Thread: The Lady in Waiting (Lady Bloody Ava & Greeneyed23)

Lilah Degan, Jessica Lock, Isabella Wittle, and Gracia Harshmatter were the first to come see Rose Benedict. The four most sought after and wealthy noble woman of marrying age in the entire county..save for Rose herself. they called themselves her friends but they were just as conniving and cruel as the men that sought their hands. Each of them maintained an image of pure grace and ladylike bearing in reality however thew were vipers in dresses. Lilah was the eldest, only a few months younger than rose, and was easily the most cunning of the quartet. She hid a wickedly sharp and forked tongue behind her perfect teeth and blood red lips, her father having hired an Italian doctor who specialized in teeth to help her and giving her the brightest and most lustrous smile in the land. Her coal black hair fell to her waist though today it was done up in a heavy pile of braids atop her head. She fancied it resembled a french noblewoman's attire she had seen in London. Actually ti made her head look like the center of a cobweb. Her chilling grey eyes could capture a man's attention with ease but also held death or dishonor for any who crossed her. It was possible she herself had been apart of the death of her grandparents who had left her a sizable inheritance, but no evidence leading to her had ever been found so the entire retinue of slaves and servants had been either sold or executed ensuring their eternal silence and a tidy profit for Lilah. Such was the beautiful Lilah Degan. Cold, haughty, vain, and dangerous as any of her kin. Jessica Lock was the youngest of the quartet. A full eighteen months younger than Lilah she had grown in the older girls estimation because of her ruthless nature and ability to find victory in any loss. Her golden hair and blue eyes and impressive figure, like Lilah, had earned her much admiration from the men in York, but the women in the city feared her second only to Lilah. When she had been twelve she had been infuriated that her mother had chosen to play with her younger brother Stephen rather than her. So she had gotten one of the house servants, who she had been allowing to view her nude when she bathed, to take the boy out and get him lost int he forest. Stephen managed to find his way home but died of pneumonia a few weeks later. The house servant had shown up dead inside the month and never again was Jessica ignored. Isabella Wittle was the daughter of a military genius and the second youngest of the group though she was also Lilah Degan's best friend. Possessing a remarkable figure and stunning beauty that had lead to the sting of lovers, men and women both married and single, she had been with since her thirteenth year and in that time she had developed a significant array of information providers. Her network of lovers still gave her so much data she was always the first to know anything of note within a hundred miles and she had used this network to further her families position at court, to push a number of rivals either out of the way at every level of her interest or into her bed and into the pool of information. She was a nyphomaniac but also a sadist and delighted in seeing pain on her lovers faces though they were so befuddled by her beauty that they could not bear to break free of her. She was often heard bragging over this conquest or that and had long had her sights set on Rallon Granger and promised to get him when eh returned, though she was careful never to say such things to Rose. Gracia Harshmatter seemed to be the dunce of the group. She rarely spoke or laughed and when she did it was usually in single syllable grunts. this was actually because she was usually so drunk she could not see straight. Pampered and spoiled to the point that she literally had three of everything she had ever asked for and so many servants that she did not even wipe the sleep from her own eyes, she was bored. Bored beyond words. only drinking and the little games Lilah and the other two played seemed to interest her. This she took part and relish in and was often a key member of the cruel tricks the quartet would pull. It had been she who had shaved poor Patricia Hasbaun, the German baker's daughter, bald and then sicked two wild boarhounds on the girl. Patricia had survived but her face, once the picture of innocent beaut, was now ruined forever. And when questioned why she had simply stated, because she was prettier than me. Such were the only visitors to Rose Benedict on the morning everything changed. Lilah peered down her nose at the doorman. Well? Aren't you going to announce us and let us in? he looked at them chagrined but did not answer as he waited for the page who had gone to inform Lady Rose of her visitors. He carefully did not look at the four women a he had seen all four have servants who had dared beaten to death or worse.