The Dark Queen and other snippets of story

Katie has started a marvelous little event called Snippets of Story. As it is the perfect place to post...well...snippets of your story, here are mine. I hope you enjoy them. 

“Lady Cecelia—Dark Queen of Gildnoir.” A sardonic smile spread over Sir Randolph Fitz-Hughes’ lips as he muttered the title to himself. Oh it sounded gorgeous. He would find a way to recall her from whither she wandered and she would be all the more his for her wilfull absence. His to do with as he pleased, his to bury under strands of amber and dark velvet—he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, picturing his Lady clad in a black velvet gown, opulent in gold stitchery; and her hair bound back in a golden net, sparkling with pins of ebony bright as benighted stars. It was a fantasy worth warring over indeed.

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

Fitz-Hughes chuckled and spread his hands wide on the table—when trust was gained he would thrust his poised dagger and the people would cheer for his every atrocity because it came from the hand of their fair Lady.

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

“Don’t be shouting so, miss—‘tisn’t ladylike.”

Adelaide ceased jumping up and down and hollering long enough to frown. “Oh shush, Dear-Heart. There’s no one to hear me but the geese and they can’t care.”

“Swans, miss—not geese.”

Adelaide rolled her eyes. “They’re all one to me—huge white birds that make a devil of a noise when you try to pet them. Useless animals.”

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

"...It’s real, Addie. There’ll be blood and death and swords around us—not the play sort. And you’ll have to bear it best you can.”

Adelaide felt tears of frustration welling in her eyes. “But why, Bertram?”

 Grim determination quenched the fire in his eyes for a moment, and he shrugged. “To save father’s honor, I suppose.”

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

Adelaide hugged herself against the thought as if the tighter she squeezed the farther it would remove itself. She didn’t like anything that looked remotely like remorse—it was uncomfortable and it couldn’t be a pleasant sort of thing that impaired ones satisfaction with oneself.

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

The words were on her lips, but she was shy and unfit to say anything. After all, he was her author—a man so much more learned in words and scribbling than she. But something had to be done, for the situation would only worsen. “Mr. Macefield, I daresay you will think me over-bold and presumptuous for saying it, but there is no time for dawdling propriety. We are already hurling famous men at each other—let me echo Thoreau and say, ‘how vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live!’”

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

There was a low twittering, like a bird’s laugh, and Diccon froze, chills racing up and down his spine. That was the most unnerving thing about Growlbeard—a sound like that: so innocent and light and easy, in no way belonged in the throat of such a beast. There were rumors that Growlbeard had once belonged to the Scarlet-Gypsy herself, ages before even the oldest Gildnorian hag was born. She, the great conjuror, had trained him in the art of voice-changing, and he now employed it thus—to intimidate his enemies, or lull them into false security. 

                                                                                                           -The Scarlet-Gypsy Song