Cosaria was received into the garden by Lady Blueweather and Lady Dorsey. The two women sat at a table with another woman, her face mostly covered.
Dorsey said, "Lady Arquix, welcome."
"Oh, please, just Cosaria."
"Sounds good. I'm Lady Ella," Dorsey said, then she pointed to the woman next to her, "My elder sister Lady Bri," Then she pointed to the third, mysterious woman, "And have you met Lady Shutter? She stopped by uninvited. We've been trying to get her to leave but she just won't seem to go."
Lady Shutter laughed. It was an annoying, high-pitched, breathy laugh with the cringe of trying too hard.
"Ahahahaha. You ladies are such a riot with your teasings."
"See, she just doesn't seem to get it. We thought it was amusing at first, but now she's just annoying." Bri turned to her sister and asked, "Should we throw her out?"
Shutter said, "Oh, my! You wouldn't humiliate me so, would you? Lady Cosaria, what say you?"
Cosaria said, "Oh, no. I don't mind the company at all."
Ella and Bri exchanged a questioning look then shrugged.
Cosaria said, "I wanted to extend my gratitude for your gracious invitation to this event."
Ella said, "Yeah, yeah, all good stuff. We knew you were new so we thought we'd take a chance to get to know you a bit."
Cosaria said, "Oh, I'm afraid I'm not a very exciting person. I hope you won't be disappointed."
Shutter said, "I ever so doubt that! You're married to Duke Arquix; The most savage man in all the kingdom. I'm sure you know secrets about the Duke that none of us could imagine!"
Bri glared at Shutter, saying, "If you have to be here, the least you could do is shut your mouth so that I can pretend you're not here. Otherwise, I will throw you out."
"Ahahaha. Yes. Of course." Shutter slunk back in her chair.
Ella said, "Sorry about that. Lady Cosaria, we don't care about any of that gossip nonsense. We want to know about you. What do you like? What do you care about?"
Cosaria said, "You don't care about gossip? But my sister used to say that a woman's power lies in her gossip."
The buff Lady Bri Blueweather, with muscles twice the size of most men she met, scoffed. She said, "Who needs that rubbish? Lady Bri here is a legendary ax master and saved the kingdom single handedly from barbaric invaders. The royal family lovers her so much, they let her do whatever she wants."
Cosaria said, "Wow, really?"
Ella said, "She's exaggerating. Now tell us about you. How's life going?"
"My life has been wonderful since my marriage. Lord Delrik is my everything," Cosaria said as she smiled warmly.
Somewhere, a glacier fell from the warmth of Cosaria's smile and the effect was not lost of the two burly women. (Shutter also fell under the spell, but she was more in the background, and not worth any attention.)
Bri said, "That's wonderful."
Cosaria said, "Though, it is a bit complicated too."
Ella said, "I'd expect as much. Especially with yours being an arranged marriage and all."
Bri asked, "Is that right? Was yours an arranged marriage?"
"Uh, yes, but also… its complicated."
Ella said, "I agree to that. Marriage is complicated. But have you developed a love for each other?"
"Oh yes, very much so. I love him dearly."
Bri said, "It's so good to hear how you love your husband. It's rare these days for arranged marriages to turn out so happy."
Ella asked, "Do you know how he feels?"
Cosaria said, "I know that I'm important to him, but he's never told me he loves me."
Shutter interrupted, "Hmm, oh that's not good at all."
Bri and Ella glared at Lady Shutter, who shrunk away again. The more they forgot that Lady Shutter was there, the better.
Ella continued as if there hadn't been an intruder on such a nice conversation, "Men don't always use words to convey their feelings. If I had waited for Halen to tell me he loved me in words, I'd never have gotten married."
Cosaria said, "What, what do you mean?"
Just then a timid, tenor voice called out, "ELLA DEAR!"
The voice belonged to a short, scrawny, boy-faced man, and a visitor waving at the group from a distance. For some reason, the visitor looked familiar.
Ella called back, "Halen? What do you need? I've got a guest."
Halen and the visitor approached the group of ladies. Halen said, "Be it so, Angelo insisted we come say hi."
Finally, Cosaria recognized the visitor.
"Angelo? Oh, Angelo dear."
Now it would be good to mention that this was the exact type of thing that Delrik was trying to avoid by sending Cosaria away. Unfortunately, he was not successful in this regard.
Angelo knelt down in front of Cosaria and took her hand in his. He said, "My Lady Cosaria, you are as radiant as ever the sun did shine. When I heard whispers of your name being amongst the Dorsey mansion, I knew it was the wind of destiny to my ears. How it is that we should meet in this place, the two of us, after such long a time, is more than fortuitous. My thoughts of you have not left since last we parted."
Ella said, "Halen, get this guy out of here."
"Yes dear," Halen said as he dragged Angelo off.
Angelo called out, "Till next we meet."
