As happy as Leonor wanted to be about the representation of her and Desmond’s love growing inside her belly, they were in an underground bunker possibly waiting for the city above and around them to be flattened by a dragon. There was no silver lining at that mont.
She had soplace to hide where she would most certainly survive, but Desmond was out there in an unknown environnt. Was he soplace hidden or was he sleeping under the stars and in the line of fire of a possible full-grown dragon?
From what she had been hearing from the occasional guard updating Stephano, the dragon had covered a lot of ground. Guards on the front lines themselves said it was much larger than the corpse they saw of the juvenile dragon. It slowed near the mountains between Burien and Eirenguard, but it occasionally returned, circling the sky as if it was looking for sothing else.
Stephano was burdened wondering if he could have done more to prevent it, but it was Desmond’s charge to investigate the north after the war. His n were the ones who pulled everything out of there and considered it a lost cause until sothing changed.
Well, sothing had certainly changed.
Everyone in the bunker was silent as they waited with baited breath for the next word from the guards. What else was there to do?
Leonor had heard of won being sick through their pregnancies but that wasn’t sothing she had experienced yet. The only sickness she felt was that of worry. It seed like the most normal thing to be feeling at that mont.
Count Braulio had stood up from the couch he shared with his wife when the guards ca back the last ti. Since then, he had been pacing a little bit and, Leonor didn’t want to say anything, but it was putting her on edge.
The count uttered, "I just can’t imagine sothing else hiding out there. There was nothing left."
On that particular pass in front of the duchess, she couldn’t help responding to the words he was saying to himself.
"You went to Letum?" she asked, surprised.
There was a long history of noblen sending their servants or second-born sons to the front lines so they wouldn’t have to risk themselves. Desmond had ranted about that extensively, calling the lot of them cowards. It was justifiable considering he was a victim of it. Leonor’s father did that very thing to him.
"Of course," Braulio said as he stopped and faced his daughter–now confird daughter. "I had retired from the military but when I was summoned, I felt there wasn’t another choice."
"Summoned by..."
She trailed off, not entirely sure she wanted to know the truth.
"His Late Majesty," the count responded simply, though there was a bit of venom in his voice.
She had sensed before that he didn’t particularly like Stephano’s father, but she never pried more than that. He could get into a lot of trouble for even speaking ill of the late king.
However, he didn’t have to because Stephano, who had settled into an armchair and had a fur placed around his shoulders by a maid, stood up, causing it to fall off.
Even though Beth wasn’t one of Stephano’s servants, she still rushed forward to make sure the expensive garnt wasn’t dirtied by the ground. Despite all the adornnts in the place and the walls erected to make it seem like so sort of enclosed house, it was still a dingy tunnel.
"Yes, this Count Braulio retired from the military after my dearest father sent him to Eirenguard to kill children and their families," Stephano said, his voice taking an edge to it that Leonor hadn’t heard in a while. It seed to only co out when he was speaking about his father.
"I didn’t lay a hand on–"
Stephano raised his hand.
"You don’t have to say it to ," he said. "I already cleared the dishonorable discharge from your records, giving you the freedom to command your own troops once again. However, I should stop speaking like this in front of Leonor."
The Duchess widened her eyes at Stephano. He was already flying a bit too close to the sun, in her opinion. It wasn’t the first ti since they left the privacy of one of the rooms that he had tried to tell everyone present that she was with child with his not-so-subtle hinting.
She wasn’t sure why the prospect of everyone knowing her situation was horrifying. These people she was hardly comfortable with outside of Beth and Gideon didn’t need to know the ins and outs of her marriage or how the news to her wasn’t the best at that mont.
If it ca out, she was certain she would get emotional over it.
Count Braulio didn’t think anything of it; instead, he turned to his daughter and beca imdiately concerned. He sat on the couch and reached for one of her hands that had been clenching her skirts in her lap.
"Are you alright, Your Grace?" he asked her. "You must be worried sick. How inconsiderate I’ve been."
He knew the whereabouts of Desmond. Stephano had assured Leonor over and over that Braulio was one of the few original nobles left that he trusted. How interesting that their paths would cross so much more than they were expecting. Even Stephano didn’t know of their connection until he looked into it himself.
"This is the reality so I must pull myself together," she said. "Tis like this I’m ant to be strong for the others."
To her surprise, it wasn’t the count who responded to her, but Countess Micheline.
"The others are not here," she insisted. "You are allowed to take ti to collect yourself before you have to decide how you’ll present yourself to the others."
The burning feeling of a lump forming in her throat as she beca emotional was pushed to the side and Leonor managed to respond, "Thank you, my lady–ah," she stopped herself.
She realized they needed a subject change. Perhaps she would finally do what the count had insisted before.
"I think it’s ti we stopped with the titles if we’re ever ant to get more comfortable with each other as the both of you said before," Leonor said. "I’m not very good at this sort of thing."
She still couldn’t bring herself to disrespect Count Mikael’s na in front of the Marros. They were under the assumption they were close and she didn’t refer to him as "my lord" the way she did. It was only Anna who was allowed to call him father.
"I would be honored," the Count said. "Leonor. What a beautiful na."
Leonor gave the count a sad smile. She was starting to understand why Count Mikael could never say her na with even the slightest bit of affection while, when Count Braulio did it, his words dripped with honeyed affection.
"There’s no better ti than now to get used to saying it."
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