Persuasions - Part 5
Persuasions Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
INFO:
Setting: Hyel's Age of Sail 'Verse.
Characters: Polly, Mal, OCs.
Rating: B (Still quite tame, I'm afraid).
Wordcount: 1,522 words.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
In-Which There is Much Sneaking Around and the Stealing Purloining Having a Lend of Some Documents of Interest.
~*~
Polly is wearing a lavender dress, appropriate for early spring and, conveniently, also for half-mourning. Her hair is just barely long enough to twist into something vaguely Grecian if she flattens the stray tendrils with a length of broad white ribbon. Delicate, embroidered slippers. A gossamer shawl.
This is so stupid.
She wonders, privately, why they have to go through the pretence of attending a society party when they could simply don buckskins and work shirts and get in through the servants’ entrance, carrying a side of beef or something. She longs for trousers, a soft cloth cap, anything that isn’t this delicate, embroidered cambrazine gown with its lace edging that can catch and tear. She wishes she could be Oliver again, a scrappy, hungry kid in ill-fitting third-hand clothes, practically wetting herself in terror but at least not bored.
Isn’t there some other way?
If they have proof - or at least statements - that the Master-Commander is a… person of interest… in a situation that’s a threat to the crown, why are they not simply turning this over to Buckingham Palace? Why all this sneaking around in the dark?
She pulls on her long, white gloves, and turns to go.
“Do you dance, Miss Margaret?” The question comes more often than Polly can politely decline and, when it comes from the evening’s host, she knows that she mustn’t.
“I’d be delighted, sir,” she answers, offering as winning a smile as she can manage. This is part of the job, the innocent girl hanging on his every word, the charming young lady, so like his own daughters. By the end of the dance, she is laughing and gasping, a little out of breath.
“Another turn around the floor?”
“I must beg your pardon, sir,” she gasps, still smiling, “But my delicate constitution demands that I take a rest. You must dance with one of your daughters - they’ve done nothing but talk of missing you these past weeks.”
It’s enough. Enough for her to slip away quietly, fan herself briefly outside the ballroom, and then slip further away down the long hall, and then left towards the study.
A hiss from the shadows, and then Mal is beside her.
“Is our host occupied?” she whispers, barely more than a breath.
“I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t,” Polly answers, just as softly.
Mal nods, distracted, focused on the task at hand.
“They’ll be in one of two places,” she goes on. “Most likely.”
Most likely?
Polly checks over her shoulder, then follows Mal through a door which, thankfully, has well-greased hinges, and into a dark room. A little moonlight comes through the window, and a little lamplight comes through the half-closed door, enough to give the impression of book-lined shelves, a broad desk, a dark shape that might have been a wingback chair. She can feel the ghost of heat that is probably a parlour stove.
Polly takes up position against the wall, just outside the spill of the hallway’s lamplight. She can feel a chilly protrusion against her hip and realizes she’s leaning against some sort of cupboard.
“Mal,” she breathes, glancing over her shoulder.
“Yes?”
How you can see anything in this gloom…
“There’s a cupboard here.”
“I know,” Mal answers. “Keeps his rifle in it. Coats. That sort of thing.”
Polly eases her fingers along the seam of the door, feeling where the hinges are, how tall the cupboard is.
I suppose this is our hiding place, if it comes to that.
She risks rooking away from the door, has to blink as her eyes adjust to the dark. She sees Mal feeling around the underside of the desk.
“Had any luck?”
Mal doesn’t pause, but her head lifts, in the dark.
“Think we’d still be here if I had?” She eases open a wooden drawer.
Polly is impressed. Desk drawers catch and squeak almost as a matter of course-
She shakes her head, remembering that she has a job to do, too, and turns back to the door.
There is no-one, thank goodness, coming down the hall. No servant on her way to the kitchen, no distracted guest searching for the privy.
