rose garden. It will be closed this time of night, but—”
“Rose garden?”
“That one, you can visit,” the serving girl says, nodding almost conspiratorially. The mystery woman looks thrilled.
An eligible maiden has spotted Lorenz and begins moving towards him with a glint in her eye. To avoid getting dragged into another vapid conversation or another giggly dance, Lorenz quickly shuffles his way into the line for the buffet. This brings him closer to the mystery woman and the serving girl.
As soon as Lorenz comes into view, the smile disappears. The serving girl bows her head and shuffles away from them. The mystery woman looks around in confusion, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, your ladyship. But my tray is empty and I must fetch a new one,” and with that, the serving-girl slips away. The mystery woman—her hair is red, and her face is a little too round to be fashionable. Her features are not so interesting as the fact that she scowls at Lorenz.
“She wasn’t bothering me.”
“I never said she was,” Lorenz says in his mildest voice. He waits—sometime it takes a moment for people to recognize him, and then there will be the apologizing, and the bowing and scraping, and—
“Hmph,” the mystery woman says.
“It was not my intention to drive her off, I only wanted to see what food was available,” Lorenz offers.
“Well,” she says, visibly softening. “You should try those,” and she points at one of the dishes on the table.
Lorenz has eaten every dish on offer more times than he can count, and he ends up filling his plate with his companion’s suggestions. (She introduces herself. Her name is Leonie, which isn’t an uncommon name in the County. The way she introduces herself—I’m Leonie, by the way—is disarming, and strange that she wouldn’t offer her family’s name as well. He follows suit, just offering his own given name, and she smiles and says that mus be funny, him having the same name as the Count’s son, what with them being at the palace. Then almost the same breath, she adds that maybe it’s not that weird, since her town has two men and three boys named Lorenz, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. She… has no idea who he his, and he finds that delightful.)
He fills his plate up with Leonie’s favorites, and she fills her plate, and somehow Lorenz Hellman Gloucester finds himself sneaking out of his own ballroom to escape a party being held in his own honor.
“What’s this for?” Leonie asks. They’re in the rose garden, and she has just discovered the gazebo. High overhead, thin clouds veil the quarter-moon.
“It’s a gazebo,” Lorenz says. He has her empty plate and his half-full one, and she absentmindedly reaches out and takes a stuffed mushroom off his plate and eats it.
“It’s a what now?”
“Gazebo. It’s a small decorative structure for… just for sitting and enjoying the view, I suppose.” (And for couples to enjoy a little bit of privacy together, not that there’s any reason for Lorenz to be thinking of such a thing.)
“Neat. Let’s go see it.” She starts walking towards it, and he follows in her wake.
Lorenz knows something about fine materials and superb craftsmanship. That’s how he knows that the dress Leonie wears is impossible. He doesn’t recognize the fabric, but it captures every scrap of light and returns it warmly and evenly. Gemstones glitter in its folds, and the garment is fitted to her perfectly—supernaturally. There are gems in her hair and dangling from her neck and draped across her… uh, her decolletage, and they are either opals or moonstone or both, and even in the cool moonlight they almost glow. When she steps, her shoes glitter, and they look like they’re covered in the same mysterious gem. They aren’t studded with the gems, they look like they’re made from crystal but they bend with her foot as she walks, and…
She eats like she hasn’t eaten properly in a week. In a year. She truly, genuinely does not know who he is. She wears a dress that has to be either the finest enchantment he’s ever seen or something infused with the Old Magic. And she tells him about the chickens she keeps, the drama among the hens, and her concerns about eggshell thickness. She mentions offhandedly several ways the indenture system is incredibly exploitative and in the same breath admits that there are some rats in her room that she’s befriended. Apparently she makes them little clothes and they bring her gifts sometimes.
Lorenz's ministers hem and haw when he asks him about ways in which life in the County could be improved for its commonborn citizens. Over the course of their rambling conversation, Leonie offhandedly tells Lorenz about a dozen systemic abuses in the County, plus generously sprinkling in some pretty alarming things about her own life—her sisters and mother sound like nightmares, leave it at that. She doesn't seem angry about it, more resigned and tiredly amused. Somehow that's worse. She wears a dress that magic practically emanates from, and when he shows her the greenhouse, she gasps and claps her hands to her mouth like she’s never seen anything like it.
“It’s really all glass?”
“It is,” he says.
“That’s incredible.” She stares up at it, taking in all the panes of glass. “It’s not magic? It’s just… craft?”
“It’s just craft,” Lorenz confirms. She stares at the greenhouse. He looks at her.
“I made a dress,” she says suddenly. “Not—not this one.” She smooths her hands over the impossible material of her skirt. “Just. Out of scraps. I thought it was nice, I guess, but it wasn’t—oh, I don’t know. This is amazing, though. All made by human hands.”
“Yes.”
He watches her some more, sees her spotting the flaws and irregularities in the glass, sees her admire the way in which the glass panes are supported and the struts fit together.
“Can we go inside?” she wants to know. It is dark, and she isn’t looking at him. He smiles.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
The greenhouse is good. Lorenz loses track of time. He has—his gardeners have plants from all over the kingdom, and beyond, in here. He expected Leonie to be more interested in the fruits and vegetables than the ornamentals, but she drinks it all in. She even likes the pitcher plants.
They both lose track of time. The moon has slipped away, and the clouds have dispersed enough that the stars are sparkling cleanly. In the distance—not that far, but far enough—the big bell in the Hall starts to ring.
It’s midnight.
Leonie seizes up, everything in her posture going stiff. Lorenz can’t even ask what’s wrong before she’s pelting for the exit.
He—She’s just—She—
She stumbles. Of course she does, running in heels in the garden in the dark. Lorenz is running now too, trying to catch her, to ask her what’s wrong. It’s her family, it has to be, she spoke about the sisters and the mother, but what if there’s someone else, someone worse— He can help, he’s the Count’s son, he can—
He’s not even fast enough to help her up. One second she’s running, the next second she’s on the ground, and the next second she’s up and running again. He makes it to where she fell and almost trips over one of her shoes.
The crowd in the ballroom spills out of the garden, laughing and frivolous and poised, and he loses her in the crowd.
The worst part of all—more than the feeling like he’s just found something wonderful and had it ripped away from him—is that her face is fading from his memory. By the final strike of the clock, he can’t even remember the sound of her voice, her laugh, or her hair color. All he has is the shape of hours of conversation and an acute sense of loss. And… the shoe.