Chapter 54: Standing on Ceremony
“Obviously we will hold the wedding reception at Myrddhin House. All the brides are members of House Myrddhin after all.”
“Fiona, you don’t know how good it feels to hear that. To know that.” I said.
“It’s like a warm hug,” Amy agreed.
Fiona grinned, “Indeed. This arrangement is something for which I did not plan, but which I now wish to keep and protect.”
We basked in the glow for several minutes before anyone spoke again.
“As I said, the reception will occur at Myrddhin House. We need to decide on a location for the ceremony. To be legal it will need to be a government building or a church. A church of the Twice Dead Gods would be acceptable, although I don’t venerate them. A fairy shrine would also be good. The Lady of Unification seems appropriate. And there is an ancient shrine upon Chateau-Colline Hill above the city that is still active.
As we were speaking, Wentworth walked into the drawing room. “Your Excellency, you have a visitor at the door. It is His Grace, Duke Delmar. Shall I show him in?”
“Indeed. He can join us here.”
Leon entered the drawing room a few moments later. This was the first time I had seen him out of his naval uniform. He wore navy blue trousers over riding boots. He wore a carnation red waist coat over a white imperial high collared dress shirt. At his neck, he wore a sky-blue ascot. Over all that he wore a cutaway jacket with tapered tails in a navy blue that matched his trousers. I’d noticed that men in Ys wore more jewelry than those in North America. Today Leon wore a beetle brooch with two peridot stones for wing cases as an ascot pin. He also wore a pair of very modern ear cuff earrings made from gold and silver. And he wore a Delmar signet ring on his right pinky finger, the Delmar mer-lion in green enamel.
But, more important than the rest, he wore an engagement ring on the third finger of his left hand. The jeweler had made the ring by twisting two strands of metal, one of gold and one of silver.
“The new ring looks good Leon!” I said as he walked to join us.
He blushed, and then smiled, “Yeah, it does. I never thought I’d have the opportunity. I owe you three much for my upcoming marriage. Can I see your rings?”
Three hands thrust up in unison, palm down and fingers spread. Leon looked over the rings. Fiona wore a ring that was two rings forged together side by side. Amy and I wore rings that appeared to have been made from two halves.
“Those are striking. They must be custom made. How did your jeweler make them?”
Fiona brought her left hand to her face, palm towards her. “Mine is the Boulanger engagement ring and an engagement ring belonging to Ren’s grandmother. The jeweler forged them together. Both rings had gemstones, but I felt they would be impractical in a fight. And so, we moved them to the rings worn by my soon to be wives.”
Amy held her own ring up in imitation of Fiona’s gesture, and then pointed at my ring with her right hand. “Our rings are Fiona’s family engagement ring. The jeweler cut it in half and combined it with a new ring that Fiona selected. The diamonds are from the stones these rings had, plus the ones from Fiona’s ring.
“The practice of polyamory may be legal in Ys, but it isn’t common. We had substantial work to make our engagement rings viable.” I added.
“Well, they look good on you three,” Leon said. “And Lady Amelia, nobility looks good on you. Not that you didn’t look amazing before. Not that I was looking. Or not looking for that matter. I mean.”
Amy beamed, “Your Grace is too kind.”
“Call me Leon,” he said, “They call me that, and you three are a set now.”
Amy blushed, “We are a set now, yes. And thank you- Leon. Call me Amy then.”
“Thank you, Amy. Now, onto business.” Leon shifted his tone from normal Leon to Duke Delmar, Supreme Commander of the Royal Navy. “In our recent misadventures, I noticed you three are astute. You are capable at sniffing out threats to the Kingdom. You use your gifts well. You are persistent. You are willing to put yourself at risk for your kingdom. In my capacity as Duke, I am very impressed.”
“I feel like there is a ‘but’, waiting in the wings,” I said.
“No, not at all. Leon said, “I would like to employ you three as formal agents of the Duchy.”
Fiona raised an eyebrow, “What sort of agents?”
“The Baroness mentioned this,” Amy said.
“Did she? That does not surprise me. You would be investigators, searching for plots against Ys in general. And you would investigate threats against the Delmar Duchy in particular. You would also act as counterintelligence agents, thwarting any plots you discover. You would do what you did with Wulfric. But now you would have the full authority and resources of the Delmar Duchy to back you up.”
“You realize that we have a wedding to plan? A wedding for three,” I said, “The logistics are going to be a pain.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to start immediately.” Leon said.
“This does sound interesting,” Fiona said.
“It sounds dangerous,” Amy said.
“Fiona would be with us,” I said.
“That’s true,” Amy said, looking at the ceiling and tapping her lips with her index finger.
“Indeed. I would keep my wives safe. Ren, are you agreeable to this idea?”
“I think so,” I said. And then I stopped. My vision was spinning. I recognized the symptoms by now.
“Crap. Ladies, we have an incoming vision. Can somebody catch m-”
The End
The Ladies of House Myrddhin
WILL RETURN
in later Moonlight Hearts novels!
Read more in "Daughters of the Digital Empire," Available soon!
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