She just... Couldn't seem to get enough of him.
Ever since Kyrie had taken Isaac up on his invitation to visit the stables, it had opened the floodgates: she wanted to know everything about his day. She saw what he looked like when he took care of the horses, but what about when he was alone? Did he smile as much alone or was that just for her? How did he look when he interacted with Renard out on the grounds? Kyrie knew that Isaac did some work with the plants when he wasn't working on the horses, and she also knew that he vastly preferred dealing with the horses, but did that mean he hated the plant work?
With Isaac very clearly on her brain, any time she caught a glimpse of him from the windows of the manor she couldn't help but stop and stare until he left her sight. He was so rarely in one place for very long... It was so unsatisfying that every time she caught sight of him he would leave almost immediately.
As she stared forlornly out the window, that thought that had been percolating in the back of her mind popped up again: this had to be what falling in love felt like. Kyrie was almost tempted to ask Vivian about it, but the very thought of bringing it up with the other girl sent a wave of embarrassment through her; especially so because Vivian would probably make a huge deal out of it. Though, even without asking Vivian, Kyrie felt like she had a decent idea of what love was like for her friend. If she compared what she was feeling now for what Vivian felt for Renard, it did seem to check all the boxes. Vivian thought about Renard all the time and almost every conversation with her usually ended up circling back to him one way or another. Her whole demeanor brightened whenever he was within her sight, and Kyrie had no doubt that if she could she'd spend all of her time outside with him.
This had to be love then! What other explanation was there for how fixated she felt on Isaac? There was no clearer evidence of this than by taking a look into her sketchbook; she still liked drawing other people in the house, but overwhelmingly Isaac was the one her mind. Her notebook was full of him in various poses and doing various things, but Kyrie still wanted more. She wanted to see him outside, outside and without her in the picture.
And so when her chores took her outside to get some more water for cleaning, she hesitated. She was making good progress with the floors and she wasn't actively working with Vivian at the moment so it's not like there was anyone waiting for her to come back. Looking back at the manor briefly, she bit her bottom lip as she pondered whether she should try and follow this impulse to see Isaac. In the end, she left her bucket right where it was before heading in the direction of the stables.
As she got closer to them, she began to hear the murmur of voices punctuated by occasional laughter, and she almost immediately froze. What was she doing?! She couldn't just walk right up to him without any sort of date set with him! That would be... So beyond embarrassing! Not only that but... What if she was disturbing him by coming to visit? Also what would Isaac think of her if he realized she was shirking her duties?
Paling a little at all these thoughts, her fear got the better of her as she ducked behind some foliage. Comforted by the fact that she was no longer in the open, as her body calmed down from the initial panic she realized that she could still hear the murmur of voices. As the minutes ticked by, her curiosity ended up winning out over her timidity. Quietly creeping forward, Kyrie stuck to the bushes, and as she moved, the indistinct murmurs began to be recognizable as words.
"--on't think I've ever seen these before. What are they?"
"Oh those? That one's called villanova."
"Huh... What made you pick these up?"
At this point, Kyrie could see enough between the foliage to see that this was Isaac and Renard talking to each other. Isaac was evidently helping Renard move some new arrivals around, and the villanova plant that they were looking at was relatively small, but the stems of it branched into numerous deep blue flowers, ones that had pointy and long petals.
"The lady asked for some of these to be planted so I had to go searching around for them."
Isaac leaned down, but before he could get his face very close to the flower Renard yanked him back by pulling his shoulder.
"Hey, woah. Careful. These plants are pretty poisonous from what I learned."
"Wha-- another one? Do poisonous plants make good perfume bases or something?"
The fact that the lady had asked for more than one poisonous plant to be put in her yard made Kyrie stiffen up a bit as she turned her gaze more towards the bush that she was currently in. She hadn't really heard of bushes being particularly poisonous, but she still eyed it warily until she realized that she knew what this plant was. Letting out a soft sigh of relief, she turned back towards the two men to see Renard just shrug.
"Beats me. I have no idea how any of that works. All I know is that if the lady asks for a certain plant to be included in the garden then I bring it. Regardless of what it is."
There was silence between the two men for a couple moments as they stared at the flowers, and Kyrie quietly pondered to herself about this new information. From what they were saying, it sounded like Lady Dandridge made her own perfumes? That wasn't anything that she'd known before, though really, why would she? It likely wasn't a grand secret but it also wasn't something that would just come up in casual conversation. It was rather impressive that the lady made the scents all on her own though, she made such nice ones just going by what Kyrie could remember from being in her presence.
