Matters of the heart

Adela opened the door without knocking and then closed it behind her in a hurry, but the thick barrier did nothing to muffle her father's voice that boomed throughout the hallway. She was talking to Arkin in the garden outside when she heard her parents arguing and rushed to Larissa's room after that.

"How come I was never informed that she was going there every day, how dare you treat me like a chair in my own house?!" The Archduke shouted.

Seeing Larissa's bloodshot eyes peeking out from under the covers of her bed, Adela felt heaviness in her body. Something nagged at the back of her mind.

Looks like she has been crying her eyes out for quite some time...

"No! She absolutely cannot be alone with a man who is not even officially courting her! You think I know not of what goes inside of your head? My daughters are not for sale damn it!"

The two sisters flinched when their father swore, the Archduke's language around the house or elsewhere had never been coarse or blasphemous. They both froze waiting for what ought to follow, but there was nothing but long ominous silence.

"Do not worry, Larissa, mother will surely calm him down,"

Unable to hear the composed comeback the Archduchess had to be responding with, all that the two sisters could do was try to fill in the blanks to the best of their abilities. But the frightened expression on Larissa's face tugged at Adela's heart.

She opened her arms, "Come here,"

Larissa pushed the covers off and stumbled her way out of her bed then ran across the spacy room and threw her arms around her sister. Both of them winced when her father roared again.

"I do not trust them, neither of them! And those knights accompanying her were no different from decoration! It is not an attack that I fear, Grace! It is words that are whispered and promises that cannot be kept!"

Larissa trembled in Adela's arms — she would have never believed those words to be the Archduke's opinion of his daughters had she not heard them with her own ears.

"How could he think so little of us?"

It is not you and I whom he thinks so little of...

Adela did not share her thoughts with her sister, for she knew all too well that Larissa would not find the slightest consolation in them.

It all started that day when Larissa went horseback riding with her sister all the way to the sunflower meadow and then crossed over to the neighboring estate because of her horse's injury. Following Andreas's advice, Emily was kept in a stable to recover instead of heading back to the de Lanark's estate immediately, and a concerned Larissa had gone over repeatedly to check on Emily making sure that two of her father's knights accompanied her at all times.

An uninformed Kaiser who had missed the report on house affairs because of how busy he was with the auction saw Larissa entering de Lanark's estate with Andreas all by herself. Seeing how the two knights rode further away from the Lady only fed his fire. He stormed to retrieve her himself in a manner that was less than dignified.

"Shh, stop shaking already," Adela pushed her sister's hair away from her forehead, "You know how kind father is, he will surely come around,"

"He just would not listen back then… And he has turned down my request for an audience,"

Adela knew that already; she also knew that Larissa was forbidden from going to the neighboring estate without the Archduke's permission at all costs. Adela was about to start a conversation regarding that matter when more yelling came from outside.

"The cottages I wanted to destroy are being restored... All of them!... Egon von Conradie would not hear of building a tower by the eastern entrance of the forest let alone leave one of my knights on the lookout there... Can you not see what is happening?!"

The sisters looked each other in the eye; the same question reflected in them.

"What is happening!" Larissa spoke first.

The new implicating evidence of refusing to set up a tower for the Archduke's knights was suspicious, yet it was not incriminating. Adela did not know where to begin or what to say exactly since the two merchants' current involvement with the rebels was mere speculation.

"Do not mind what father is saying right now, he is just overwhelmed because of losing so much of the Archduchy,"

Larissa dried her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, "The last thing I wanted to do was burden father now of all times, I just…I just really enjoy Andreas's company, so much that I still want to see him again, am I in the wrong here?"

Two fingers were placed on Adela's lips when they parted to answer.

"Do not try and make me feel less miserable... I just wish…I just do not know how to please mother and father at the same time!"

Adela nodded understanding how unfair her sister's position was.

Grace de Lanark knew where her daughter was since day one, she even picked out Larissa's outfits carefully whenever it was time for her to visit Emily at the adjacent estate.

"None of my previous suitors appealed to father, and I did not think much of it since they did not appeal to me either, but this time…"

Larissa's fair face contorted as more tears made their way down her cheek, then she shook her head in confusion.

"Andreas von Conradie is far from lacking! Why does father disapprove of paving the way for a more serious relationship between us?"

Adela slightly frowned at her sister's choice of words finding it rather extreme for such an early stage in two people's acquaintance. I might have to interfere sooner than I had planned. Her resolve was taking shape with the passing minute. She hugged her sister tighter.

"Shh, Lari... You cried enough already..."

"Father is right, you know? Andreas is yet to pursue me... Not once did he imply or ask to court..."

"...Larissa, were you crying because of that? I mean before the argument started... Are you sad that Andreas has not made his intentions clear to you?"

Larissa buried her head in her sister's embrace, but to Adela, Larissa's lack of response was response enough.

I must do something about it...