Depaysment

(n.) When someone is taken out of their own familiar world and into a new one

She’s such a beautiful dancer #goals

she was so graceful!  Her lines and extensions are amazinggg

She was like the next Gillian Murphy with that hair!
      Ikr?  Stunning

I saw her in the Red Hot 100, she’s so hot
     She was in that Chainsmokers video Trinity Dance Complex did, too.  What a babe!

Lisette had no business being bumped to principle.  She wasn’t that good, and she was too young for a part like that

She’s too skinny, ballerinas are gross : /
     GTFO!!!!! #thinspo #skinny #pale #dancer #ballerina #proana

It’s such a shame she choked, she could’ve been prima someday
     She died?!  What happened???
          No, she choked during her premier as a principle for the ABT and they let her go.  I haven’t heard anything about her since 🙁
               That’s so sad, poor thing!

WE MISS YOU LISSY! <3

“How are you feeling?”

Lisette looks up from her phone, almost shocked to be spoken to after being so absorbed in her the comments on her videos on her YouTube channel.  She thought it might be a good idea to pick a few out to show Bertrand if he has any doubts about her poise or her grace or her ability to handle the pressure of what she’s about to step into on his family’s behalf, but she forgot about the comments and fell into the trap of reading them, sliding deeper into doubt with each scroll.

Across the small table, Maxwell was tapping away at his own phone, but he’s studying her now.

She sighs and sets her phone face down on the table.  “Honestly?  I’m terrified.”

Drake snorts.  She’d nearly forgotten he was even here.  He’s been asleep for most of the flight, and when he’s been awake he’s ignored both her and Maxwell in favor of staring sullenly out the window with a tumbler of whiskey in hand.

“You’re going to get eaten alive at court,” he mutters, still looking out the window.  He doesn’t seem to remember he’d been perfectly nice to her for the last two weeks, and she resents him for it almost as much as she resents the fact that his accent is the most familiar one she will probably hear for the next three months.

“Jesus, don’t scare her,” Maxwell says.

Lisette scoffs, and Drake looks over at her, one dark eyebrow raised.  “I worked in theatre in Manhattan.  I can handle a bunch of spoiled, catty drama queens just fine.  Bitches are the same everywhere.”

Maxwell chokes on his coffee and jerks forward to avoid spilling any on his clothes, while Drake looks unimpressed.  Lisette grits her teeth, disliking him more with each passing second as Maxwell scrambles to sop up the mess before it drips on him.

“You can talk a big game all you like,” Drake says, “But this is a different league altogether.  I’ve seen girls like you come and go at court, and it never ends well.  Not for them, not for the royal family, and especially not for Liam.”

“Lisette is not some crown-chaser!” Maxwell snaps.  It seems to surprise Drake enough to deflate him a bit, and Maxwell glares at the table and the coffee soaked napkin in his hand.  His grip on the cloth goes from tight to loose as he reigns himself in.  “How stupid do you think I am?  I wouldn’t have asked if I thought for even a second that she was.  Give me some credit.”

Drake points at Maxwell around his glass.  “These women have been preparing for this their entire lives, Maxwell.  What makes you think Carignan even stands a chance?  Who’s gonna help her keep up with them?”

“We are.”  Drake makes a sound of glorious disdain, and Maxwell frowns.  “Not you.  Bertrand and I.  If anyone can pull this off in a month, it’s him.”

Drake rolls his eyes and looks out the window, checking out of the discussion.

“Thanks,” she whispers, so only Maxwell can hear.  “For having faith in me.”

He smiles and whispers back.  “It’s not all altruistic, trust me.  I want you getting that crown more than anyone.”

She squeezes his hand.  “But you know it’s not why I agreed to this.”

It helped make the decision in the end, sure, but really it was the promise of seeing Liam again, of getting to see the world on someone else’s dime, how everything Maxwell was offering her were things she’d been dreaming of since she’d been young, that she’d given up on when her life crumbled underneath her on that stage two years ago.  It was finally, just once, doing the stupid, foolish thing and saying to hell with all her caution and fear to surrender herself to someone more impulsive and less afraid.

Maxwell turns his hand to squeeze hers back.  He knows.  “Back to how you’re feeling: why are you terrified?”

“Isn’t it obvious?  I’ve never met a duke before.”

“You’d never met a prince before, either,” Drake interjects.  “Now look where you are.”

“Ignore him,” Maxwell says.  “I do.  Don’t let his title scare you, Bertrand is just a  grouchy, sometimes insufferably boring person.  I know all his terrible secrets, and I promise, he’s not half as intimidating as he seems.  If he starts getting to you, remember he used to wear footie pajamas and pick his nose like every other kid, and his voice cracked for almost two whole years.”

Drake barks out a laugh.  “Christ, it did, didn’t it?”

“I always think of it when he’s yelling about something,” Maxwell says, almost fondly.  He puts his hand over his heart with mock seriousness and pitches his voice as low as he’s able to in what Lisette can only guess is an impression of his brother.  “It helps lessen the blow, Mr. Walker, I assure you.”

Drake covers his face with his free hand and shakes with silent laughter.  Lisette’s missing part of the joke, but it makes her laugh anyway.

She can hardly imagine them being related, given what she knows about Maxwell.  She had trouble finding current pictures of the duke online; everything she saw was dated several years ago, and most of the pictures were typically unflattering press rag photos that made it hard to tell what he actually looks like.  She withdraws her hand from Maxwell’s and leans forward on her elbows.  “Are you two close?”

