“So how am I supposed to act tonight?” Deirdre nervously questioned Jessica resplendent in her gold gown, as the pair waited for their men to arrive.

“Just be yourself, dear.” The other answered with a shrug then rearranged the skirts of her gown for better effect when the men arrived.

“That’s what keeps getting me into trouble.” The dark haired almost girl snorted while making certain her own skirts were arranged in the most flattering manner.

“Without the hair pulling, slapping, and rolling on the floor.” Jessica giggled at the image that brought to mind in the middle of the Royal Grand Ball.

“Easy for you to say.” Deirdre grumbled. “You don’t get sudden impulses to murder the butler for offering you a sweet.”

“It’s part of growing up as a girl.” Jessica answered imperturbably. “Girls have some pretty wild urges when they reach puberty, after all. Our poor men only get horny.”

“They have it easy then.” Deirdre grumped.

“Yes they do.” Her future sister-in-law agreed then laughed. “But the trick here is NOT letting them realize that. We ladies are supposed to be beautiful, serene, and above such petty things as wanting to KILL someone over an innocuous remark.”

“You want to do that, too?” Deirdre questioned with wide eyes.

“Every woman does at times.” Jessica chuckled as she patted the other’s hand. “The trick is not letting our men know that until they’ve married us.”

“What happens after the – marriage?” Deirdre hesitated at the word and concept with her as the bride.

“I understand that our men learn far faster than we were led to believe.” The blonde giggled.

“Gods help me.” Deirdre muttered.

“Gods help Garret.” Jessica corrected.

“Garret doesn’t need any help, thank you.” The dark haired beauty who had been an unsuspecting boy several weeks before grumped while checking her scarlet, black trimmed gown in a nearby mirror with a sigh. “Damn, a month ago I wouldn’t have imagined trying to wear something like this, let alone move around without damaging things in my path.”

“You’re doing fine, dear.” Jessica smirked as she swung her full skirts to emphasize their volume. “Just stay away from little knick-knack tables if you and Garret are invited to an after the Ball party.”

“How do you do that?” Deirdre narrowed her eyes as she asked that, since a table holding some delicate glassware was within reach of Jessica’s skirts.

“Practice, honey.” Jessica grinned. “I’ve had years to learn just how much room I need to do something like that. You’ll pick it up in time, trust me. You’re already doing very well considering that you never wore a formal gown before today.”

“I may never do that again, either.” Deirdre grumbled, trying to imitate the move her friend had just done and knocking the glassware to the carpet. With a grimace, she eyed the fallen ornaments and the table they had been on. “At least I didn’t break anything.”

“A bit less swing, and a little more twirl, would help.” The blonde girl offered.

“Swing, twirl, trip… What do I know?” Deirdre answered with a sigh.

“You’re learning, little sister.”

“That worries me, too, you know.”

Jessica only laughed cheerfully in response to that.

Sir Alomar Dumont of Ilseaa, gave Deirdre a brilliant smile. “Ah, M’lady, if I wasn’t already betrothed to my beloved Jessica I would work to give Garret some competition for your favors.”

Dierdre gave the tall, dark haired knight a skeptical look, smiled then asked Garret. “Dear, are ALL your friends as full of it as you are?”

Alomar and Garret both laughed and nodded as they said. “Probably.”

“Where is PMS when you need it?” She grumbled then gave both the men a brilliant smile.

“Ahh, I like her, Garret!” Alomar grinned.

“I’m doomed.” Deirdre grumped.

“Don’t worry, dear.” Jessica laughed. “I’ll run interference for you with Alomar. Now with Garret, you’re on your own.”

“But he’s your brother!” Deirdre protested. “You should know all the weak spots he has!”

“For me to know and you to learn, little sister.” The other grinned.

“Like I said.” Deirdre let out a sigh. “I’m doomed.”

By the time they arrived, the ballroom was already full of people. Ladies in brilliantly colored and accented gowns, and their men folk in clothing that was nearly as stunning. Deirdre gave the floor below them a worried look, then braced herself for the herald’s announcement of their arrival. The expected, and dreaded ‘Lady Deirdre’ hardly made her flinch at all this time.

“You’re doing better with this, dear.” Garret approved.

“I’m just numb.” Deirdre retorted. “Give me a while, it will sink into my poor befuddled brain, and I’ll run screaming from the whole thing.”

“Oh, I doubt that, Lady.” Alomar chuckled. “You don’t strike me as one who would ever run from anything at all.”

“You’d be surprised, sir.” She tartly returned with a roll of her eyes. “Some things you just don’t fight. You run, and hope they don’t catch up with you before you get a handle on things and are able to beat them.”

“Ahh, so you consider this to be a battle, then dear Lady?” Alomar questioned carefully while assisting Jessica down the stairs.

“I’m supremely hampered for a physical battle sir, even if I am armored enough to give a battering ram pause.” Deirde said while clinging to Garret’s arm and gingerly negotiating the seemingly endless stairway. “I fear in a battle of wits, I only come half armed at the moment.”