Polly breathes out. Behind her, she can hear Mal sifting through papers. She strains her ears, trying to hear around corners, listening for footsteps, for voices. She can hear the not too distant sound of the ball, laughter and fiddles, and applause. And she’s here, in the dark, doing what needs to be done so a traitor can have a proper trial with evidence instead of an unfortunate accident. Five daughters and a wife to widow. There will be such a scandal, too…
Polly shakes her head. How is this way any better than a sword slash to the throat? If she thinks about it, it’s probably worse, but she can’t risk thinking on it now.
Oh, no…
“Mal,” she hisses.
It’s probably nothing, she tells herself, Probably nothing.
A man in working trousers has just come ‘round the corner into Polly’s line of sight. It’s probably nothing. But he’s carrying an armload of kindling.
She keeps her voice low. “Someone’s coming.”
Polly fumbles with the cupboard door, hears the sound of a drawer being slid back into place. Quick as a heartbeat, Mal is beside her and they are wedging themselves awkwardly into the narrow space. Polly wads the fabric of her dress into her fist to keep it from catching on the door. She can feel the heavy, useless weight of a rifle - doubtless unloaded - wedged beside her in the dark. She squeezes herself thin as possible, trying to make room for Mal in the narrow space, trying to keep quiet. Mal finds space for herself, one knee wedged between Polly and the cupboard door, one elbow resting on Polly’s shoulder, the other arm reaching around her, pulling the door shut. Polly’s elbow knocks against the wall-
Hollow!
-But, even as the cupboard door swings closed, lamplight spills into the room, and there’s no time left to follow that thought. Polly tries not to breathe. Her heart is pounding so loudly, blood rushing in her ears, that she’s sure it can be heard. She can feel Mal’s breath, fast and shallow, on her cheek. She is fairly certain that she can use the rifle as a bludgeon without actually killing anyone, if she has to.
Outside, she can hear movement; the clatter of tumbled wood, the hiss of a struck match. How long does it take to build a fire?
It occurs to Polly that, perhaps, it mightn’t have been such a good idea to spend quite so much time with the Pemberleighs. There is a chance this servant, if he opens his master’s closet, will know who they are. Had they been strangers, mere nodding acquaintances to their hosts, Polly would only be a whore with her skirts raised, Mal would only be the worst kind of rogue. There would only be a scandal, and scandal, Polly knows, she can bear.
After hours, it seems, of waiting, of silent, breathless, terror, she hears the man leave, feels Mal breathe out against her neck. Still, she doesn’t move. They wait in silence for a moment longer, Polly counting to thirty in her head before daring to do so much as move.
Mal pushes the door open with careful fingers. Slowly, they disentangle themselves.
“The wall,” Polly whispers, when they are finally free. “Keep watch!”
She turns back to the cupboard, and feels carefully around the inside. Her heart leaps when a knothole gives under her fingers. It takes a little struggle, every second gnawing at her mind, but the board is loose and light when it lifts in her hands and there is a narrow space behind it, just wide enough to hold…
“I think I found them.”
She pulls a few papers out of the hole: Letters with cracked seals; a map to the inside of some building or other; a list.
“This is them,” Mal hisses.
Polly works the hidden panel back into place.
“Let me see you,” Mal says, as Polly, closes the cupboard door.
“What? Why?”
“Show me your gloves,” comes the answer.
Polly lifts her hands and nearly curses when she sees the state of them. Dark oil staining the side of a little finger, dusty smudges along the palm and fingertips. At least the worst of it is only on one glove.
“I’ll keep my shawl over it,” she promises. “I’m shy, remember? It’s all gotten a bit much for me.”
Mal nods.
“I shall have to make our excuses and retire for the evening,” Mal says, tucking the documents carefully into her waistcoat. “Speaking of,” she opens the study door a fraction further, peering into the hallway. Polly listens attentively, trying to catch the sound of anything other than the party.
“Find the Colonel,” Polly suggests. “Let him know I’m looking a little faint and that he should see to his ward. I’ll be collapsed on the bench back down the hall.”
“Consider it done,” Mal says. Her grin is a knife-flash in the dark, and then she’s gone.
~*~
Hope you enjoyed. :-)
Part 6
TTFN,
Amazon.
