Despite only meeting Gianna a month ago, Julia trusted her newest confidante.

Gianna was her father’s illegitimate daughter, her cousin on her mother’s side, an orphan of a house her grandfather owed a favour to. Gianna was anyone Julia needed her to be. These last few weeks, that meant a companion to dances and balls. A woman could go few places on her own and, for these events, a knight was not exactly suitable accompaniment.

What inexperience Gianna had with dancing mattered little. One could always decline a complicated dance for that reason, to comment on a person’s clumsiness a most boorish thing. After all, who among them, when first attending such events, did not err?

Arriving neither early nor fashionably late, Julia entered the room to a suitable gathering. Such an event couldn’t be too quiet, yet too cramped certainly made dancing awkward, always a delicate balance of guessing how many of the invited would decline. At present, it was lively enough, still with room for those who wished to make a more impressionable entrance.

Within a step of entering, Gianna slipped off, an unremarkable figure in her dress of dark blue and modest design, leaving Julia to greet the room with a bow that, at this busy time, only the hostess saw and acknowledged. Still, that was all that was required of both guest and host for this kind of event.

So she walked along the edge to a quiet spot. Half-looking out the window, she wondered if snow would soon fall. There was a beauty to snow that it could even stop war. Not out of reverence, but for its sheer, unrelenting power.

“Madam, would that I could have the honour of a dance?”

Breaking away her gaze, she turned to the man, a glance all she needed. “Of course.”

Although there was no room to turn away a gentleman without reason at this private affair, he was a suitable partner. His manner of dress was neat and his moustache, while lacking given his youth, was well-kept, face otherwise clean. However, he had room for improvement when it came to tying cravats.

He led her to rather the centre of the room, which was distant to those who would sit out this dance. A rather private place that she guessed was not so much because he sought intimacy, but to avoid embarrassment. His hand felt cold through her glove and it was not like he had invited her to dance in something as challenging as a quadrille.

As it was, he passed the time until the music began with small talk, the kind of thing where he could ask long questions and she could give short answers. “Has madam spent much time in the capital?”

“In earlier years,” she said, not a whisper, but not overly loud. A ball was not the place for secrets nor shouting.

His feet tapped a beat which the music soon disagreed with, stilling him. He took a look around, then at her, his smile strained as he stepped into position.

She held herself with practised grace regardless of how he lightly held her. The dance commencing, she followed his pace, his movements, however wrong she found them. Not that he was a fish out of water, but she felt herself moving unevenly. Steps a little short or long, too quick or slow, spins that sped up or went a little too far. He made that greatest of errors, which was to always try and correct himself, no rhythm to his movements.

Still, she followed, keeping her balance close and her smile gentle. Oh he winced and gave apologies and, at times, held on to a grimace for a few steps before realising, but he had yet to stumble nor tread on her toes, making him far from her worst partner in these recent weeks.

While rude to think of another man at such a time, she couldn’t help but reminisce of the boy who had once been her fiancé. How little they had been, how petulant, yet the Queen had thought it important that, of all their dance partners, they should be most comfortable dancing together. So danced they had, young and clumsy. For every mocking word he spoke, she had practised alone at night, desperate to live up to the expectations of the fiancé her beloved father had picked for her.

How wonderful it must be to be married, she had thought, for her father had been so broken by her mother’s death.

Drifting between past and present, she suitably followed through the dance to the song’s end. While he had perhaps considered asking for an encore, at a reminder of the next dance being a quadrille, he rather hurriedly walked her back, his pace on the verge of rudeness.

Once where he had found her, over by the window, he seemed to remember his place. “Would madam care for a drink?”

Her eyes drifted across the crowd, making no show of anything she saw therein. “Not at this time, sir,” she said.

He accepted her answer with a smile and left, not good for a man to hang around. One could not simply stay alone for long at such an affair, though, halfway through the next dance another hopeful partner approaching—leaving an invitation to the last moment another thing to avoid, rushing to take position quite crass.

