After wallowing in self pity for a little while, Victoire pushed herself up from the bed, washed her face and wrapped a coat around her. It was soft wool but it still felt coarse compared to all velvets and silks as she made sure it covered her up completely. The evening was late, her own ladies had visited briefly to help her out of her clothes but seeing her in her misery, they knew not to bother her. The dark green velvet shone in the dark as she walked down the stairs, and she had let her dark curls cascade down her shoulders, covering her face slightly but to their own people in the house, it wasn’t a disguise.<br/><br/>If they wondered where she was going, they didn’t ask, and she only walked past few last people getting things ready for the night, taking the last items back to the building from their carriages. When Victoire would be back, they too would most likely be in bed. Hopefully. It took awhile for the woman to find the backdoor by the kitchen and she quietly pushed it open. The blessed silence. It never got this quiet in the city, and the castle never truly fell asleep. Now, people were tired and most of the people living in the castle were shattered around the countryside. Victoire closed the door carefully behind her. There were no locks in the doors. These people out here lived a more simple life clearly.<br/><br/>Victoire wanted to see her new home, and she walked around the building, watched the lights in windows slowly going dark. It wasn’t extremely late yet, but late enough for people travelling from as far as they had. What she hadn’t been expecting was meeting someone out here. This one didn’t seem like one of their own, a tall, dark figure. It could be someone curious of the noise they had been making, or it could be someone from the city. Either way, she knew she should step back and hurry back inside.<br/><br/>Yet she didn’t.<br/><br/>“Evening, sir. Can I help you?” There was a sense of authority in her voice that Victoire had learned to do, yet it was coarse from lack of use and tiredness. There was little light on the woman, but she could imagine being a sight in her dark coat and hair, and her pale skin. She wasn’t the prettiest of girls, not as frail and feminine as the queen or some of her own handmaidens, but inherited the strong, angular features that seemed to go in her family. Victoire had a strong jawline and straight nose, her eyes looked black in this darkness but they were almond shaped and slightly narrowed. Still, she had soft, full lips even though they were pulled into a tight line right now from nervousness, and her figure, even if not the most visible in her clothing, was shapely, her hips were wide even without the dress, and her chest full.<i>Perfect for making children, as her mother used to say, even though it seemed she would never get that far.</i>Either way, a tall woman to the day’s standards, perhaps 5’7”.<br/><br/>Still at this moment, she felt very much like a mouse being cornered with a cat. Only her training kept her still, and her stupid pride.