Lenore drinks the motion sickness medicine from Wirvoth with her breakfast. It's terribly bitter—almost to the point that the taste alone is enough to make her sick before she so much as steps onto the carriage. However, the light meal served with the medicine helps calm her stomach. Somewhat.
Mary prepares a set of comfortable outfits for Lenore to take on her carriage, making them easy to find instead of burying them with the rest of the luggage on the carriages that will be following them. As Lenore gets ready for the morning, her maids have a cotton dress ready for her. It's soft enough to sit in for hours but also warm enough to protect her from the lingering chill of winter.
It doesn't feel real. She's spent her life believing that her world was limited to the borders of her uncle's estate. Then, that little world shifted to the borders of Alaric's estate. She's not used to visiting other places. She's never been to a banquet. Never participated in a city's festivals. No amount of preparation can tell her what this experience will be like, and that's both nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time.
After breakfast and getting dressed, Lenore meets Alaric in the entrance hall, fastening the cuffs of his traveling overcoat. He glances at her when he hears her arrival. "You're ready?"
Lenore smiles with a helpless shrug. "As I'll ever be."
Alaric gives her a half-smile in return and offers her his arm. "Time to get going, then."
With her hand on Alaric's arm, Lenore feels a bit steadier. He's told her that she'll be an object of pity rather than seen as a possible pawn, so she doesn't need to be worried about making mistakes. But she's not worried about how she'll be seen in the eyes of the nobles who gather in the capital for this test, as Alaric calls it.
She just wants to be seen as a worthy partner in Alaric's eyes.
-:-
The medicine helps. Lenore doesn't feel great, but she feels well enough to pass time by looking out the carriage's windows, enjoying scenery she's never seen before. Having noticed her interest, Alaric takes it upon himself to tell her about the land. Important moments. Unusual features. He describes them all the way that only somebody intimately familiar with this land could, and Lenore listens to all of it. After all, these are the stories about Barrowmere that have been lost to the world in favor of rumors about the curse.
The day passes quickly that way, and as the sun sets, they arrive at the first of many stops that they'll take during this journey. It's a town that's only big enough to have the necessities: an inn, a tavern, an herbalist, a baker, and an open-air market for trading everything else.
Alaric leads her to the inn, picks up a key from the innkeeper, and then leads her to a room. It goes so smoothly and silently, she has to believe that preparations were made long ago and the inn knew to expect them on this day.
However, she doesn't expect Alaric to follow her inside the room and then close the door behind him.
The confusion must show on her face, as Alaric says, "There are two beds."
Lenore turns and finds that he's correct. The room has two beds in it. "Oh."
"It's a precaution," Alaric says. "I don't want to risk anything happening to you in the middle of the night."
"Is this a dangerous town?" Lenore asks, sitting on the edge of one of the beds.
Alaric sits on the opposite bed. "For the townsfolk, not normally. Traveling is a different story. You never know when you'll come to a place with people who are desperate enough to try robbing visiting nobles."
"It would be nice if nobody ever felt that desperate."
"It would be," Alaric agrees. "But after centuries of living, I haven't figured out how to accomplish that yet."
Lenore leans over and puts her hand over his. "I don't think it's a problem one man can fix. No matter how much time he has."
She doesn't say it, but she hopes that he knows how he changed her world to be less desperate. And she hopes that one day, she has the courage to tell him if he doesn't know.
That night, Lenore expects sleep to elude her with Alaric in the same room. They aren't doing anything indecent, and she can't even accidentally brush against him with their beds separated. At first, her heart has a difficult time calming itself despite the distance and innocence of their arrangement. She mentally prepares herself for a long day of traveling while tired. Then, she slips into sleep without realizing it, comforted by Alaric's presence and the promise of safety that he's come to represent for her.
It would be nice if they could spend every night this close.
-:-
Well, Lenore gets her wish for the duration of their journey, and when they arrive in the capital, she's ready to take a hot bath followed by a long nap in her bed in the Barrowmere townhouse.
It's when she's led to the room that she'll be using that she learns she's sharing it with Alaric.
And there's only one bed.
"I can sleep on the couch if you're uncomfortable, but the capital is full of enemies. You need to at least be in the same room," Alaric says.
He's a true gentleman, and although Lenore is nervous at the thought of sleeping beside him, she knows that he won't try to do anything that she doesn't want. Because of this, she knows that he must be genuinely concerned about her safety. About the possibility of his enemies taking a rare chance to reach him while he's in the capital instead of the duchy, where an army of knights loyal to him is one signal away.
"I don't mind," Lenore says, keeping her voice as steady as possible. "The bed is plenty big enough for both of us."
Right now, the biggest danger comes from the chance that Lenore's heart will give out before they can even make it to the banquet.