When I knocked on the mansion doors, my routine was ready. I was but a humble and out-of-work butler, famished from bandits capturing my employer’s caravan. Taken to their hideout deep in the woods, I was bound to a tree and whipped for sport. Wouldn’t you know my luck, I escaped. All the details were there: how I courageously led the Ward back to the encampment; the old fire pit, septic trench, and even my Lord’s girl’s dolls strewn about. Alas, it was abandoned. Applauded by the Ward, I was now just seeking humble employment and trying to forget the horrors of my past.

Such a tale would draw sympathy from the recently bereaved Morlia Rogaire, and in case she desired proof, lashes on my back were sure to draw tears. No Lady would question why they looked so old.

A sallow and sunken-cheeked slave answered the doors. After hearing my request to speak to the master of the house, he gave me what I later understood to be a weary look of warning.

After a wait befitting the smuggest of royalty, Morlia appeared. Dripping in jewels and adorned in a ball gown that was unsuccessfully concealing a bust like flour bags, she looked more like a doll than a mourner.

As I commenced with my bit, Morlia stood in complete silence, at some point crossing her arms.

“You have the bluest eyes,” she said, interrupting the part where I defied the bandits to do their worst. Before I could continue, a hand was caressing my cheek.

On the way up to her chamber doors, my heart jumped about, not with lustful anticipation but with teeth-like questions burying themselves into me. This was definitely better than having the door shut in my face. Was I to be the next suitor? Did I somehow heal the fickle heart that was leading me up a flight of stairs and into the bed of a man who was still stinking? Was I to be used and then discarded afterward, and did she recognize me from my last profession if that was the case?

What cruel games the fates play. Rinlot had no desire for me, whereas his moll widow wrapped her rawboned legs around me on the first day of our meeting. Wretch. Moll. It is most fortunate I had experience with couples. I shut my eyes and pretended she was Illheador, on stage with muscles glistening as his trademark swagger carried him from scene to scene.

Before I knew it, it was over. As impressed in myself as I was for being able to perform, I don’t believe Morlia felt the same. I was indeed given a butler position; apparently the other one had earned a place on the dripping stakes. In the beginning she referred to me as “the new butler that was tortured by pirates, or was it used to live in the woods with escaped slaves,” and to my good luck never led me to her bed again.