As Emily returned to the outer room of the suite, she heard a knock on the door, which she had to assume was the uniform she'd requested. Not that she really knew when to expect it, given she had no idea where they were kept in relation to this suite. Although, she could only imagine Nick's aggravation if it took all day to get here and he was left in the bedroom waiting the entire time.
The thought at least brought a smile to her face for a moment.
As Emily opened the door, she was a little surprised to see the duchess holding the uniform Emily had asked for her plan with Nick.
"I'm sorry," Emily apologized, wondering if she'd missed something. "I didn't think I'd see you today."
"Don't be," the duchess ordered. "I mostly came to learn why you needed a servant's uniform for a man. I didn't think you'd do that to your friend, so I couldn't help but wonder if there was something I should be aware of."
Emily smiled and moved to the side of the door, giving the duchess room to enter. She couldn't think of what exactly to say at that moment, so thought she'd try to buy a little time to get her thoughts in order.
As the duchess passed Emily, she handed the uniform to her, which she took without saying anything. She felt a little torn at taking the uniform straight to Nick and taking the time to talk with the duchess.
On one hand she didn't want to get the duchess more upset with her, while on the other, she knew Nick was going to be waiting, and she couldn't be sure how much patience he had.
However, the duchess resolved her dilemma by pressing her earlier inquiry. "So, what is it that you needed the uniform for?" the duchess asked. "The size you asked for is clearly to large from your friend's son, so that's clearly not what's happening here."
Emily nodded, seeing that talking with the duchess, was likely the best thing for her to do right then.
"Well, it's that I was having a little difficulty getting Nick to understand how things worked on this world, so I thought if I got him to see how things were for the men of this world, he might actually realize some things," Emily replied, feeling like she could have phrased it better if she'd at least had time to work out what to say and to practice it.
The duchess however merely nodded, like she fully understood. "Yes, we had some trouble with that one," she said, her expression rather pensive. "We tried a few areas to put him, but he didn't seem to be suited for any of them."
"Mostly he's good at running his mouth," Emily remarked, not feeling the slightest bit of guilt for badmouthing Nick behind his back.
Besides, even if he was here, he wouldn't know what she was saying anyway. After all, he hose not to try and learn the language here, so that would have been all on him.
"Yes, he did seem eager to try to communicate at times but we never could understand him," the duchess said. "Part of why he was still here after all that time, I suppose."
Emily felt the urge to face palm herself. The reason why he hadn't been sent away during the time that they'd been in this world had been because he was too much like himself? That felt like it was a joke in and of itself. Or at least should be.
Although, she couldn't really feel that surprised. He did tend to even get on Heathcliff's nerves sometimes. Or at least as far as she could tell. After all, whenever he'd law the law down on her, he'd always had it just him and her in his office, so she wouldn't be surprised if he did that for everyone who had their magic unsealed.
"Let me take care of this, and I'll be right back, okay?" Emily said, not sure how to react to this revelation. She had a feeling it might be important, but she couldn't say for sure.
The duchess nodded, smiling faintly at Emily as she let Emily take the uniform out of her hands.
She then immediately started towards the bedroom, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach forming as she couldn't help but consider the possibilities of why the duchess would show up here. Especially today, since she hadn't shown up since she'd brought Nick here.
While it was entirely possible that he was curious about Emily's request for the man's uniform, she seriously doubted that the duchess would show up just for that.
Emily was certain that there was more to her visit than that, and she didn't like the other possibilities.
One was that she was ready to have Emily lead the caravan or whatever to Earth, to get whatever done that the duchess had in mind. Though, Emily was certain that she'd have to go, if only to act as a translator.
Another was that the duchess had decided to not honor her agreement to let Eddra and the kids remain here, which meant that there would be a good chance of them ending up not just with the slaves, but as slaves themselves. Which Emily would object to completely, even if it meant that she'd have to make an enemy of the duchess, which she'd already determined wasn't a good idea.
Especially with the resources she had currently as well as how little she really knew about this world. Even now.
Still, she knew that she'd drive herself crazy with these possibilities, which wasn't something that she could allow to happen.
Not if she wanted to keep Eddra safe as well as have a chance at rescuing the others of their expedition team.
Emily nearly walked into the door to the bedroom, being as lost in thought as she had been.
"Is something wrong?" Eddra asked, as Emily knocked on the door, folding the dress so it wouldn't be as apparent that that's what it was when she first handed it to Nick.