“Oh, now that I doubt, little lady!” Alomar answered with a chuckle. “You seem to possess far more wit than many successful diplomats I’ve known.”

“Oh, trust me on that sir.” She grumbled. “Only a halfwit would have gotten themselves into the position I’m in just now. And I’m being generous with that assessment.”

“Little sister.” Jessica put in with a chuckle. “Keep on protesting your involvement with Garret, and the act that you don’t care if you’re his lady or not. That will get his defenses lowered so you can strike with your nets at the proper moment.”

“I thought you were supposed to be my friend.” Deirdre glared at the other lady while saying that.

“I am, dear, I am!”

“Interesting lady you’ve found for yourself here Garret.” Alomar quietly told the other man.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Deirdre grumped to no one in particular and to the general amusement of her companions.

“Garret knocked you down during the tournament didn’t he?” She questioned with narrowed eyes and a speculative expression on her face.

“That he did, m’lady.” Alomar said with a small sigh of embarrassment. “Though seeing you and knowing that the prize he fought for was such a gem…”

“Garret?” Deirdre asked as sweetly as she could manage.

“Yes, my darling?”

“I might forgive you for all this if you’d knock Sir Alomar down the rest of these stairs about now. It would be entirely by accident, of course. I’d vouch for you.”

An hour later, Alomar – who hadn’t been knocked down the remaining stairs but had been thoroughly amused by the idea that Garret’s young lady was already using her wiles to get what she wanted – cut in on a dance Deirdre was enduring with a not so young lordling with hands faster and more intrusive than she thought no one but a master thief should have.

“Thank you, Alomar.” Deirdre actually gave the man a weak smile when she said that, then glared long, sharply pointed daggers at the ‘gentleman’ the knight had replaced as her dancing partner.

“All part of the service, my dear.” Alomar answered with a grin. “I usually rescues ladies in distress, but in this case I do believe I was rescuing that bore.”

“Yeah, I’d already gotten clumsy twice and stepped on his toes.” The dark haired beauty let out a sigh of frustration as she answered. “Would you believe his shoes are armored? I was just about to resort to a very un-accidental elbow applied sharply in an upwards motion just beneath his ribs.”

“Though I applaud your determination, dear lady that would have been more than a bit unfortunate since the ‘gentleman’ is the eldest son of the Ankarrian Ambassador.” Alomar answered with a deep chuckle. “You could have precipitated a diplomatic incident of unpleasant proportions if you’d done that.”

“Well.” Deirdre retorted. “If he’d grabbed me in the wrong spot one more time, I guess I’d just have had that on my record in addition to giving the lady Bridgette a black eye. Okay, two black eyes, and I tried to choke her to death with her own hairpiece. But she deserved it! And he would have deserved whatever I could manage to do to him, too!”

“Oh yes, the famous fountain fight.” Alomar nodded as he answered, then grinned. “I do wish I could have been there to see that one.”

“You’re laughing at me now.”

“Oh, far from it, Deirdre.” Alomar’s eyes twinkled as he answered. “I’m applauding you, and admiring the spitfire my friend has for a lady while being very glad Jessica is a bit more sedate.”

“Huh!”

“I’ll return you to the safety of your beloved’s embrace, or at least close presence.” Alomar told her with another grin. “It seems our dance is finished.”

Laddin Summis, soon to be lord of Cardasia in the neighboring nation ofAnkarria and currently son of the ambassador to the wealthy and powerful city state of Jhalmar, was rubbing one of his feet when a familiar voice intruded on his internal swearing.

“It would appear, my lord that you are in some discomfort.” The man, who chose to remain nameless but had access to a very full purse that helped fund Laddin’s gambling habit smirked while watching the young nobleman quickly put his foot back to the floor.

“That little bitch nearly broke my foot with her heel.” Laddin sighed then shook his head in reluctant admiration. “Three times, I might add.”

“I take it you – umm – sampled her assets?” The other questioned with a chuckle.

“Oh, that I did.” Laddin nodded with a smirk. “And fine assets they are, too, even if a bit underdeveloped yet. I imagine when she comes into maturity she will be quite breath taking in form as well as in feature. Though she’ll probably still be a bitch who doesn’t appreciate a gentleman’s attentions.”

“Then you are convinced that Deirdre is a woman?”

“My friend, whoever told you that young lady is really a boy was misleading you.” Laddin answered with a grin. “When I pressed too closely into her skirts to check that, I thought she was going to gouge out one of my eyes with one of her dainty little nails. But she only trampled my instep with her heel again.”

“Well, perhaps this will soothe that pain.” The other chuckled and smoothly slid a pouch full of coins into the other’s pocket. “A warm soak in healing salts would probably be a good idea, too.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, my friend.” Laddin nodded then let out an exaggerated sigh. “Now, though, I must mingle again. Though I do think I’ll avoid the Lady Deirdre for the rest of the evening.”

“Just as well.” The other agreed then added. “She already has a reputation as a spitfire of epic proportions.”