INFO:
Setting: Hyel's Age of Sail 'Verse.
Characters: Polly, Mal, OCs.
Rating: B (Still quite tame, I'm afraid).
Wordcount: 1,522 words.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
In-Which There is Much Sneaking Around and the Stealing Purloining Having a Lend of Some Documents of Interest.
~*~
Polly is wearing a lavender dress, appropriate for early spring and, conveniently, also for half-mourning. Her hair is just barely long enough to twist into something vaguely Grecian if she flattens the stray tendrils with a length of broad white ribbon. Delicate, embroidered slippers. A gossamer shawl.
This is so stupid.
She wonders, privately, why they have to go through the pretence of attending a society party when they could simply don buckskins and work shirts and get in through the servants’ entrance, carrying a side of beef or something. She longs for trousers, a soft cloth cap, anything that isn’t this delicate, embroidered cambrazine gown with its lace edging that can catch and tear. She wishes she could be Oliver again, a scrappy, hungry kid in ill-fitting third-hand clothes, practically wetting herself in terror but at least not bored.
Isn’t there some other way?
If they have proof - or at least statements - that the Master-Commander is a… person of interest… in a situation that’s a threat to the crown, why are they not simply turning this over to Buckingham Palace? Why all this sneaking around in the dark?
She pulls on her long, white gloves, and turns to go.
“Do you dance, Miss Margaret?” The question comes more often than Polly can politely decline and, when it comes from the evening’s host, she knows that she mustn’t.
“I’d be delighted, sir,” she answers, offering as winning a smile as she can manage. This is part of the job, the innocent girl hanging on his every word, the charming young lady, so like his own daughters. By the end of the dance, she is laughing and gasping, a little out of breath.
“Another turn around the floor?”
“I must beg your pardon, sir,” she gasps, still smiling, “But my delicate constitution demands that I take a rest. You must dance with one of your daughters - they’ve done nothing but talk of missing you these past weeks.”
It’s enough. Enough for her to slip away quietly, fan herself briefly outside the ballroom, and then slip further away down the long hall, and then left towards the study.
A hiss from the shadows, and then Mal is beside her.
“Is our host occupied?” she whispers, barely more than a breath.
“I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t,” Polly answers, just as softly.
Mal nods, distracted, focused on the task at hand.
“They’ll be in one of two places,” she goes on. “Most likely.”
Most likely?
Polly checks over her shoulder, then follows Mal through a door which, thankfully, has well-greased hinges, and into a dark room. A little moonlight comes through the window, and a little lamplight comes through the half-closed door, enough to give the impression of book-lined shelves, a broad desk, a dark shape that might have been a wingback chair. She can feel the ghost of heat that is probably a parlour stove.
Polly takes up position against the wall, just outside the spill of the hallway’s lamplight. She can feel a chilly protrusion against her hip and realizes she’s leaning against some sort of cupboard.
“Mal,” she breathes, glancing over her shoulder.
“Yes?”
How you can see anything in this gloom…
“There’s a cupboard here.”
“I know,” Mal answers. “Keeps his rifle in it. Coats. That sort of thing.”
Polly eases her fingers along the seam of the door, feeling where the hinges are, how tall the cupboard is.
I suppose this is our hiding place, if it comes to that.
She risks rooking away from the door, has to blink as her eyes adjust to the dark. She sees Mal feeling around the underside of the desk.
“Had any luck?”
Mal doesn’t pause, but her head lifts, in the dark.
“Think we’d still be here if I had?” She eases open a wooden drawer.
Polly is impressed. Desk drawers catch and squeak almost as a matter of course-
She shakes her head, remembering that she has a job to do, too, and turns back to the door.
There is no-one, thank goodness, coming down the hall. No servant on her way to the kitchen, no distracted guest searching for the privy.
