An Old Accustomed Feast: Part Two

"What revels are in hand?"

December 25th

In the calm before the party, the great hall at Capulet Manor was little more than a grand extension of the family's well-worn sitting room. Miranda was entertaining Ariel with unusual patience. Juliette and Fitzwilliam were off to one side, deep in conversation. At the center of attention, as always, were Hermia and Puck's twins, Eleanor and Lysander.

"Oh, they're getting so big," Desi cooed. "And Elna looks just like you, Hermia."

Puck nuzzled his son. "I guess that leaves you to look like me, lucky boy. Who's my handsome little one?"

Georgiana smiled to herself, always surprised by just how much Puck doted on his children. If it wasn't for Hermia, whose steadiness Georgiana also admired, they would be utterly spoiled already. She wondered what her brother would be like when the time came. "Is Lysander red-headed, too?"

Hermia replied, "I think he's going to be a blond, once his hair starts to grow."

Puck cuddled his son. "You hear that, spriteling? Your mother is still afraid you'll grow up bald. But don't worry. We can chop off some of Aunt Georgie's hair and paste it on you."

"That," Hermia sighed, "or I'll have to bring hats for little boys back into fashion. He can't wear those same coifs forever."

On cue, Juliette appeared to protest that he could. "I spent a lot of time on those caps and gowns." Whether made by her hand or not, any infant-sized clothes were fair game for embroidery in Juliette's eyes. "And don't you look sweet in them, Elna? Come see Aunt Jule." She cuddled her little niece and kissed her head. "You like the coifs. You won't outgrow them, will you?"

Hermia glared at her sister. "I can't stop their heads from growing."

"Have you tried?"

"Juliette!"

"Oh, stop being so serious! Besides, growing babies mean bigger projects for me."

"Speaking of bigger." Puck nodded toward one of the side doors. The musicians were arriving with their instruments. Soon, the first wave of guests would arrive, and then the crowd would grow considerably.

Hermia took her daughter back from Juliette. "Miranda and I will take the twins back to the nursery with Ariel." Ariel was too young to attend the party, but Goneril had permitted her to dress up and see the hall before the festivities began. When Puck agreed to let her take Lysander back, Desi was thrilled. Georgiana might have followed the group back to the nursery, but she was pulled into the anteroom by Juliette. She was in for a quiz on any dreams she had the previous night.

This left Puck and Fitzwilliam momentarily alone. Puck was the first friend Fitzwilliam had in Verona, and the friendship had been strong and steady since the first. They both considered their three years rooming together at the Académie the second-best time of their lives. The core elements of their characters encouraged a strong bond, and the varied expressions of these elements always kept the friendship interesting.

The merits of interesting at any given time were, of course, open to interpretation.

"Does this remind you of anything, Fitz? Maybe something from a year ago?"

Fitzwilliam shot Puck a look. "Don't."

"Oh, come on! It will be a story to tell our babies."

"Absolutely not."

"Absolutely yes! Just think about it. In five or ten years, you'll have a starry-eyed little girl who asks you what it was like when you met her mother, and you can tell her-"

"That it was love at first sight and it's time for bed."

"That's not how I remember it, Fitz. I said you would like Hermia's sister, and you took one look at her and said she was tolerable but not pretty enough to tempt you."

"Why do you always leave out that I thought you were pointing out Miranda?"

Puck shrugged. "Because the story is boring that way. There's no conflict." When he saw his friend's eyes bulge at the outrageous idea of a conflict-free relationship with Juliette, he only laughed and threw his arm around him. "I joke! But think of it - our babies will be cousins, and we will be brothers. I always wanted a brother."

"You're rather cheeky for a younger brother, you know."

"Who says you get to be older?"

"The calendar."

"My real birthday could be before yours."

"The one your parents chose is not."

"Because all Fae use the same birthday on the Imperial calendar!"

"Yes, and it comes after mine."

Capulet Manor quickly filled up with guests. Everyone of the smallest consequence (who wasn't directly a member of the House of Montague) had received an invitation. Goneril, while claiming the role of hostess, hadn't given much thought to the comfort of her guests if everyone accepted. She saw parties as an opportunity to talk and twist arms. Hermia and Juliette, who had jointly overseen the preparations, were grateful that only half the invited guests had accepted; too large a crowd made dancing difficult.

Before supper, dancing was the exclusive province of ladies. Men who were not gambling and ladies who were resting or chose not to dance dotted the perimeter. Mortimer Varrius was usually up to his eyes in dice at a party, but tonight he was roaming the hall. In lesser company, others might have speculated on the state of his purse. Tonight, he barely merited eye contact.

One guest thought he did merit attention, if only to rub salt in his wounds. "If it isn't my favorite former cousin-in-law."

He knew the simpering, smirking face before he even saw it. "Cherry."

"I think Lady Cherry would be more appropriate, now that we are not related." Cherry Albion had been named Stephannie by her parents, but her brother's nickname had been stuck to her since she was eight years old. It was as appropriate now as it had been at the first application. If one got under her skin, one ran directly into a confounding pit of strength that could break a man apart.

