Cold. The dark cavern in which Maiselle crawled was ghastly cold. Periodically a gust of freezing air would rush into the myriad barred niches, having drawn the eternal damp from the cavern's rock walls along the mile that it had to traverse from outside to the darkest vaults of the cave. The outside...she let out a screeching sound, much like that of nails raked along a blackboard. It was immediately followed by other sounds: howls, bellows, panicked screams from the women who had only recently come here, all of them bouncing off the cavern walls, a cacophony of echoes that no one but the prisoners would hear. She coughed and convulsed, doubled over in her misery. She rubbed her forehead on the uncaring stone floor, and saw her yellowed skin be grinded to dust by her movement. The pain did not register. It had ceased doing so a long time ago. She had guttered out like a candle, a blossom fallen onto a stream of lava. Maiselle was no more: Maiselle only lived on in her memory, and on the rare occasions that
he
paid her a visit.
"An angel of mercy descended upon us decadent demons of the aristocracy", he said with only the barest hint of sarcasm in his warm voice. Maiselle had heard worse compliments in her time, yet it would take more than a hasty piece of adoration to impress her. Most men expected the ladies of the court to blanche upon being looked at in a lewd fashion (as was often the case when Maiselle frequented salons and ballrooms), but the man lacked that hungry look in his eyes. At least until now. Maiselle took a deep breath and folded her arms under her bosom, making their soft flesh rise to even grander proportions, taking a candid pleasure out of the flash of mulled pain as her corset dug deeper into her skin. She tore at the lacy boundaries of etiquette, as much as her looks constantly taunted the height of fashion. Where all of the other ladies at court were thin and waif-like, Maiselle maintained the buxom features of a commoner, with enough tell-tale hints of sultriness to confirm this. She also had no need to exaggerate the size of her bosom like the other women: the Lord had blessed her with firm breasts that were a bit too heavy for her height, yet she loved the dramatic effect of the corset. All the more for how a tight waist would further highlight her wide hips, which she wore proudly. Propriety be damned, Maiselle knew what all men wanted, regardless of what colour her blood was.
She shook her brown curls out of her face and locked the stranger's eyes with her own, piercing jade daring dark brown to come up with another fruitless attempt to get some tail. He had a somewhat cultivated ruggedness to him. Only the slightest shade of beard growth stood on his square, powerful jaw, a single deep groove cut into the swarthy skin of his forehead, with his own thick brown hair tied back with a grey ribbon. She also noticed that the lace that came from underneath his grey and jacket was slightly yellowed, which took away some of the beauty displayed by the rich black embroidery that festooned his jacket and breeches.
The man merely leaned back against the wall, looking around the ballroom where some of the other guests were already taking in interest in what Maiselle what do to him, the poor fellow. They had already seen it happen too often, and most women, and some of the men, had grown to hate her for it. Maiselle had a
reputation
, and stories about her hard-to-get behaviour were rife. She would have turned down the steward of the king, commenting wryly afterward that he was "inadequate, even after my tender administrations". The poor man had killed himself a week later, having flung himself into the river Seine. She was rumoured to visit skid row, taking on multiple men at once, and that she would demand to eat all of their seed so that she could go on all night. Of course she had added to these rumours herself in the past, discussing the merits of sodomy where this was not
de rigeur
, for example. Whether or not this man was familiar with all of these stories, she could not see. He disregarded her show of annoyance and smiled, rather beautifully.
"It seems that a great score of people present here tonight desire to be in your presence, mademoiselle" he said dryly. Maiselle snorted and flashed a feline smile of her own." I like to think most of them would love to be in my presence, but refrain from doing so for fear of being tainted by whatever disease they think I might have", she proffered. "Are you afraid of the taint, monsieur...?"
The man only gave a curt nod, eschewing the hand-kissing and all of the other sickening rules of propriety. A quaint diversion, she thought to herself.
"I am the Comte du Froid, mademoiselle Maiselle. And honoured and not afraid to be tainted by your presence, if I may add such a forward comment." She laughed, delighted at the subtle wit which seemed to sneak into every word the Count uttered. She offered him her hand, nails lacquered ruby-red. "The pleasure is mutual, Comte. Perhaps we can taint the entire assembly this evening. It would take some of the weight off my shoulders." She curtsied as he leant down to kiss her hands, as etiquette commands.
But the feeling Maiselle got was far from proper. As the count's lips fell upon her hand, she felt her skin prickling and
she got aroused.
It wasn't even the common tingle she would get before she allowed a brusque labourer to feel her up, let alone the feeble fluttering of love's butterfly wings. It was pure lust, a wanton feeling that made her swallow a whimper and heated the inside of her thighs below the deep blue silk and pristine white lace of her dress. It took her some moments to compose her thoughts (and even more so, her yearnings) before she realised the man had withdrawn from her hand, his face full of worry.