Emily shook her head. "Just an unexpected visitor," Emily replied, trying to hide the trepidation she felt.
There wasn't any sense in getting Eddra worked up over the duchess visiting if there wasn't a reason to.
Emily waited a minute for Nick to respond, but when he didn't, she was raised her hand to knock again when Nick's voice came through the door.
"What is it now?" he demanded, sounding like he'd started to take a nap.
"Well, I thought I'd let you know, the uniform has arrived," she said, not caring to address his attitude. After all, it wasn't like this was really that unexpected. Especially since he knew just as much as she did about how long it would take the uniform to arrive from when she'd asked for it. "So, if you'd toss your clothing out here, I'll hand you the uniform, like we agreed."
Emily wasn't really surprised when Nick didn't respond right away after that. She figured he hadn't taken the clothing off yet, so it would likely take a minute for him to do that. Although she also couldn't help but wonder if he was having second thoughts about the whole deal.
If so, she knew that it would merely just create another complication and headache for her to deal with. Not that she'd be surprised if Nick did that. It would merely be par for the course with him.
Then without warning, the door opened and the clothing Nick had been wearing was tossed out. All except for his underwear at least, which Emily was confident was probably a good thing.
"Alright, here's the uniform," she said, holding it in her hand as she reached around the door so she could hand it to Nick without looking.
While she knew that Nick didn't mind others seeing him naked, or just in his underwear, she knew that if she did that, he'd get the wrong impression and it would merely create more problems that she really didn't want to deal with.
Ever.
When she felt Nick taking the dress from her hands, she felt relieved. She had still felt a little worried that he'd back out, but now she felt relief.
However, she still closed the door, picked up his jeans and shirt before making a mad dash back to the front room of the suite, where the duchess was waiting.
She'd barely made it there when she could hear Nick's cries of outrage and curse words as he clearly saw what the uniform was. She didn't think that she had long before he came storming out, so she hid his clothing as quickly as she could, hoping that he would notice them when he inevitably came out to confront her about what Emily had handed him. Most of which was clearly directed at her.
"Something the matter?" the duchess asked, her tone indicating that she found the scene rather amusing.
Emily shook her head as she quickly moved away from where she'd hidden Nick's clothing, hoping that he wouldn't think to look around the room.
"Not really," she replied as she sat down and tried to calm her rapidly beating heart down to a reasonable pace. "His reaction was about what I expected."
Emily tried to smile, though she doubted he was able to produce a very convincing one. She'd never been the focus of Nick's before when he'd gotten this upset, so she couldn't say what to expect from him.
Although, she at least felt that the duchess' presence might help get him to calm down, since while he didn't actually say it, Emily had the distinct impression that he'd learned to fear her, much more than Emily had. Which she knew would only go to her benefit.
The duchess didn't say anything to Emily's response, though she did look amused at what was going on.
"Emily!" Emily heard Nick's voice yell from the bedroom. "There is no way in hell that I am wearing this thing! Bring me back my clothes now!"
Emily sighed, unable to hide the satisfied smile that made it's way on her face.
"I take it he's not happy with the uniform?" the duchess asked.
Emily shook her head. "It's probably that on our world, dresses are generally thought of as something for only women and girls to wear," she answered, not making any effort to stand up.
"What do you plan on doing then?" the duchess asked, her voice full of curiosity.
"Hmmm," Emily said, as she tried thinking of what she could do in response to this. Then suddenly she had an idea. "Oh! What if you had a servant come up to help him. A moan, of course, to help make sure it's the right size and fit for him."
The duchess smiled broadly, clearly enjoying this as much as Emily was at the moment. Which just made Emily feel more relaxed around the duchess, even though she had a feeling that wasn't a good thing to do.
"I'll do that right away," the duchess said, making Emily assume that she was wanting to know how Nick would react to that.
Emily watched the duchess make her way over to the door to the suite and talk to someone on the other side of the door. Emily was certain what was being asked, even though she couldn't hear what was being said.
When the duchess came back, she sat down as calmly as before, not showing any signs of the humor she'd shown when she first went to the door.
"So, what brought you to speak with me today?" Emily asked, not sure about what else to say at the moment. Especially while they waited for the requested servant to arrive.
The duchess nodded, although Emily couldn't tell if there was a reason for that nod or not. "Just that preparations for sending a caravan to your world are moving slower than I had thought they would."
"Really?" Emily asked, feeling a little relief at that fact. "What's the problem?"