Ella said, "Sorry about that… I didn't know he…"
"To a married woman! The impropriety!" Bri burst out.
Cosaria said, "I don't mind at all. Angelo is a close friend of Lord Delrik's and I. I feel quite lucky that I got to see him."
Bri and Ella frowned.
Shutter perked up.
Wanting to change the subject, Ella said, "What were we talking about?"
Cosaria said, "Oh yes. Did you too have an arranged marriage, Lady Dorsey?"
"Oh no… well, king of."
Bri said, "Her story is a good one. Would you like to hear it?"
"Very much so."
Bri called out, "Martin!"
Martin, the butler, arrived in seconds.
Bri said, "This is Martin. He's great at telling stories. Martin, tell the story of how Ella and Halen got together."
"Yes, of course," Martin began, "Lady Bellianna Blueweather was the second daughter of the Earl of Blueweather. The first being Lady Brianne Blueweather. Now it must be mentioned that the Blueweather estate is located farthest north, near the border of the Ragdor Kingdom. The harsh environment-"
"Stop. You're boring me," Bri said, "Martin, you're done. I'll take it from here, thanks."
Martin nodded and left. He had intentionally made it a dry beginning with the hope of getting out of storytelling. To his good credit, he had succeeded.
Bri continued, "Yeah, the north, brutal winters. People here are built different than you toothpicks down south. Here we have to survive the winters, monsters, and the barbarian invaders. Now, I favor a chain mace while Ella took up the legendary axe. She can chop down forty trees in less than a minute."
Ella said, "An exaggeration, of course."
Bri said, "So, that town you passed coming in."
Cosaria said, "The small little village?"
"Yeah, that one. Closest place to get a decent pair of shoes. That's where the young jeweler's son lived. Halen Dorsey. How did you describe him, Ella? 'Sweet, considerate, funny?'"
Ella smacked her sister.
Bri continued, "Ella was sneaking out all the time, ordering jewels to be embedded into her axe. That's where the name 'Bejeweled Lumberjack' comes from. It was all an excuse to see him. That scrawny little nothing."
"Don't you start on that," Ella chided.
Bri shrugged. "So anyway, the threat from the barbarian tribes got so bad, the king tried to do his fancy peace talks. They agreed to peace if both Ella and I would be given as wives to the barbarians."
Cosaria gasped.
"Yeah, you can see the problem with that. Ella especially. She was already in love with Halen by that time. She wasn't about to go through with some arranged marriage. Now me, I was curious, but my independent streak is far too strong. Anyway, Ella over here came up with this plan. We'd agree to the marriages on the conditions that the barbarians would first have to beat us in battle. Only then would we agree to marriage with that man. I loved the idea. Really preys on their overconfidence.
"These barbarians, always eager for the challenge. However, none of the challengers were able to beat either of us. It's the Blueweather family genes, I tell you. Eventually, they got angry and bitter about losing. Especially the chief's son. Boy was he a handful. I blame his mother.
"Anyway, they came with an army at the northern pass but we'd already been preparing for them. We set a trap and hurled stones down at them from the canyon walls. I think almost the whole town was there. Is that right, Ella?"
"Just about."
"Yeah, it was a good time. So, most of the barbarians retreated in good looser fashion except that chief's son. What was his name? Briant? Brant? Br-, Barn, Barkenhest?"
Ella said, "I can't remember."
Bri said, "Not important. He pressed forward by himself, now I'm skipping a few things here, but anyway, he ended up taking Halen Dorsey hostage when Ella was there. Wait, is that right?"
"No, I wasn't there when Halen was taken hostage. I only heard about it later." Ella said, "Though, he did bring him to the hostage negotiations. I was just glad to see he was alive. I was so worried that-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you love your husband. So Ella does these negotiations. Her life for the life of her beloved. The chief's son, Brand, Bart, whatever, he's so moved by the gesture, he allows the lovers to be reunited and vows to convince his people to give up on their quest for Ragdor.
"They're all about virtues there in the barbarian tribes; love, honor, generosity, etcetera. After seeing our strength, courage, and Ella's deep love, the barbarians agreed to peace.
"Since then, the king has let us do whatever we want to from that point on. Probably still feels guilty about forcing us into marriage contracts. I mean, he let Ella marry a commoner, Halen Dorsey. Of course, Dorsey had to be given a title. But that wasn't a big deal. Halen did great in the fight against the barbarians. He deserved some kind of reward. Made it easy for the king to grant his permission. And that's it. The end."
Cosaria clapped her hands, saying, "What a wonderful tale. So romantic."
Shutter disagreed. But again, her opinion was worth less than dirt in her current party.
༻✧༺
The visit of Lord Bartlyby to the Arquix castle was uneventful. Except that Bartlyby was caught snooping in Duchess Cosaria's room. So Delrik had Bartlyby's pinky finger cut off. Bartlyby left the castle a changed man.