However, this man was no stranger. His smile broad, he said, “My Lady, what a coincidence!”

“Count Hulma, my good neighbour, it is wonderful to see you,” she said, giving a curtsey.

“Please, we are nowhere so formal,” he said, waving her off, then clapped his hands together. “This is a place of dancing, no? Would My Lady care to give me the honour?”

She brought up her hand, tittering behind her glove. “Pray accept my apology, the next dance holds some… memories,” she said, her voice growing soft at the end, but then she looked over and seemed to notice someone. “My acquaintance looks in need of a dance, the young miss in a mazarine blue dress.”

He looked over, seeming to struggle to tell which exact shade that meant, but helped by there being a woman on her own in a dress of dark blue.

“I would do My Lord the honour of the dance after, if he so wishes,” she said.

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Turning around, he gave her a smile. “Pray do not reserve it for we shall have all evening to find another time.”

Her lips wished to curl, but she held to the gentle smile. “Of course.”

With that, he was off as swiftly as he had arrived. She watched for a moment that he suitably met the recommended partner, then turned back to the window, falling into thought.

The young bachelor certainly enjoyed such occasions if only to tease his father. How she had addressed him a courtesy, he was unlanded at present, the heir to a French duchy and some holdings in the empire—one of many with complicated matters of fealty. However, he had quite the strained relationship with his family, so he liked to play this side of the border. Such a care-free life could only go on until his father died, though, at which point he would receive the responsibilities of his station.

Of course, if he died without heir, then the situation would become awkward. The sort of matter that left room for kings to intervene. However, he was still young. There was, in his eyes, no need to rush.

Julia blended in for the duration of the song that supposedly brought back memories, then made herself available, finding a few more dances. That did not include the bachelor’s return.

As she was walked back after a particular brisk waltz, her gaze passed over someone.

“Would madam like a drink?” the man asked, lingering a step away.

“A wine would be most appreciated at this time—red,” she said, then gave him a small curtsey. “My thanks.”

“My honour,” he replied with a smile.

It took him only a moment to grab a suitable glass from the nearby table, bringing it back with the utmost care, few in attendance unaware of what harm such a drink could bring to such dainty dresses, especially hers which was a pale yellow.

She smiled in thanks, accepting the carefully offered glass. “Sir is too kind.”

“How can one be too kind in doing what should be done?” he said lightly.

She took a sip, the flavour lingering on her tongue. No more was said, but he did not leave, his duty to remain until she finished. However, he did not stand too close nor did he stare at her. Rules upon rules.

This night, though, he would have no need to return the glass.

One moment, there was dancing and cheer, and the next there was chaos. The kind that started and spread until it engulfed the entire room, and it began with a woman striding along the edge of the room.

“How could you!”

With that shout, Isabelle snatched Julia’s glass, spilling half the wine on her dress, then Isabelle tried to throw the rest at Julia’s face, but the half-hearted wine fell somewhat short, mostly landing onto her chest and stomach.

Julia made no attempt to keep hold of her glass nor avoid the wine, instead taking out a handkerchief and dabbing away the few drops that had splashed onto her neck.

Sparing him a glance, she was quite amused at the poor man’s expression. No doubt, the handful of books on ball-room etiquette made no mention of such incidents, and he surely knew better than to lay hands on a woman at even such a time—if he was so inclined to help her.

“My father trusted you and you betrayed him!”

Julia folded her handkerchief, putting it away. It was not as if a dirtied handkerchief would ruin the dress any more. “He trusted me because I am trustworthy. While I dislike speaking ill of the dead, between the Duke of Bohemia and the Marquess of Bavaria, I found the Marquess more trustworthy.”

This was not a place of only the noblest, hard-pressed to gather a hundred-odd of such people for such social occasions; however, they were all well-to-do people of the capital, people who knew names and titles if not faces. The kind of people who heard rumours and news of the war, yet could not rightly say which were rumours and which were truths. So which of them did not wish to hear more?