"Getting wagons though your gate," the duchess answered calmly. "We haven't been able to figure out how to get them through the gate without having to take them apart and reassemble them on the other side."
Emily nodded, not sure if she had anything she could think of to say to help. At least nothing that she could suggest that she was sure the duchess hadn't already considered.
While she could try using her magic, she doubted she'd be able to work it in such a way that it'd take care of the problem in a way to really be considered a solution. Which was to demolish the building, even though she was pretty sure that the rubble might make it harder to get the wagons to the gate.
Assuming of course that the duchess didn't care if the building was there in the first place.
"So, what're you doing about it?" Emily asked, partially wondering if there was something the duchess did want her to do.
"Well, we've started construction on building a structure on the other side of the gate, so we can avoid any unexpected elements when we move things through the gate," the duchess answered. "Once that's complete, then we should be able to start moving the wagons through the gate and being assembling them before loading them with the supplies you'll need."
Emily nodded, though she had a feeling it wasn't going to be as cut and dry as the duchess was making it sound.
"So, I'll be taking the wagon back with your message?" Emily asked, certain that there was more to the duchess' plan than just that.
"What?" the duchess asked sounding surprised, her voice suddenly rather melodic. Emily couldn't tell if the duchess was really surprised or if she was faking it. "Oh no. I'll be sending a squad of my guards with you. I mean, I can't tell what dangers may be on that… uh, world?" the duchess paused, but then waved her hand as if she was brushing the thought away. "So I'm sending a squad of my soldiers with you to make sure that you don't encounter any dangers."
And to keep me from getting away, right? Emily thought to herself, but didn't say.
Not that she hadn't considered doing that very thing. However, she was certain that if she didn't return, that Eddra and her son and son's friend would lose the protection they had currently.
Emily wasn't sure what kind of life they'd have at the moment with the protection, but she was confident that it would be much better than their lives would be without it. At least given what little she understood about this world right now.
However, Emily hadn't expected anything else. She'd have been more surprised, and even more suspicious if the duchess hadn't decided on sending anyone with her.
The next thing to worry about now was how to convince Heathcliff to work with the duchess' people. Then there was also the fact that she was the only one who could translate, that she knew of, she was confident that the duchess wasn't going to let her go, even if an agreement with Heathcliff was reached. Unless she could get someone else that the duchess trusted to learn English as well.
However, that was a worry for another time. Right now with the duchess, she had to worry about surviving pretty much one day at a time here.
_
The sun was setting, signaling the end of another day. A day in which they'd made some progress, but without a road to follow, or even a simple path or game trail, Beth doubted they had made much progress.
It had been nearly a week since they'd left the village, which took longer than she or her friends had expected it to take. Mostly because Tim insisted that they made sure there wouldn't be any problems with the people in charge of the village with them leaving, although Beth didn't see the point in it. After all, it wasn't like they were part of the village, and them taking Hesha, Cinder, Feon, and Lyshean, that meant there would be that many fewer mouths for them to worry about feeding.
As such, while she was ready to leave by the end of the first day, even though she still felt sore and stiff, they had to wait a little longer. Which merely annoyed her, despite getting more rest so the walk wasn't as much of a problem as it likely would have been otherwise.
The goats were useful, as some produced enough milk that they had something else to drink, even though since it wasn't pasteurized, it didn't have the same texture as what she was used to. Although, that was also assuming that cow's milk and goat's milk had the same texture in the first place, which she definitely wasn't going to say anything about.
Yet, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off as they got their camp ready. She looked around and couldn't say what it was that felt out of place, but nothing seemed off to her.
"Something wrong, Beth?" Wes asked as they finished setting up their tents.
Beth shook her head. "Not sure," she answered. "Just feels like something's not right, but can't say what it is."
Wes shrugged. "Let's hope it's not something that's gonna give us trouble," he said with a smile.
"Yeah, let's hope that's the case."
Given the near miss they were sure they had in the forest on the night that Charlie had left their group, they made sure to have their fire out before the sun went down, so it wouldn't be visible.
Beth couldn't help but feel like they were playing in the Hunger Games and trying to avoid being spotted by others in the dark. While she knew that it was a book series, which was made into movies, she couldn't help but think the analogy was comparable. The only problem was the fact that they couldn't be certain what might be the result of being caught at night like that in this world.
While getting killed was certainly a possibility, Beth wouldn't be surprised if whatever it was, that they'd wish they'd been killed instead.