Mortimer knew this better than anyone. It had been Cherry who convinced his first wife, her mother's cousin, to divorce him. The divorce settlement had all but impoverished him. Marrying Bona Brighella had stabilized his purse only temporarily. He was in great danger of a humiliating fall back into the merchant class. Rather than blame himself for stealing his first wife's money, Mortimer blamed it all on Cherry. "If you were any sort of lady, perhaps."

"As what you call a lady is what the rest of us call breeding stock, I'll take that as a compliment."

"And as much as I enjoy listening to you squawk, Lady Cherry, I have a true lady to find."

"You are allowing her out of the house now? You must be getting soft in your old age."

I hate that bitch. Outwardly, he shrugged Cherry off and marched away. He did have to find his wife. Mortimer didn't want to risk losing a second dowry, and there was no telling what sort of company his dimwitted lady would find for herself.

"Oh, Lady Mary, my heart is just breaking for you. Another Christmas gone by and your daughter is still at home. You must be positively crushed."

"I am standing right here," Cecily Nowell sighed. Times like these made her wish her mother didn't use a pseudonym for her unorthodox pamphlets. If Bona knew she was speaking to the lady who had just published To Die For: The Untold Health Benefits of Vampirism, she would have dropped dead.

"Yes, exactly. By all rights, you should be with a husband or at least dancing with the other ladies." Bona thought dancing was awful, but it was one of the surest methods of catching a man. "Yet, here you are, and at your age."

"We're the same age!"

"Yes, and I have my two girls and surely a son forthcoming. I should hate to waste my youth in idleness."

Mary Nowell didn't think a third pregnancy was necessarily something to boast about at twenty-one years old. Although she saw nothing wrong in wanting a large family, she firmly believed women ought to have a well-informed opinion and say in the matter. Bona had almost certainly never been allowed to form her own opinion of anything. The only blessing was that the lady was too stupid to know she had been robbed.

Mortimer's arrival saved the Nowell ladies the trouble of continuing the conversation. His natural presence cemented sensible lips shut whenever he went. "There you are, wife. I thought I asked you to stay put while I spoke to someone."

"Well, yes. But after twenty minutes, I thought-"

"Never mind thinking." His resentment was almost palpable. "Let's move along.

"Of course." She took her husband's arm. "Happy Christmas to you, Lady Mary, Lady Cecily."

The Nowell ladies returned the sentiment with the minimum of sincerity. They shared a long look between them as Mortimer dragged his wife into less dangerous company. "Are you still so set on finding a husband now, Cecily?"

She sighed. Cecily believed - no, she knew that her mother was only thinking of her. Her mother knew what it was to be carelessly married against one's will. When her father had tried to marry Cecily off before she was ready, her mother had assisted her in her suitor-repelling antics. It was easier for a woman burned to keep her daughter from the fire than let her find her way through it. "If the situation was perfect, I might wait another year, but we both know it's not. Father is going to lose all consequence, and mine will go with his."

"Sweetheart, if you aren't ready, you don't have to do anything. No man worth having would marry you only before the change and not afterward."

"But those men's families will not be so forgiving, and who could blame them? If I make a little haste now, I can still get what I want: a companion of some sense who isn't heir-crazy or a blubbering romantic." And if it happens to be someone who punched my father in the face, all the better. Cecily had pitied her father his condition at first. When she learned the madness was an illness contracted from foreign whores in Port Gale, Cecily abandoned her sympathy. "I know you aren't enthralled with the first man Grandfather dug up, but I'm willing to consider him. I say the quiet noblemen, the ones who save their tempers for their wives and children, are the ones to be wary of." We both know it. "And if you don't mind, I'm going to go see if I can't finish my appraisal of him."

Cecily wasn't the only lady looking for Tybalt. Georgiana had alternately hoped she would and would not see him before the party. She had not seen him at all until the first dance began and let herself forget about him for a while afterward. She loved the ladies-only dancing before supper even more than she dreaded the mixed dancing afterward. When she caught sight of him alone in a corner, however, she decided to sacrifice one dance. This conversation was crucial to the peace of her conscience.

"May I speak to you?"

If he hadn't been standing with his back to a wall, Tybalt would have looked over his shoulder when she approached to see who she was really coming to talk to. He would have guessed Fabian Nowell, who Tybalt sorely regretted wasn't one of Nowell brothers he had fought. After all he heard, he would have liked to relieve that bastard of a few teeth. He had nothing to lose in doing it. For now, however, Fabian was out of reach and Georgiana, in the bloom of anxiety, was talking to him. He would have to handle this the right way.

"You just did, didn't you?"

Georgiana's composure split open like a pane of cold, cracked glass. For all she told herself to expect coldness, she could barely stand it. She had come too far to go back. Perhaps she had also gone too far then to come back now. Was there any chance she wasn't about to mortify herself? Was there any reward for the risk? This is foolish. People are indifferent all the time, so why can't we just be? "I have to..." Oh, for goodness' sake, Georgiana, out with it! "I... I need to tell you something." That wasn't it.