“I noticed.” Laddin grumbled to empty air. His companion had faded into the crowd.

“Ooooh, I wanted to gut that man with my fingernails!” Dierdre fumed once she had rejoined Garret and Jessica in the comfortably overstuffed chairs grouped at the edge of the ballroom floor.

“A lady does not say that kind of thing aloud, dear.” Jessica informed her then ruined the seriousness of her pronouncement with a deep throated chuckle. “Though I daresay most of us have thought such things on more than one occasion.”

“Can I help it if I’m honest?” Deirdre shrugged then glowered at that ambassador’s son who was moving gracefully through the crowd, but across the room from them. “At least he’s limping.”

“Uh, why would you take such pleasure in that?” Garret carefully questioned.

“Because each time he touched a place he shouldn’t have, I got clumsy and stepped on his foot, hard, and right on the arch.” The raven haired hellion grinned nastily. “Got the misbegotten whatever he is four times.”

“It’s a wonder the poor man is still able to walk.” Alomar put in with a smirk of his own. “I saw one of those ‘dainty mistakes’ and trust me, Garret, if the lady wasn’t so petite she would have flattened the fellow’s foot in one try.”

“He deserved a good swift kick to the…”

“Deirdre!” Jessica warned. “Ladies do not say things like that.”

“Like what?” The girl/boy grumpily asked. “I’m NOT a lady, and you know that as well as I do, Jess.”

“Oh, you’re a lady, all right.” Jessica countered. “Just one who tends to be a bit more direct in her retaliations and recounting of them than most of us are.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Deirdre asked almost innocently.

“My friend.” Alomar wrapped an arm around Garret’s shoulder, and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “You have a handful in this one.”

Deirdre tossed her head, let out a sigh, and glared at Alomar. Then softened that with a grin that refused to stay hidden as she chuckled. “Damned right I am, Alomar, and Idon’t intend to change anytime soon, either.”

“Oh, please don’t do that.” Alomar bowed while taking the dark haired beauty’s hand and placing a gentle kiss on its palm. “I’m sure that life would be far more dull if you did. Besides, my friend here really needs a hard woman to keep him in line.”

Garret snorted the wine he had just taken a drink of through his nose and Deirdre was busy for the next few minutes with a napkin and cold water getting the stain off his coat before it set, and laughing merrily as she did that. “You can blow your own nose. You’re a big boy, Garret.”

Taking the clean napkin she handed him, Garret did so then gave her a mournful look. “You are a hard woman, you know that?”

“Not yet.” Deirdre grinned. “But I’m practicing.”

“Trust me.” Garret answered drily. “You don’t need any more practice. And how is it that the number of ‘accidental’ steps to the ambassador’s son’s instep seems to keep growing as the tale goes on?”

“Well…” Deirdre shrugged with the innocent expression of a cat in the same room with an empty canary cage. “I may have played down the times I stepped on the … lord’s foot in the first telling. His hands were very, very busy during that dance.”

“Should I call the man on that?” Garret asked, quite seriously and with a dangerous glint in his eye that Deirdre had never seen before.

“See how he’s limping?” Jessica pointed out before Garret might do something to truly foul Jhalmar’s relations with Ankarria. “I do believe the poor man is going to be paying for his wandering hands for more than a few days.”

“True, Garret.” Alomar chuckled as he gave Deirdre a glance that was a mix of admiration and wariness. “You’re lady may be petite, but she packs a pretty good wallop when she wishes to do so.”

Recalling the chamber pot in the carriage, Garret let out a sigh, released the building anger, and managed to chuckle. “Oh, trust me, I’ve learned that already.”

“Got to keep our rowdy men in line, right Deirdre?” Jessica smirked while she watched her future sister-in-law and her brother.

“Chamber pots are good for that.” Deirdre answered with a little laugh at Garret’s wince.

“Empty or full?” Jessica asked.

“Take your choice, but I’d go with empty unless you have someone around to clean up the mess right away.”

“And she swears she isn’t a woman.” Garret opined. “Hits me with a chamber pot but makes sure its empty beforehand so she doesn’t have a mess to deal with.”

“I can find a chamber pot around here, I’m sure.” Deirdre threatened.

“See what I mean?” Garret plaintively asked the others to general laughter.

“Now we mingle, Deirdre.” Garret informed the uncertain young beauty on his arm. “Please just smile, be pleasant even if that does seem to be something foreign to your disposition lately, and promise not to snarl at anyone.”

“Snarl?” Deirdre shook her head slight which sent waves of motion through her elaborately styled hair, shoulders, and newly acquired anatomy. “Me?”

“You.” He affirmed with a grin. “Though I find that characteristic endearing and something of a challenge, polite society would frown on you doing so very much in public.”

“You take all the fun out of things, you know that?” She grumped.

“Such are the burdens of nobility.” He answered with a little smirk and light slap to her bottom.

“Garret!”

“I take my fun where I can get it, m’lady.” He answered with a straight face.