In the end, Lucas presented her four choices, one that was heavy on lavender and evercrimson, two that were more fruity than anything, and the first one he’d greeted. He needn’t have bothered, though. As it turned out, Danaria liked the first one he made most of all, and took to wearing it almost every day after that. She acknowledged that one of the other fruity ones was okay but decided he should go back to the drawing board on the other two.

It did seem to make her prettier, though. That was the good news. He wasn’t quite sure how, of course, because she didn’t look any different, but when she wore this scent, he somehow felt more drawn to her than he had before.

The bad news was that she now insisted that they make the time to go into the city and find some customers for some of the beauty products he’d made, despite his plans or the weather. “I know you, Lucas Parin,” she said mischievously. “You won’t follow up on this seriously until you find a way to make money off of it. Surely one of the brothels in Lordanin or perhaps some of the noble wives of some of your other customers would be interested?”

“If you add public hanging as the third option, I think I’ll pick that one,” he laughed, even though Danaria didn’t think it was funny.

Truthfully, both of those options sounded absolutely wretched to him. After the way they left things, it would probably be fine to approach the Red Lantern Gang about another deal, of course, especially if he offered up a little Blue to sweeten the pot. The very last thing he ever wanted to do was go door to door, shilling products like the Avon lady.

Hello, can interest you in this perfume of transcendent attraction, or perhaps you’d prefer mouthwash of +3 to kissing… It would hurt his soul. Though he was sure there were snake oil alchemists that made their living just fine going from town to town to pitch miracle cures from brightly colored wagons, even they would draw the line at pedaling beauty cream to rich women. At least, he hoped they would.

“You have to do something with all this,” she insisted. “What would you do if not sell it?”

Give it to you so you walk around smelling nice, he thought, but he viciously repressed the thought so as not to say it. Instead, eventually, he relented and sent a messenger into town to seek out decision-makers at the Fallen Orchid, where word had it that Artesia Dannica, who’d headed that delegation to his drug auction so long ago, could be found.

He’d expected her to play hard to get, but though she didn’t quite come out and say it, her reply contained a number of detailed questions that revealed just how interested she might be in such products. That made sense; when your business was flesh merchant, you wanted your girls to be as pretty as possible. Really, what those girls probably needed was potions of cure disease, he thought with a chuckle. Maybe he’d throw in some of those on the house.

Eventually, after three more exchanges, they agreed on a date the following market day, and he was invited to the Orchid directly. The date worked for him because he needed to meet once more with the Knights of Brass anyway. The only problem was that Danaria wanted to tag along.

“I am not taking you into a whore house,” Lucas insisted, banging the table and making Adin laugh as she brought up the topic once more over dinner.

“But… that’s not fair,” she pleaded. “Adin gets to participate in your operations. Why can’t I at least help with the beauty part?”

“Adin isn’t doing shit besides preparing for his upcoming wedding,” Lucas said with a scowl, making the Viscout laugh again. “And you… I could list a dozen reasons. You’re a woman. You’re a virgin. You’re unmarried…” As Lucas spoke, he listed them off one finger at a time. “It would be entirely disreputable.”

“Some women do, you know,” Adin said with a smile as he stirred the pot. “Lady Vermilia. Lord Rothin’s younger sister. It’s been seen and discussed, but they were able to keep it secret for a while with cloaks and masks. If you ask me, women have needs too, perhaps—”

“See,” Danaria interrupted, “I could wear a disguise.”

Lucas sighed loudly and rubbed his face in exasperation. Eventually, they agreed on a compromise. Danaria could go with him into town and visit the Knights of Brass with him, but when Mort dropped him off at the Orchid, she was staying with him, and that was the end of it. The noblewoman was disappointed but eventually agreed.

Lucas felt bad babying her like this. He wasn’t her husband or her father, but he’d feel even worse if she picked up some terrible habit from the women in those places; she was much too sheltered to be shown that wide of a world at once.

Of course, Lucas expected that if he went to the small courtyard, he expected that Sir Tristin would pit him against one of his squires or perhaps a lieutenant if he wanted to embarrass him, so he was glad he’d spent so much time the last few months practicing his sword fighting techniques. That was doubly true since Danaria would be there with him this time, which meant that juicing was probably in order, he decided as he got ready that morning.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He’d deliberately avoided taking flasks of endurance or strength during his training to improve as much as possible, but faced with professionals, he saw no reason not to take every edge he could. So, after he chose an outfit complete with a doublet thick enough that it could serve as an arming jacket if need be, the two of them shared a light breakfast and then made their way into town.

“Have you been avoiding me?” Danaria asked as soon as his men had loaded both deliveries he planned on making and the carriage had left the driveway for the snowy road, letting him know it was going to be a long ride. She didn’t ask the question so loudly that Mort or the other man they had traveling with them as a guard could hear them, but the words rang in Lucas’s ears all the same.

“Of course not,” he lied. “I’ve just been busy. That’s all.”