He hides it well, but there’s a flicker of something complicated and pained across Maxwell’s face.  He leans back against his seat with a sigh.  “We used to be.  He has all kinds of obligations now that he’s the duke, and I’m just his handsome, useless brother now.  We don’t, uh, spend much time together anymore.”

“He means he’s the spare, and he’s always off fucking around while Bertrand runs their family’s duchy,” Drake says.

Maxwell sniffs indignantly.  “It’s hardly my fault he refuses to delegate anything to me.”

Drake catches Lisette’s eye and mouths it is at her.  She already feels deeply biased in Maxwell’s favor, but she can see why he might not be an ideal second in command to anything.  In a way, he reminds her of the little boys in her kinderdance classes that have ADHD and are always restless and mercurial and talkative.  She wonders if he’d be well served with a prescription for Adderall.

“Bertrand’s a control freak,” Maxwell goes on.  “He’s big on courtly protocols and is going to grill you on them as often as he can, which is going to be constantly.  It’s going to be terrible, but by the time the social season starts no one will ever know you weren’t born into the nobility.”

As the driver opens the car door for Maxwell, Lisette sees a man with dark hair standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the garage, and immediately feels her palms start to sweat.  Maxwell gets out before her and offers her his hand as she carefully slides out of the cool, dark leather interior and into the blinding daylight and midday heat.  She can smell the ocean nearby when the wind blows.

Bertrand is taller than she’d expected.  And older, though she knows there can’t be more than a handful of years between him and Maxwell.

Maxwell whispers to her, “Are you ready?”

She smiles weakly.  “As I’ll ever be.”

He squeezes her hand once before releasing her and turning to his brother.  “Bertrand!  You didn’t have to greet us.  Not that I don’t appreciate it–”

“You’re late,” the duke says.  His voice is every bit as low as Maxwell’s impression of it from the plane.  “You were supposed to be home a week ago.”

Maxwell jogs up the first few steps.  “I swear I sent you a text about it.”

“Did it not occur to you to call?”

“Uh.  No?  So many things happened, Bertrand–”

Bertrand holds his hand up, silencing his brother immediately as his eyes fall on Lisette.  “Who is this?”

“The answer to our prayers!”  Maxwell comes down the steps a bit to take Lisette’s hand again, pulling her up to Bertrand.  She steels herself the way she would walking into an audition as they ascend the staircase.  “This is Lisette Carignan.  I’ve brought her with me from New York.  Lisette, this is my brother, Bertrand Beaumont, Duke of Ramsford.”

Sensing her cue, she curtsies, even though she feels stupid doing it, no matter how much Maxwell assured her it was the right thing to do.  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Your Grace.”

Bertrand looks at her for a long, long moment.  His eyes are light like Maxwell’s, which surprises her because she’d somehow expected them to be dark, and up close she can see the resemblance between them.  They don’t exactly look alike and if she didn’t know they were related she might not even notice it, but there’s something in the lower half of their faces that’s similar, though Bertrand has a certain dignity about him his younger brother lacks, and Maxwell’s features are softer and still boyish, almost delicate, despite his age.

Bertrand’s face goes pale and he turns to Maxwell.  “My god, what have you done to her?”

“I’m sorry?” Maxwell asks as Lisette’s stomach sinks.

“What did you do?” Bertrand hisses, ignoring her completely.  “I tolerate your gallivanting around and sleeping with commoners so long as you don’t bring them into our home.”

Maxwell flinches as though struck and turns red.  He avoids looking both his brother and Lisette in the eye.  “It’s not like that…”

“If you think, for a second, I will tolerate a bastard–”

“It’s not like that!”  Maxwell insists.  “Come on, Bertrand, I’m not a complete idiot.”

Maxwell looks horribly embarrassed, and Bertrand about a second away from having an aneurysm as they fall out of English and into Cordonian.  Lisette immediately loses the thread of the conversation beyond sensing it’s about more than just her.  Aside from a bizarre instinct to defend Maxwell to him, all Lisette can think of while looking at Bertrand is that he’s no different than every demanding director she’s ever had, someone who expects more than perfection from the people he feels responsible for, and even more from the people he cares about.

“Excuse me.”  The brothers stop bickering to look at her, Bertrand with an incredulous eyebrow raised and Maxwell both relieved and apprehensive.  “Not to be rude, but I’m sure you know what Americans say about people who assume things.”

Maxwell’s eyes nearly bug out of his skull.  Bertrand merely blinks, affronted but too in control to show it, as Lisette lifts her chin defiantly.

Seconds tick by as she and Bertrand stare each other down.  A bead of sweat rolls down the back of her neck and into her blouse.  Insects hum and distantly she hears the crash of the ocean.  Maxwell is looking between them like he’s watching a tennis match, unsure of whose side he should be on and instead trapping himself in the awkward middle.

“Well,” Bertrand says, after what feels like an eternity.  His eyes narrow, considering her, before he straightens his lapels.  “Let’s continue this inside and out of this blasted heat, yes?  And you two can explain to me what exactly is going on, and what you want from me.”

“That sounds lovely,” Lisette says, rather primly.  Maxwell is still goggling at her, stunned or impressed, and she shrugs at him as Bertrand turns to lead them up into the sprawling, impossibly large estate up the slope.

She was a soloist with the most prestigious ballet company in the world, once.  It takes more than a bossy, arrogant European in designer clothes to rattle her.