[Welcome Agents to the Secret Chapter (unedited)! This chapter has no bearing on the course of the book, it is just an interesting side note. If you would prefer to continue on with the story, please just head on over to the next chapter now.]

Sometimes in the course of a book, we write many different drafts before reaching the finished product. I recently tried to make my characters do something that they simply didn't want to do and ended up making the Duchess mad, which is never a wise course of action. So here is an ALTERNATE REALITY to Chapter 31, if Verushka was too stubborn and scared to seize her future (which we know is not like her at all!). The true reaction of the Duchess would have been exactly as follows and it shows a great deal of insight into where she came from ;)

It starts off pretty much the same and then spirals out of control. Now, it may not be everyone's cup of tea so be warned!! I would love to hear your feedback though.]

Verushka thudded up the stairs in her new chamber's maid uniform, carrying what felt like her own weight in books. Good Manners for Young Ladies. The Book of the Courtier. Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding. The list went on and on, and Verushka was done with it. She had spent the last few days cramming her mind with every sentence and she could not stand to learn the correct curtsying level to a single more Royal. She hadn't even had a chance to smooth over Mel's fight with Dan, instil a little more courage in Jeffrey to ask out Cynthia or lay the groundwork for her discussion to prepare said Cynthia.

She pushed open the door to the Dowager Duchess's private chamber with her overloaded arms and threw all the books onto the large side table with frustration. The Duchess, who was having her hair dressed and the final touches placed on a particularly elegant afternoon dress, looked up with curiosity.

"Leave us," she commanded and her maids dutifully left.

Verushka barely waited for the latch to click when she yelled exasperated, "I can't do this anymore!" She had spent half the night convincing herself that she could prove the Duke of Bexley wrong and stand on her own two feet, and the other half wondering why she was letting his mother push her into a job she didn't even know that she wanted.

"Can't do what exactly?" The Duchess asked calmly

"I can't do this!" Verushka flung her arm out frantically to the pile of discarded books. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. It had taken a lot of convincing to just get herself to climb the stairs and confront her employer and she needed to see it through. "Look, Your Grace, all you have me doing is learning how to use fans, and walk and talk. I've read all the books you have given me, just like you asked, and I'm still learning how to use a fork and knife!"

The Duchess smiled enigmatically. "The correct use of cutlery is quite important."

"Only if it is used to cut my heart out with a spoon!" Verushka threw her arms up in exasperation.

"What is really bothering you, Verushka?" The Duchess inquired patiently.

"I don't know... I just...," she trailed off, her eyes searching for answers that her lips could not provide.

The Dowager Duchess's gaze never faltered.

"I mean, what's the point? Why all this intrigue and lies? Can't we just tell Jay that I'm his sister? Why do I have to pretend to be something that I'm not?" she barraged the older woman with the questions that had been eating away at her.

"That is what has you in such a state?" The Duchess asked wryly

"That, and a few other things." Verushka affirmed with arms crossed resolutely over her chest.

"Well, then let me put your mind at ease." The Duchess rose to face her ingénue. "You are not pretending to be someone you are not. You are reclaiming the place you should rightly have. Yes, you were born out of wedlock, but I always felt that you should be afforded the same rights and privileges that your brother has. The lies are necessary to make the transition as smooth as possible without damaging Jacob's position or that of your family name."

"But, then why wait until now?" Verushka pushed. "Why not do all of this as soon as my father died? Why hide my existence from the only family I have left?" Her arguments were sound, she knew they were because she had practiced them all night.

"I am undertaking this task now because I wish to. It was not a decision made lightly, given that the Duchess of Wyvernstone still lives and has no small amount of clout within the ton. And as to why I did not just acquaint you with him in secret, that is something I cannot tell you."

Verushka exhaled in exasperation, "Of course you can't. This is my life we are talking about here. If anyone should know it's me!"

"Unfortunately Verushka, that is not the case." The Duchess stood immovable in her resolve.

"And yet you want me to run a major Secret Intelligence Service but you can't tell me one small secret?!" Verushka exclaimed starting to feel the agitation seize her heart.

The Duchess sighed, "Your mother was my most trusted advisor in the Service. I should have thought you would want to follow in her footsteps?"

"Why?" Verushka asked with cold inquiry. "The Queen and all those nobles you want me to protect have done nothing for me or my mother." Shards of ice flew through her chest and into her voice, speaking treasonous thoughts that she couldn't hide. "You want to make me one of them, you want me to serve and protect them but I can't see why I would do anything to help a Queen who supports a hierarchy that took my father from me, and then my mother who died for her and her family but couldn't have one of her own."

The Duchess took an abrupt step forward as if to strike, but then stopped, rooted to the plush carpets. "Your mother died for a cause she believed in. Yes, she let the loss of your father stab away at her until she accepted death too quickly, but until her last breath she fought for our King, as I hoped you would now fight for our Queen.

Verushka stood toe to toe with her employer but did not look her in the eye as she spoke. "You want me to be something that I am clearly not. You want me to walk in my mother's shoes, and then yours and You want me to be a noble lady." She took a deep shaky breath that hinted at the storm which brewed inside. "That is a lot of 'You' and not any of 'Me.'"

"You think I'm doing this all for me? You believe that I want the burden of training the daughter of my deceased best friend?" The Duchess's graceful veneer slipped just enough to show the cracks. "Let me tell you something, Verushka. Life is not easy, Life doesn't always hand you the best cards of the game and then watch you play your hand with ease. Sometimes you have to fight, or fake or even cheat a little to survive. You think that your existence has been difficult?" Her eyes speared the maid's with such ferocity that Verushka's throat turned as dry as the oven floor. "You have no comprehension of the horrors that I have had to endure." The Duchess's voice turned rough and hard, like granite being ground against stone.

She caught herself and softened for a moment as the shadows of a haunted past flickered through her gaze. "Perhaps I am being selfish in choosing you, but I saw the way you encouraged the staff to divulge their secrets over the years, and gave gentle coercion to direct and assist with that uncanny ability to read people that your mother had. In many ways I am trying to make up for losing someone who was like a sister to me. So, yes, I have my own selfish guilt to assuage." She sighed with a fatiguing kind of sorrow. "But, you are not your mother. Her mistake was to give too much of herself, while yours is to give too little."

Verushka let a few unsteady moments pass before she spoke in response. "I would willingly give of myself if I just knew why."

"You want to know why you should serve your Queen and Country?" The Duchess asked with a spy's unreadable expression.

"Yes." Verushka answered honestly and wished the Dowager would stop making her feel like a recalcitrant child for asking.

"Then you are perhaps not the girl I thought you were." The Duchess sighed and turned her back on her maid as she regained her seat. "You may go."

It took Verushka a moment to realise that she had just been dismissed. She coaxed her feet out of inertia to seek refuge within the warm pantry walls.

So?? Just how glad are you that none of this made the final cut? Hahaha