“Well, it’s just that… Since that night, I’ve just been wondering what you think about… us, but I never got a good chance to ask you because you were never around,” she said with nervous, halting words.

To Lucas, it was as honest and forthright a conversation since Brianna Killpatrick had passed him a note in the third grade that asked, ‘Do you like me?’ with two little check boxes labeled yes and no just beneath it. The whole thing was heartbreakingly adorable, but the last thing he wanted to do was break Danaria’s heart.

“Look, that was a mistake,” Lucas said, looking up at her to keep her from making this any more awkward than it had to be. He saw a look of disappointment cover her features immediately, but he took one of her hands in both of his to reassure her. “It was a mistake, but it was a welcome one, and I’m glad it happened. That said, if you and I ever want to try… courtship, or whatever it is you call it here, it has to be done the right way, alright? You said so yourself, you can’t be with a man that peddles poison, but maybe in the future, I can be less of that guy and more of the guy you want me to be, alright?”

That reassured her somewhat, and they talked about things for a while longer without any real change in the status quo. Well, no change, save for the fact that they held hands most of the way to the city gate. Lucas honestly couldn’t say where this was going exactly, but he wanted it to go somewhere, eventually.

The guards didn’t so much as challenge a high-born carriage, and they rolled into town across the market district to Blacksmith's Row without any issues. On the way there, Lucas saw a single warehouse that had been almost entirely leveled by fire and wondered if that had been the one he’d burned down. The snow made it look less ugly, but it was still a horrible gap in an otherwise neat row of buildings.

When Lucas reached the small courtyard, the guards there offered him only slightly more of a challenge than the city guards had, and that was likely only because he hadn’t come into town himself in person for months. Instead, they only sent two men to retrieve the keg of watered-down Blue he’d brought with him in the secret compartment beneath the seats.

“Ah, if it isn’t Mister Blue, come to pay us another visit after all this time,” Sir Tristin said, rising to his feet and shaking his hand warmly. It wasn’t hard to see why. The man was more gold than before, and his inner circle seemed better armed. Even if they were only getting the dregs of Lucas’s business, they were still making a lot of money. “And who’s this lovely creature,” the grey-haired knight said, bending low to kiss Danaria’s hand in a way that caused an unexpected twinge of jealousy.

“She’s my cousin,” Lucas answered stiffly, “and after I took care of business here I promised to buy her something nice on Market Street.”

“You’re cousin, huh?” he asked with a lascivious grin that showed he’d gotten entirely the wrong idea. “Well, don’t you have great taste in family then? Would you care to show us if you’ve gotten rusty over the winter, or is your… shopping… too urgent?”

“Bring it on,” Lucas growled, letting his annoyance leak out. “Maybe this time we should go with the blunted steel blades instead of the wooden ones, so you can really check for rust.”

“Splendid,” Sir Tristin said, clapping his hands together. “I think that Maerik will be an excellent test of your skills.”

As Lucas put on a set of chain mail, Danaria took a seat amongst the Knights of Brass inner circle, not far from a warming brazier, and even before Lucas sent Mort over there to babysit her, he noted the other men sat a respectful distance from her. That was good because if one of them tried something, he was going to have to murder someone.

Murder would not be required, though, as it turned out. Instead, the situation only demanded brute force, and the apprentice that they sent out to fight him was put on his back almost immediately as Lucas locked shields with him and then tripped the young man.

That drew a mixture of cheers and boos, which he’d expected, but all he really cared about there was the way that Danaria smiled as she clapped at his win. After that, they sent him against a man named Luther, and when Lucas beat him, there was a Cedrin.

The first two had been younger men, still very much in training. They were probably in better shape than Lucas, but they were hopped up on potions after weeks of private tutoring, and his reflexes, along with Sir Milen’s most annoying moves, were what won the day in those cases.

Cedrin, though, was a hard-bitten man with enough scars to show that he’d fought in some real battles, and he put Lucas on his back foot immediately with a series of well-timed blows that made Lucas’s shield all but useless. So, he cast it aside. He hated the thing anyway, and there was no way that his sword could keep up with his opponents using a one-handed grip.

What followed was the first and only real sword fight of the morning as the two exchanged a flurry of blows. Steel rang out against steel over and over in the yard until all the other small fights and distractions stopped to watch.

Lucas could parry his dance instructor’s blows with reasonable success now, but the man was so fast that he’d never managed to block more than two or three in a row. This morning, though… Well, Lucas didn’t know if it was because Cedrin was a little slower or the potions made Lucas a little faster, but each attack was stopped, as it became a battle of will as much as anything.

In the end, it wasn’t Lucas's potions or his talent that won that match, but the ice. He took a step forward, and Cedrin took a step back, and when his foot landed on an icy cobble, the thing was done. Lucas felt a little bad about that, but not so bad not to take the victory and then help the man to his feet with a grin.

“Next time, we’ll fight in good weather,” the older man growled, but Lucas just nodded. Next time they fought, he’d be even better than he was today; he was sure of it.