The Duke Should Divorce Me, So Why Is He Stalling My Death? novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: The Staircase
The Saintess moves into the east wing and arranges a fall on the grand stair; the Duchess catches her wrist before the Prince and the whole staff.
Lysandra woke to a maid flinching.
The girl was holding a tray of tea in the doorway, and when the Duchess sat up she took half a step back before she caught herself.
"Good morning, Your Grace."
Her hands were steady and her eyes were on the floor.
Lysandra looked at her stocky shoulders and the thick brown braid and understood something she didn't like.
The woman who had owned this body had hit people.
"What's your name?" Lysandra asked.
The maid went still.
"Greta, Your Grace. I've served you four years."
"Thank you for the tea, Greta."
Greta stared at her.
Lysandra drank the tea and looked at the ceiling.
The ceiling was painted with gold stars and had a crack in it.
It was real.
[Scripted scene today: The Staircase. Time: noon. Outcome: the Saintess falls, the Duchess is blamed, the Prince demands justice.]
She had a plan, and the plan was to be extremely boring.
By noon she was standing at the top of the grand stair in a plain grey day dress, with her hands clasped behind her back.
Below her in the hall, the whole household had lined up to receive a guest.
There were twenty-three servants, a steward, and two footmen at the doors.
She had counted them twice.
Witnesses, she thought.
They'd make the best audience she was ever going to get.
The front doors opened on a gust of cold air.
A man came in first with snow on his shoulders and a gold circlet pushed back in his hair.
He was broad and tanned and open-faced, and he laughed as he shook the snow off, which was exactly how the book described him.
Prince Emeric, the male lead.
Behind him came a small figure in white furs, carried over the threshold by two Temple guards.
Anneliese Hollenbrook, the Saintess.
She looked up the stair and smiled.
It was a wonderful smile.
Lysandra thought she would have fallen for it herself, if she hadn't read what came after.
"Duchess," Anneliese called. "It's so good of you to have me."
"It's an honor, Saintess. Please, come up and rest."
She had read this scene.
Anneliese would climb to the landing, stop beside the Duchess, and say something soft and cutting.
The Duchess would shove her out of temper.
Anneliese would fall twelve steps and break nothing, and the Prince would thunder.
Lysandra had a long step to the left and three feet of clear air between them.
She used it.
Anneliese climbed all the way up with the Prince close behind her.
At the landing she stopped, a full arm's length from the Duchess.
"You look tired," she said, so softly that only Lysandra could hear. "Such a hard night. I do hope you aren't unwell."
"I slept very well, thank you."
Lysandra didn't move.
She kept her hands behind her back where everyone could see them.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then Anneliese's eyes flicked down to the top step and back up again.
She was working out the distance.
Lysandra saw it a half second too late.
The Saintess drew a quick breath, cried out, and threw herself backward off the landing.
Lysandra's hand was already moving.
She had been a claims adjuster for seven years, and she knew how people lied about falls.
She caught the Saintess's wrist in her right hand and her sleeve in her left, set her heel on the carpet, and pulled.
Anneliese came back across the top step in one piece.
Forty eyes in the hall below went wide at once.
"Saintess!" Lysandra said, loud and clear. "You almost went down the whole stair! Someone bring her a chair!"
Two footmen ran.
Anneliese stood in her white furs, breathing hard, with her wrist still held tight.
Her face was perfectly arranged.
Her nails, under the fur sleeve, dug hard into Lysandra's skin.
"How brave you are," she whispered. "How very quick."
"I was standing right here, Saintess," Lysandra said, just as softly. "Everyone saw that I was standing right here."
Prince Emeric had reached the landing, and he was looking from one woman to the other with an honest frown.
"The Duchess caught you," he said slowly. "I saw it. She had her hands behind her back, and then she caught you."
"I did," Lysandra said. "I'd like to be clear that I would rather catch than push."
A scullery girl at the foot of the stair made a small, startled sound and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Emeric glanced at her, and then, unmistakably, at the twenty-three servants watching.
None of them looked away.
[Scripted scene wrecked: The Staircase. Plot points +8. Total: 18/100.]
Lysandra let go of the wrist.
There were four red crescents on the Saintess's pale skin, and four more on her own.
"Welcome to Veyrath house," she said, and she was almost sure she meant it.
"You're too kind," said Anneliese.
Her eyes were very blue and not friendly.
Then the Duke spoke from somewhere above them.
"Duchess."
She turned.
Alaric stood in the doorway of the upper gallery with a stack of papers in one hand.
He had watched the whole thing.
He wasn't looking at the Saintess, or at the Prince, or at the servants.
He was looking at Lysandra's wrist, the one that had caught.
"My study," he said. "Midnight."
He turned and went back inside before she could answer.
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