Fabianne

and her big mouth

"MUST WE REALLY spend time with her?" Elle mummers annoyed. I understand her annoyance. I'll be leaving to Malaysia within the week and our precious little days left between the packing and entertaining Arianna.

My mother has this brilliant idea that dropping this woman who constantly looks like she's grieving on the two of us might adapt to some our lady like behaviour but she's stubborn. 

Today she struts to us in black tight shiny pants that look so crass and a black top which she's left three buttons unbuttoned showing off her chest. 

"Hello girls," she greets overly friendly with the fakest smile on her face. 

I don't get how anyone finds her pretty. Her eyes are a little to mean looking and small and her nose pokes out of her face in a very unflattering way. 

"You're late," I say coolly. 

When, I look at her and it's hard to see how she's second in line to the throne. 

Elle gives me this glance, somewhat telling me that she knows exactly how I feel, in her french, she says, "Well, what else can we expect from a commoner."

I smile a little at this.

Lady Arianna, of course, doesn't understand french and instead replies, "It's a very big garden." 

I hate how she doesn't apologise.

"Let's just go now. We're already late thanks to this idiot and the designers have been waiting for longer than an hour," Elle says in french. She's been practising and her grammar was a lot better. It's still not perfect but since neither of us is certain if she speaks Dutch, it's safer to converse in French.

"Could you please speak in English?" Arianna says, her voice irritated. 

"I love how she can come here and can't speak a word of any of our national languages," Elle says deadpan.

"Elle doesn't speak English," I tell her. "I'll translate if she wants to talk to you."

"You're incredibly smart you know that right Fabianne?" Elle says, looping her arm with mine. 

I smile back at her. "We're going to go to the display showhouse," I tell Arianna. "Keep up." 

Then switching to french, I tell Elle, "we don't want her getting lost in the garden again."

Elle laughs. 

I love her creativity, it feels like we can properly still have an our day regardless if Lady Arianna is around.

The showhouse, is on the edge of the garden. It's a place where we let the public salesman and designers visit. Normally, Pierre manages it but I wanted to get some new statement pieces for my trip to Malaysia. 

Elle's tagging along because she loves fashion as much as I do.

I don't need to tell you how much neither of us cared that Arianna came or not. We both wanted to abandon her when she decided to come late. "It's probably a good thing she is here. She'll buy whatever crappy designs that come up," Elle says, "Can you believe what she's wearing?"

I admire Elle for a minute with how careful she is not to say Arianna's name. "She looks like she's going for a funeral."

Elle smirks, "hopefully hers. She was trying so hard for Jasper the other night."

Before I can reply, Lady Arianne replies, "Both of you need to grow up."

Elle's face pales.

It takes me a minute to realise she spoke french. 

"Grow up?" I say coldly, "neither of us lied about not speaking a language."

Her face turns red and her fists curl. "I don't owe you a explanation," she manages, before she turns around and walks back towards the castle. 

Elle's face is still pale but there's a small smirk on her lips, "She really is insane isn't she?" She says loudly in French. 

I'd like to think Lady Arianna heard that as she left. 

I ignore the thudding of my heart as I try to remember if I said anything really embarrassing or rude about her that could get me in trouble. The last thing I would want is not being able to go to Malaysia over something as trivial as an honest observation over Lady Arianna.

How long has she been eavesdropping on all of us when we spoke French? What other languages does she understand that she didn't say?

This does explain why her mother spoke French.

And why Adaliz thought she'd speak French.

"I can't believe she lied to us all about not being able to speak French," Elle continues, irritate. Her colour was coming back to her skin. She looks more herself as we approach the showhouse. 

I shrug, "she could be a spy. Doesn't it seem odd that -" my voice trails off. In my shock, I'd forgotten that the intruder and knowledge of him is a secret. 

Elle patiently waits for me to continue and when the pause is too long, she asks gently, "seem odd that?"

I'm grasping for straws. I've already said too much. So I lie, to throw her off, "that she's practically throwing herself at Jasper."

Her mouth opens, and closes. "No way!" She mutters, "She's been digging dirt to date Jasper?"

I don't say anything. Instead, I watch the wheels turn in her head as she somehow connects this all in her head. 

"She's already marrying Adaliz," She grumbles, "and she wants to date Jasper too? She's really sick isn't she?"

I'm not sure how she convinces herself but it works and after a face of utter distaste, Elle decides to focus her attention elsewhere; fashion.

I wish I could pre-occupy my mind as easily as hers, instead, I'm fretting over what I might have said that could be used against me. This feeling takes the joy out of the collections we're shown. Elle manages to get her mind off it fairly easily but she's not the one with the most to lose.

She's always been a little wild. This behaviour wouldn't surprise my mother.

Mine would.

I've been always brought up to be a lady but right now, I feel like a frog. 

AN

It's been a long painful road to recovery but I'm doing my best to get there. Thank you for the endless waves of support. 

Do Vote & Comment. I miss talking to you. 

x, Pain.