Nell's Gift

When Epsing emerged from Lady Harriet's room, he saw a well-dressed, composed, young gentlewoman standing before him, looking calm and collected. He paused in shock and then slowly shut the door behind him. He had left Lady Harriet falling asleep on the chaise longue, and had hoped she wouldn't wake when he left. He did not know the woman in front of him.

He bowed, uncertainly. She smiled stiffly and gave him a little nod. "An odd place for us to meet, at last, Baron Epsing." Her voice was very quiet, but entirely clear to him. She gestured down the corridor and they moved away from the door together.

"Indeed," he was still alarmed and shocked by her unexpected presence, "indeed, I don't believe I have the pleasure of knowing your name."

She smiled again. "My name is Miss Helena Briggs, but you may call me Nell -- we seem, after all, to be in a situation a little more..." she paused delicately "intimate than might be normal."

He laughed, gently. "Well, Nell, I suppose you are about to try to blackmail me?" He looked her in the eye and she raised an eyebrow, coolly, whilst still managing to seem rather innocent.

"I do not mean to try, sir, I mean to succeed."

He laughed again. "Well, unfortunately, you shall not succeed. What do I care if poor Harriet's reputation is ruined? My own shall stay intact, I dare say." HE had after all, only promised not to tell. He was under no compulsion to deny what this Nell already knew. And with that, he made to move past her and leave. But she shook her head and carried on, unhurriedly.

"I should say you would care, sir. Not perhaps for Lady Harriet's reputation, or even your own -- for why would you care if the people at court think you a cad? Yet, perhaps you care what other people think, actually. Not most people, true, but one person... A certain young lady, I am thinking of, by the name of Katerina." Baron Epsing started and went pale. "The woman you intend to make your wife, Katerina Hellen."

"What do you know?" He hissed, his face clearly showing his alarm. "How do you know? How can you possibly know? No one knows!"

She regarded him coolly. He moved agitatedly back and forth in front of her, wringing his hands. "I suppose you'd like to keep it that way?" she asked, her voice quite kind.

He looked glum and defeated. "What do you want?" he asked with a sigh.

She smiled sweetly, "not much, Sir, not much at all. Merely an ally. Just the knowledge that if I were to need a favour at some point, I could turn to you for help -- nothing much, I do not ask the world. But if I were to need some trifling thing, I should be happy to think I could ask you for it." For a long minute, they just looked at each other, then he nodded, once.

She curtseyed to him and turned, walking away. He watched her go and then turned and hurried in the opposite direction.

Nell slowly made her way back through the town's long corridors to her own chambers, smiling in satisfaction and replaying images of the evening in her mind. One hand held the lantern, now dark and cool. The other twisted and played with the material of her skirt, grasping the cool fabric in the memory -- and anticipation -- of pleasure.