The Forbidden Fruit is the Sweetest — Éléonore Ambroiseux

[Grandeur Accepted]

The third daughter of Algernon Ambroiseux, and granddaughter to the Baronet Percival Ambroiseux:

Éléonore Ambroiseux, b. 758

Spoiler: show

[Grandeur Accepted]

There was a cute boy in Chateaufaux, there was a boy who was sweet on me.  This little commoner boy, barely a day into his eighteenth nameday.  I knew it was never going to amount to anything, but I let him sink himself on my hook with myself as bait.  His name was Javier and he used to bring me equal parts flowers and weeds with floral scents every day.  It was thrilling, the idea of being found out by my father or my sisters. 

I would lead him on about how woeful the life of an aristocrat was, being delegated to my chambers and daughterly duties dedicated to debutantes, dinners, and dances.  He asked to hold my hand once and I finally relented once.  Eventually, he started to bring me these handpicked Rugosa Roses from down by the creek.  And every time I would take them.  One time he pricked his hands on a thorn and I went as far as giving his hand a kiss so he would stop pouting.

I had never felt so guilty when he was caught out by one of my father's retainers.  When my father asked if I knew him, I, of course, denied it.  They thought he was a thief, and Javier did not tell them otherwise, the poor little thing.  They gave him several bastings in the courtyard with a club and threatened worse may come if he ever came back around.  I could hardly recognize his face after they were done with him.

And with a swollen lip and bruised face, poor Javier snuck up to my window with another rose the next day.  I sent him away and told him never to come back, but not before I took that last rose.

No matter how guilty I felt, it did not wash out the redolent scent of roses that permeated my quarters.  Though, it made it easier to forget.

[Grandeur Accepted]

The first real kiss I had was for nothing more than my own fun. 

There was this Ezrite boy who sung in the choir named Elyot that would say all the sweetest things to me.  Promise me this, promise me that.  But never before marriage.  Always marriage first, despite the scandalous things he would suggest.  The only thought I had in my cruel mind, though, was how I could see just how long he would hold out for his morals.  I wanted to know just how much and how long it would take until his knees were weak with desire.

Some days I would wear a dress that perhaps showed some slight ankle.  Instead of traditional stockings, fishnets beneath my Fith Day gown. I would catch him peeking at me, stealing glances of my fair demure.  We once were alone without a chaperone in the confessional and I nearly got him to hold my hand. He never did, though.  He stood tall and steadfast, no matter how much I made him bend.

I always admired my grandfather's perfumes, but for the longest time they were only ever an accessory to fashion.  I did not learn just how tempting one could make themselves until I wore some as a woman courting the fancy of a man, and not as a little girl playing dress-up.  There was this divine scent that my grandfather had designed, called Smitten.  A touch of lemongrass and black roses of Sithicus, citrus seeping through the alluring scent of the Nuitari's light.

A few spritzes of the oil upon the wrists and the nape of my neck was all it took.  I had never felt more powerful than when I brought his facade crumbling down.

I remember seeing that hunger in his eyes when we snuck off into the woods that night.  Before the night even unfolded, he had cast it all away.  I made him be the one to do it, I wanted to see the craving in his eyes.  Inching closer and closer until his lips brought mine in for a rapture of lust and passion.  His hands grabbed bunches of my dress and I leaned up, lifting my smile to whisper in his ear a simple: "we're through."

I cut him off and left him there, confused, heartbroken, and alone.

It always stuck with me how flimsy convictions could be and how sharply love could cut.

[Grandeur Accepted]

It is hardest being the middle daughter. To not have the pride afforded to the oldest, but to be lack the tenderness given to the youngest. A flower left to fend for itself, to wilt or bloom by the strength of what it manages to take for itself. The greatest gift I was given was being taught to never show how vulnerable it can make you...

Heavy is the burden of your family's expectations. Their expectations to live up to the light of your twin sisters. Their expectations to get married before your younger sister.  Their expectation that you will be lesser—to be an opal diminished behind the glimmer of diamonds—to shine, but never in its own light.

Heavier yet are the burden of the dreams you forge in lieu of their expectation. Dreams of the weeds to become a rose. Of an opal to become a diamond. Of a stone dreaming to be a castle.

A castle I yet still dream of.

With walls of stone and walls of grandeur. With halls adorned with your husband's hunting trophies and corridors lined with Rokuman silk to mark your wealth. With gourmet roasts and strawberry tarts ever night. To have timeless paintings of your likeness adorning every wall. To have a garden painted with your own roses, both red and white. Music that reverberates through your court. To have a new ballgown for every weekly ball. With servants and maids to tend both your care and worry. With rooms of running children, free of thought.

To be sequestered away from everyone's expectations—a gilded cage to guard your heart and a vault to hide your hopes.

[Grandeur Accepted]

"They might have older guillotine blades... duller ones," I said from outside of myself, "Mistakes happen."

I hardly recognized myself; I am sure that others would have had a harder time doing the same. But I was not myself.

Sacha Frelon was the man who had stolen my sister. That was the man who led her astray, bewitched her mind with lies and populist appeal. I do not care if what Odette and Sacha told me true, that horrendous gossip that echoes through the alleys of worse places. Those rumors which swarm like flies, like the carrion feasting on the flesh of her memory — of her legacy — of her accomplishments — of her name. Dame Geneviève Chaboteaux is the wife of the Cultural Advisor, and they would tarnish that with tales of adultery and treason. And for what? Had they not taken enough from her?

It was my fault I was not there to steer her away from the men who bedeviled her. But it was still his fault for having taken her. He guided her into her actions, as young and impressionable as my sister was. He was a bastard. And he deserved a bastard's death, not the swift mercy he was granted.

"So they do," came his words from his forked tongue, a snake in fine clothing, "Whatever... donation to the state you might be able to muster would be greatly appreciated."

It was like any other transaction. After all, everything has a price to pay. And for Geneviève, the solars came easy.

The true cost is learning to live with the person I have become.

[Grandeur Accepted]

"I can't do this," I said to the Baronet as he walked me down the aisle towards the ghost of Geney.

"You can, and you will," my grandfather replied. I'm sure he saw her too.

I have been numb since that day. Walking through the motions of being a Vicomtesse, a silly title I dreamed all my life of having. Everything I have always wanted, but nothing that I could ever love.

At least until my physician gave me the news.

After so long, I felt a spark of purpose and love growing inside me. This precious tender soul, a child. It's my child—a part of me. I know not their name or their face, but I know that I love them. For once since that day, I care about something beyond myself again. A bond in blood. I know not if I have a son, or if I have a daughter. But I will do what I must to promise them a future they can have. I will protect them.

The moment of truth approaches. I can feel them kicking. And I hear a knocking on the door. I see the same fiend that hunted Barozzi, hunting any firstborn son of mine. Dragging their soul off to a fate worse than death. I see an unborn daughter who will not inherit the success I have paved for them.

I don't care if the masks I have worn start falling off, if the world begins to see who Éléonore truly is.

I am an Ambroiseux.
I am a sister.
I am a fashionista.
I am a merchant.
I am a liar.
I am a Vicomtesse.
I am an infernalist.
And, I am a mother-to-be.

I will sacrifice this city if I must—if only to make sure that my child has the life they deserve.