She looked like a statue that wanted to vomit all over its own pedestal. Tybalt didn't know what to make of that. Helpful as ever, his mind churned up ideas of its own. "I hate you." "I wanted to remind you that you're still the rudest person I've ever met." "I'm marrying that hapless, spineless milk-drinker."

"I was wrong."

"What?"

The knot in her stomach doubled itself over. "I was wrong when I quarreled with you in my uncle's garden that morning. You were trying to do something good, and I'm sorr-"

"Enough. Don't tell me you're sorry. I don't want to hear it."

The knot hit the floor. "You won't accept my apology?" For all Georgiana worried, she had never had a conversation that was every inch as bad as she thought it could be - until now.

"I don't want an apology, and I don't want you to tell me how nice I was. That aunt of yours is a goat-faced shrew who ought to be in a cage at a fair. I wanted to wind her up. I wasn't being nice, so stop pretending that I was."

"You weren't being very nice. You were rude and antagonistic." Georgiana wanted to kick herself as soon as she said it. "But... but she, my aunt... she was both of those things first. And I was quarrelsome. You were doing a good thing, just in a way I could not understand. So, thank you." She turned with the hope of finding a corner to hide for the rest of her life.

"Wait, wait." He grabbed her wrist and held until she had to step back toward him. "You're thanking me for being rude to your aunt?"

"I'm thanking you for trying to do something good for me."

"So, you're not..."

"If you're not."

"I'm not." Tybalt wasn't sure what he was (or wasn't) saying anymore. Whatever it was, they were agreeing about it, and the agreement was the heart of the matter.

In the daze of agreement, neither of them saw a very self-assured young lady join them. Cecily greeted them both but then locked her attention onto Tybalt. "I really thought you would have come to find me by now. We haven't exactly settled matters, and I hate to waste time."

Tybalt finally realized the interloper was talking to him. "What?"

"We need to determine if we are compatible. The first discussion wasn't nearly enough. You can't expect me to marry a stranger."

Georgiana knew Cecily a little. When Georgiana had been scraping the bottom, Cecily had been the star of the archery league. She would be still if she hadn't broken her wrist. She was undoubtedly beautiful and painfully clever. The pie of live frogs she used to scare off one unwanted suitor had become a fashion. Worst of all, Cecily was not a liar. Georgiana would have felt much better if she was. "I need to find... find my mother. Excuse me, please."

He let her go and regretted it immediately. At the established pace, they would summon the courage for another honest conversation sometime after the spring thaw. Who knew what could happen before then? Fuck me, she's probably back to being polite already.

"Well, that was extraordinarily rude."

"What did you just say?"

Cecily folded her arms across her chest. She wasn't intimidated by Tybalt's ire, and she certainly wasn't impressed with his conversational skills. "I said that was extraordinarily rude."

His face nearly quivered with tension pumped up through the arteries in his neck. "You were the one who interrupted our conversation and implied we have something to talk about. She was being polite."

"I was referring to you."

"What? What did I do?"

"If you had simply had the courtesy to pass along to either of our grandfathers that you are spoken for, we would all be better off. I'm not terribly bothered, other than having wasted my time, but she-"

"I'm glad you're not 'bothered', because I'd rather fall on my sword than marry you." When a smirk showed itself on Cecily's face, he felt his blood shoot up into his head again. There were precious few people who he would tolerate teasing from, and Cecily Nowell was not close to being among them. "And don't look at me like that, either. You don't know the first thing about me or anyone else. Nobody is 'spoken for', and it's none of your damn business if they are."

Cecily could have laughed. Either Tybalt was a true idiot or wallowing in romantic denial, and she was glad to have escaped either possibility. "I may not be interested in love, but I do know what the beginning of it it looks like. There's no shame in it unless you're leading her on. Are you?"

"No, but she... she..."

"Isn't really looking for her mother."

Tybalt made a last, petulant stand. "She could be looking for that uncle of yours."

"I somehow doubt it. Her brother put his foot down about it, and she looked quite happy - at least, what you could see of the mouse behind her brother."

She had argued with him directly the last time she didn't like what he did. To rid herself of Fabian, she had made use of her brother. Tybalt wasn't sure why, but that gave him comfort. He would let the mouse comment go. "Huh."

"Quite so. Well, now that we are in agreement, you'll have to excuse me. I have other candidates to investigate. Lovely speaking at you."

He didn't notice Cecily's departure or the barrage of puzzled looks from Juliette. Though he scanned the crowd carefully, he couldn't spot Georgiana at all. Very likely, she had gone out of the hall, and he couldn't go after her when he had promised Juliette that he would stand guard. He reasoned it might be for the best. He had to think, and it was for sure and certain that he couldn't do that with Georgiana nearby.

Next Post: "Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy."