The Duke's Decision

When Johanna walked into the sitting room, there were six women already there; not just Fiona, but four other of her fellow brides-to-be and a maidservant standing discreetly next to a tea tray.

“That's everyone except Elizabeth and Rose, then,” Fiona said. She tucked a strand of copper-colored hair behind a pointed ear, looking over at the maid. “You may go. We will ring if we need anything.”

Six brides-to-be waited in silence as the maid walked to the doorway, her eyes burning with silent curiosity; but Fiona didn’t speak again until the door clicked shut, and even then, spoke quietly. “I didn't ask Rose here because I think she's decided she doesn't want to marry the duke, and I didn’t ask Elizabeth because she’s busy with Maude. I wanted to talk about a few things just between us future duchesses.”

“Without the Lady Maude’s input?” Anna arched an eyebrow.

Fiona nodded. “Am I right about your friend not joining in the wedding?”

“Like as not,” Anna said, her face schooled into a carefully neutral expression.

“I'm tired of talking about the wedding,” Althea said. “My family talks about nothing else.”

“Not much point in us talking about the wedding, either. Maude is running the whole show,” Anna said, wryly.

Fiona nodded. “Thank you, both of you. I wanted to look past the wedding. The Lady Maude taking charge of the wedding is suitable, but after that, she cannot be left in charge of the ducal household. Not if we are to be taken seriously as duchesses. After the wedding, we rank her and it will be up to us to organize the ducal household. That household will be more complex than usual, since there are so many of us. I want us to think about the responsibilities and privileges of being duchesses, and how we're going to divide those up.”

“Who put you in charge?” Anna narrowed her eyes.

Fiona shook her head. “I'm not in charge here. We're all going to be duchesses together. You don't have to agree with everything I suggest, but I hope you'll listen and devise better if you find my notions disagreeable. This is – will be – our castle, and we have not even our own chambers yet.”

The room was silent for a moment. “Marcus has been the one telling everyone where to sleep,” Merilda said, with a questioning tone. “Is he not, as seneschal, in charge of such matters?”

“For now. But as duchesses, he answers to us, not the other way around; and I want to look past the wedding. There's only so much room in the keep.” Fiona pointed up. “A duchess would usually have her own chamber. The old duchess's chamber up in the duke’s solar – singular, she had but the one – was turned into a library after she died. Then there are the study and meditation chamber. As spacious as the duke's solar is at present for the one man living there, that cannot be easily rearranged into seven master bedchambers. Four, at most. We'll have to either share space or make space.”

“You mean we'll have to share beds?” Althea asked. “Reserving the duke his own bedchamber, that's two in two beds, and three in the third. Unless Elizabeth gets one by herself, which would mean both of the others will have three. She's a count's daughter, she does rank the rest of us, and with us meeting like this behind her back, I hesitate to trample on her privilege.”

“I don't know about you, but I would rather not sleep in a bed of three women every night,” Anna said. As mere gentry, she would surely get stuck in the most crowded room under either arrangement. “And why should the duke sleep alone?”

“Oh, I wouldn't mind sharing a bedroom with the duke,” Johanna blurted out. She eyed the others cautiously. “But I don't think I could have him to myself that much, could I?”

“Definitely not. If you had him with you every night, that would make you the favorite, and that would be a snub to the rest of us and our families.” Fiona shook her head. “I daresay jealousy will be a problem. No, I propose we eliminate the duke’s bedchamber entirely from the solar. That would give us four chambers. He will sleep in one or another of our chambers, and if he wishes solitude, he find a corner somewhere else on a lower level. Or perhaps on the roof, if the weather is kind.”

Helen giggled. “Turf out the duke from his own chambers entirely?”

“It is incumbent upon him to provide suitable chambers for his wives. As many of us as there are, I say we claim the whole of the solar as ours. That brings me to the next point. We'll have to have a rota of some kind,” Fiona said. “For whose turn it is to host him.”

“Have him, you mean,” Anna said, green eyes flickering with a thinly-veiled challenge.

“Um. Yes. A rota to have him. I doubt he would set one up himself, and we can either vie jealously for attention or take firm charge and impose fairness and order on the… situation.” Fiona shifted uneasily in her seat, looking away from the dark-haired woman and at a nondescript spot on the carpet instead. “As far as I am concerned – we could do it by birth rank for the first time, and that would put me dead last as common-born.”

This provoked a range of reactions among the women present. Johanna turned bright pink and looked down at the floor. Anna frowned a little at first, then more as Fiona mentioned rank. Althea looked uncertain; next to her, Helen looked uneasy. Merilda nodded approvingly.

“What if I'm indisposed, or not in the mood?” Helen said, the strawberry-blonde girl unconsciously edging closer to her friend Althea.

“You could trade your turn with someone else,” Anna said, rubbing her chin. “Or withdraw from the rota and let him skip to the next. I misliked the idea at first, but there's no reason we couldn't work out a system.”

“I still don't like it,” Althea said, unfolding and refolding her lanky limbs as she shifted positions on the couch. “It doesn't seem proper, somehow.”

“You don’t have to like it, but this whole arrangement is going to have to be irregular, and it’s better we confront its irregularities now – or retreat from the arrangement entirely before the wedding.” Fiona paused, holding up a finger. “If it’s too improper for you, I’m sure Maude would be happy to reduce our numbers by one more. One way or another, we're going to have to figure out how to make decisions together. And the first decisions we must make is how to share a husband and a castle. So I'd like all of you to think about what you can do to help make things come together more smoothly. If we can figure out how we want to set up rooms, I can talk to Marcus about getting the solar rearranged before the wedding.”

The door opened suddenly. Fiona clapped her mouth shut as Maude walked into the room. “Oh. Good, you're all here. I wanted to talk about the wedding,” Maude said.

An awkward silence fell, Fiona’s plan of a private meeting having been disrupted. After a moment, Helen spoke. “We were just talking about how to divide up the solar between us after the wedding. Seven of us between four chambers. Althea and I can share a room together, we're good friends and that won't be any hardship."

Althea looked over at her friend, opened her mouth, and then closed it as Maude spoke. “Properly speaking, every noble-born woman needs a chamber to call her own,” Maude said. “But if you're willing to make exception, I'll confess it would make things easier if we put you both in the study. Avery doesn’t need to keep a study up in the solar, he can take his old chamber back over as his study once your families go home.”

“We were thinking that he didn't need his own chamber up there at all, and that we could divide the four rooms amongst ourselves,” Anna said.

“Hm. Good idea. He could put a cot in his old chamber for sleeping, too, if he needs a good night's rest,” Maude said, counting on her fingers. “It all fits neatly at that point. Elizabeth in the duchess's old room, Johanna in the duke's old room, Althea and Helen in the study, and then the three lower-born women in the meditation chamber. I'm sure you're accustomed to sharing chambers, growing up in the gentry as you did. I will go put matters into motion at once – then I will be back to discuss the wedding.”

Anna bristled at the departing gray-haired half-elf's back as she left the room. “I'm not accustomed to sharing chambers,” she growled after the woman had safely departed.

Fiona put her hand on Anna's arm. “We can change things again once we're duchesses. But only if we aren't at odds with one another. If we're in contention with each other, I'm sure Maude will continue to run this household as she has for the past century. I'll talk to the servants and make sure they put a second bed in the meditation room, at least. There's no furniture in that room at present, so it should be possible to fit two beds in without too much trouble. Three, perhaps, but if it’s two, I will share with Merilda so you can have one for yourself. We'll need to be able to trust one another and cooperate.”

“Two baronetcies,” Rose said, her bright blue eyes fixed on Maude. “One for my father, one for myself in my own right. My father already has extensive holdings for a knight, but I know Leeds itself reverted to a direct ducal holding when the baron died without issue. Grant me that part of the former baronial holdings, to be administered by my father for the time being. And in turn, I'll act as a lady in waiting here in York in the near term. You'll have need of such with seven duchesses.”

Maude shifted in her seat and eyed the young woman warily. If they were anywhere other than the privacy of her study, she felt she would need to upbraid the young woman for insolence; but in private, there was no benefit to doing so. “You ask a lot,” she said. “And you offer only a little.”

“The titles cost the duke nothing,” Rose said. “And he said he'd enlarge my father to baronet anyway if we got married, so all I'm really asking for are the rents from Leeds. It's not exactly a large town, and it's quite far off from York. My father has half the lands abutting it anyway.”

“No, it isn’t very large at all,” Maude said. “In fact, I think it's the smallest named village along the Aire. It has some of the smallest collected rents, at least. I'm sure the duke will agree it'd be better administered by a closer noble. And you do have a point. The castle servants simply are not prepared to attend to the needs of seven duchesses. We will need help, and soon.”

Rose nodded. “I imagine you'd want my help immediately.”

“Perhaps,” Maude said. “I will talk to the duke, and see if he's willing to title you baronetess over Leeds. It should be easily done. What does your father think about this?”

“I haven't told him yet,” Rose said. “But I'm sure he won't raise much of a fuss when I do. The last I talked with him, he was worried about whether or not he could afford to give me a dowry that would match the other brides, and whether or not I might be able to stand out next to the other brides. He doesn’t like the notion of Madame Jocosa altering Anna’s dress, but every other dressmaker he's talked to so far is already booked up through the wedding.”

“I can imagine. Madame Percy turned me down,” Maude said. “With her deepest regrets, of course, saying that she had already committed to as much work as she could possibly complete. There's a waiting list.”

Rose looked at Maude. “I didn't know you were getting a new dress for the wedding,” she said. “Or was it for Isolde?”

The older woman silently cursed her careless tongue. Would she have to get Isolde a new dress for the wedding just to cover up the fact that she was paying for Elizabeth's dress? She shook her head. “Well, I'm certainly not getting one from Madame Percy,” she said. “Isolde may just have to be satisfied with what she already has.”