Besides, thrown wine could hardly be rung back into the glass.

“You—are we not friends?” Isabelle asked, a genuine pain in her voice. “Is this how you would repay our friendship?”

“I am now a countess before I am your friend,” Julia answered, her hands resting over her stomach with a tremble, yet her expression held firm. “That aside, I could not abide by what your father asked me to do.”

A touch of fear cooled Isabelle’s anger, but only slightly, her voice still heated as she asked, “Why must you continue to slander him?”

“He wished for me to pretend to be Lord Bavaria’s ally so his family would seek refuge with me, then take them hostage to force his surrender. Hate me if you must, but to be his accomplice in such an act—my conscience couldn’t bear it,” Julia said, her turn to sound pained. “Could I refuse? I am simply a countess with no one to support me. Hate me, yet I shan’t accept your blame. Blame Lord Bavaria for being the one to strike your father down, blame your father for being the one to begin the war that became his own undoing, but why should I accept such blame?”

Isabelle had never seen Julia like this before, even the righteous anger telling her this was all a trick sounding muted. It was all so convincing—the words, the emotions.

Looking down, Julia took in a shaky breath. As if a spell had been cast upon her, the tremors that had rattled her now stopped at once, an eerie calm coming over her. “We are making a scene,” she said, not quite a whisper, but quiet. Raising her head, she picked out a particular face in the crowd almost instantly. “My apologies for the disturbance, Lady Stuttberg,” she loudly said, bowing her head as she did. “Please, do send an invoice to my estate and I would understand if I am not invited to the next event.”

Although she finished with a light-hearted laugh, only a few chuckled at her joke.

There was no more that needed saying, so she gave her last dance partner an apologetic smile, then walked out the large room. No one stopped her. The help assisted her with putting on her shawl, by the time she finished her companion to the event waiting for her.

Outside, a chill greeted her, all the fiercer with her damp dress. At the least, her carriage was already pulling up at this moment.

“My Lady, wear this,” Gianna said.

She didn’t resist as the fur coat was draped over her shoulders and then tied at the front. “My thanks, Gianna.”

“No thanks are necessary from My Lady,” she whispered, taking care in tying the coat’s belt.

Silence as they waited that little more, as they ascended into the carriage, as they set off for what Julia now called home in the capital. With suitable noise from the wheels, she whispered to Gianna, “Did you find the ring I dropped?”

“I am afraid I didn’t, My Lady.”

Julia softly smiled. “Oh well, such things are not worth missing.”

The short trip soon over, they entered the modest townhouse. Julia was attended to by the maids as Gianna retired. There was dinner, there were letters the butler had sorted for her, containing news of her fief and bland monologues from the mayor and invitations to some events happening over the coming weeks, accompanied by notes of expected guests also drawn up by the butler.

In the last hours of the day, long after the wintry sun had set, she wrote replies to the letters and wrote letters of her own. There were no drafts nor crossing out of words nor hesitations, every letter planned out in her mind before ink touched paper.

So it was that, when a knock came late at night, she was still awake.

“Enter,” she loudly said.

The butler opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind, then made his announcement. “There was a great fuss at Count Hulma’s residence. It seems he had some kind of episode, unclear at this time what state he is in.”

“Oh my, that is a shame,” she said, carrying on with her letter as she spoke. “If we are appraised of the situation by the morning, I shall certainly wish to send an appropriate message to whomever it may concern.”

“I shall make a considerate enquiry first thing tomorrow,” he said.

She gave a small nod, then dismissed him with a wave of her other hand; he left with barely a sound.

Once she finished the current letter, she smiled to herself. Any doubts she might have had before, she knew in that moment she had made the right choice: Gianna belonged to her. She could be anyone Julia needed her to be. A servant, a companion, a murderer—anyone.