Polly breathes out. Behind her, she can hear Mal sifting through papers. She strains her ears, trying to hear around corners, listening for footsteps, for voices. She can hear the not too distant sound of the ball, laughter and fiddles, and applause. And she’s here, in the dark, doing what needs to be done so a traitor can have a proper trial with evidence instead of an unfortunate accident. Five daughters and a wife to widow. There will be such a scandal, too…
Polly shakes her head. How is this way any better than a sword slash to the throat? If she thinks about it, it’s probably worse, but she can’t risk thinking on it now.
Oh, no…
“Mal,” she hisses.
It’s probably nothing, she tells herself, Probably nothing.
A man in working trousers has just come ‘round the corner into Polly’s line of sight. It’s probably nothing. But he’s carrying an armload of kindling.
She keeps her voice low. “Someone’s coming.”
Polly fumbles with the cupboard door, hears the sound of a drawer being slid back into place. Quick as a heartbeat, Mal is beside her and they are wedging themselves awkwardly into the narrow space. Polly wads the fabric of her dress into her fist to keep it from catching on the door. She can feel the heavy, useless weight of a rifle - doubtless unloaded - wedged beside her in the dark. She squeezes herself thin as possible, trying to make room for Mal in the narrow space, trying to keep quiet. Mal finds space for herself, one knee wedged between Polly and the cupboard door, one elbow resting on Polly’s shoulder, the other arm reaching around her, pulling the door shut. Polly’s elbow knocks against the wall-
Hollow!
-But, even as the cupboard door swings closed, lamplight spills into the room, and there’s no time left to follow that thought. Polly tries not to breathe. Her heart is pounding so loudly, blood rushing in her ears, that she’s sure it can be heard. She can feel Mal’s breath, fast and shallow, on her cheek. She is fairly certain that she can use the rifle as a bludgeon without actually killing anyone, if she has to.
Outside, she can hear movement; the clatter of tumbled wood, the hiss of a struck match. How long does it take to build a fire?
It occurs to Polly that, perhaps, it mightn’t have been such a good idea to spend quite so much time with the Pemberleighs. There is a chance this servant, if he opens his master’s closet, will know who they are. Had they been strangers, mere nodding acquaintances to their hosts, Polly would only be a whore with her skirts raised, Mal would only be the worst kind of rogue. There would only be a scandal, and scandal, Polly knows, she can bear.
After hours, it seems, of waiting, of silent, breathless, terror, she hears the man leave, feels Mal breathe out against her neck. Still, she doesn’t move. They wait in silence for a moment longer, Polly counting to thirty in her head before daring to do so much as move.
Mal pushes the door open with careful fingers. Slowly, they disentangle themselves.
“The wall,” Polly whispers, when they are finally free. “Keep watch!”
She turns back to the cupboard, and feels carefully around the inside. Her heart leaps when a knothole gives under her fingers. It takes a little struggle, every second gnawing at her mind, but the board is loose and light when it lifts in her hands and there is a narrow space behind it, just wide enough to hold…
“I think I found them.”
She pulls a few papers out of the hole: Letters with cracked seals; a map to the inside of some building or other; a list.
“This is them,” Mal hisses.
Polly works the hidden panel back into place.
“Let me see you,” Mal says, as Polly, closes the cupboard door.
“What? Why?”
“Show me your gloves,” comes the answer.
Polly lifts her hands and nearly curses when she sees the state of them. Dark oil staining the side of a little finger, dusty smudges along the palm and fingertips. At least the worst of it is only on one glove.
“I’ll keep my shawl over it,” she promises. “I’m shy, remember? It’s all gotten a bit much for me.”
Mal nods.
“I shall have to make our excuses and retire for the evening,” Mal says, tucking the documents carefully into her waistcoat. “Speaking of,” she opens the study door a fraction further, peering into the hallway. Polly listens attentively, trying to catch the sound of anything other than the party.
“Find the Colonel,” Polly suggests. “Let him know I’m looking a little faint and that he should see to his ward. I’ll be collapsed on the bench back down the hall.”
“Consider it done,” Mal says. Her grin is a knife-flash in the dark, and then she’s gone.
~*~
Hope you enjoyed. :-)
Part 6
TTFN,
Amazon.