Kyrie had to admit that clandestinely watching the two men like this was rather exciting even if a part of her was also terrified of being discovered. She was learning more about this house than she'd known before, and she got to see more expressions of Isaac's. There was such a deep expression of contemplation on his face right now, one that he didn't really show in front of the rest of them, and Kyrie wished that she could be as close with Isaac as Renard was. She wanted him to feel so comfortable with her that she'd be able to see past his best foot forward. Perhaps in time he'd feel just as comfortable with her as he was with Renard, but that was likely so far away still! By doing things this way she got to see more of him a bit earlier.
"Do you really think--"
Isaac cut himself off from this question, his expression seeming to say that he was torn between speaking or staying silent. While Kyrie wasn't really sure what Isaac was thinking, Renard did know what he was asking. With his gloved hand he lightly rubbed at one of the petals of a villanova flower.
"Yes… But I'm not sure these are how she did it. Our lady is quite mysterious."
A slight shiver ran up Kyrie's spine when she realized that they were probably talking about Mae's former husband's untimely death. Renard really thought that the lady had killed her own husband? Kyrie had known Mae for much less time, admittedly, but she still had a hard time imagining that the lady would kill someone. Her major hobby was cultivating life, she couldn't be someone who liberally used her power to kill. Though… Kyrie could very well imagine that if for any reason Mae was in danger she would rise up and strike back. Perhaps her husband had been a truly terrible man at home? It was difficult to really know because public perception of him had been fine; he'd been allowed to marry the first princess of the nation, after all! Anything beyond public perception was impossible to get though: he just wasn't talked about in the house. The only person who might know anything concrete was Dessi but she always changed the subject if he was ever brought up. As a result, the younger members of the house could only speculate, and speculate they did.
"Do you think the lady has done that to anyone else?"
"I… I don't know. I think she's certainly capable of it. You've never done anything to get a scolding from her but let me tell you, flirting with the lady was the worst thing I had ever done in my life. She... she had looked at me with such contempt. Her expression didn't change much but you could just see it in her eyes."
Renard shivered a little to remember that day.
"When she told me off I knew right then and there that I would never try again. If I'm being honest, to this day I'm still not comfortable any time I have to directly interact with her. I know we have a good life under her and I appreciate that she stays out of our lives, but there's no doubt in my mind that she can kill and likely has before."
Renard had tried flirting with the lady before?! Kyrie had heard Vivian complain about how Renard would go for any female that moved but even the master? How in the world had he been brave enough to even try? Kyrie had never actually been scolded by the lady but for Kyrie the woman had an impenetrable air to her that was hard to build up the courage to cross. It had taken her so long to even request her notebook, after all, and that wasn't even that controversial!
In the end, Isaac just scratched his head with an almost exasperated sigh.
"Well, I suppose there's no real point dwelling on this. It's not like we'll ever be important enough to be one of her targets. Let's just get these planted for the lady."
With that said, the two of them walked out of sight with the plants in tow and Kyrie let out a rather loud breath of relief now that they were gone. Her whole body was trembling all over after everything that she'd witnessed and there were a myriad of emotions coursing through her. She was delighted that she'd seen a new side to Isaac today but she felt guilty for having spied on them without their permission. Then there was the information about the lady... she wasn't quite sure how to feel about it.
Did it really matter if Lady Dandridge had killed her former husband? To the slaves of her house she'd been nothing but cordial and even kind in a number of cases... Even if she had killed her husband, it didn't change the fact that they were all happy under her rule. She was a good leader, so much so that even the commonfolk living in her territory looked fondly upon her. Or at the very least they thought nothing of her which was better than a lot of nobles could say in the Terra Kingdom. Mae even had humane conditions for the slaves in her mines! Could one death really discount all of these positive things? All things considered... Kyrie was more inclined to side with the lady, no matter what it was that she'd done.
As Kyrie headed back to her bucket, her mind was swirling with a number of thoughts about things she wanted to draw, musings about the lady, but also a bit of concern over what she had just come back from. If Renard and Isaac knew that she had watched them like this… Wouldn't they be upset? They'd had that conversation with each other and presumably they only wanted to have it with each other. Yet… Learning new things about other people was so exciting…
Deciding to put it out of her mind for now, she pumped up her water from the spout and headed back inside to resume her cleaning.