In His Castle. In Her Presence.

Habitation comes With a Price.

#BE AWARE, THERE ARE * ON THE ROAD! AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER IT WILL BE EXPLAINED!
Please continue reading!#

"We must work on your insight and intelligence too, I see."

I looked down to see my dress which was a bit wrinkled and sighed.

If Hugo knew what I looked like before coming here, he would know that this is pretty decent.

I still had an odd feeling about the fact that I was wearing the clothes of his sister.

He probably hates the sight of me...
I think I have to change that fact, we will have to spend quite some time with each other...

I walked towards the dining room and noticed my hunger. My stomach made weird sounds and I craved for some bread. Before entering the main loungeroom I looked behind my shoulder to see the unused fighting-materials. When I came into the dining room I noticed that the long table wasn't made into a festive party table. I hit myself on my head inside my mind for thinking it is normal for me that people are doing things for me. Hugo stood on the left side with Selma and Roderick next to him. They, but not Hugo of course, stood with plates full of silverware and plates, napkins and candle stands and different table carpets in sizes and colours. With a big grin Hugo looked at me.
"It is your time to decorate the table for breakfast, miss Gwyneth." At first I was scared but when I saw the big eyes of Selma and Roderick, which looked as if the could fall out of their skull anytime now, looking with reassuring eyes at me I felt calm again. With a deep breath I walked over, Hugo's eyes piercing at me. I grabbed the table carpets first and chose the creme colour one. I searched the middle of the table and started to role out the silk carpet. Unconsciously I looked over my shoulder to Selma and Roderick, but they got a side glare from Hugo so they didn't gave away the mistakes I made.
The silence could kill anybody, the second-hand from Hugo's wristwatch filled annoyingly the room.
Approximately half an hour went by and everything was set. I have to admit, it was not as pretty and shiny as I used to see when entering the main dining room for breakfast, but it was the best I could do and that was satisfying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was an agony watching miss Gwyneth doing her given assignment. The sweat was not just yet found on her forehead. She tried her best, trying to make everything pretty and neat. I do have to admit, this exercise is good to sharpen her actions and movements, not to mention her perfection. Young master Hugo started to walk, followed by Selma and me. We made a circle around the table to see her final outcome, while miss Gwyneth looked as if she could faint any moment because of nervousness. Firstly a big one, to see the overall appearance. Sir Hugo would often stop, tilt his head, look at Miss Gwyneth and would walk again. Afterwards he stopped at the same spot where he started, with Selma and I next to him and look at Lady Gwyneth, who expected an evaluation. But no, young master Cobalt teased her some more and made a walk around the table to see up close. During our walk he did began to talk.
Sir Hugo bowed to see the placement of his glass at his side of the table up close and looked at miss Gwyneth. "Do you know why I gave you this assignment, miss Gwyneth?" He asked her while standing straight again.
"N-no..." She replied with her head hung down.
"This test..." Master Hugo started to walk once more. "Was for me to see how your perfection and speed at doing things neatly and precise is."
He, yet again, bowed to see a little relief in the table carpet. It made miss Gwyneth bite her lip of inpatients.
"And it looks like we need to practice that... A lot."
His comment made miss Gwyneth sigh of defeat. She did put her heart into this work, but it wasn't enough to satisfy him. A few steps further and master Hugo began to examine the plates on miss Gwyneth's side. This time he stood next to miss Gwyneth, who did not dare to glance at him.
"Show her how it is done, please." He asked us without looking.
Selma and I bowed our head a little bit and began to work.
From the corner of my eye I saw young master Cobalt move his head towards our guests left ear and I overheard him whisper. "I would take mental notes if I were you, miss Gwyneth." Which made miss Gwyneth even more red.
Selma took her tape-measure and began to lay the carpet better, while I dusted the silverware off. The jaw of lady Gwyneth hung a bit down. "I did not know I could use that..." She whisper to herself. Young master Cobalt smiled a bit. "I did not say you could not use any tools, if you wanted you could always ask. The Dutch people have a saying for that, translated it says: You have the answer No, but you can get the answer Yes." He said with his nose arrogantly high in the air. Before miss Gwyneth could say something our eyes met and I shook my head a bit, in order for her to indicate to say nothing. In response she just looked at us work and gave me a little smile. Selma had placed the cream coloured table carpet exactly in the middle, because the carpet was a bit too long to fit perfectly on the table it hung over the table but also evenly. I was busy placing the two plates on each other, measuring them on the millimeter to make sure the sides of the salad plate was exactly three centimetres inside the bread plate. The glasses were set next to each other for water or orange juice and the forks, spoons and knifes were placed in a perfect construction, while Selma got the bread and sieges, fruit and carafes with water, whine and fresh orange juice. When the flowers were placed on the table and the last details were done Selma and I stood next to our master. He looked at his golden wristwatch.
"Roderick and Selma were seventeen minutes and thirty-one seconds faster than you, miss Gwyneth. And look at this table!" Sir Hugo said with his arms open, praising our work. "Let us eat! And thank you for your services, Roderick and Selma." He nodded to us and walked over to the table. Gwyneth walked to us and she too thanked our work. "I will try to learn more from you both." With a bow she went to her chair.
Their breakfast wasn't nice, to say the least. He talked about their plans for the coming month, about how she will make everything ready for breakfast, lunch, tea and diner; which martial arts they would practice first and the languages she must know and want to learn.
"Your English must be master until you can anatomize every word in a sentence, French for you art studies, Spanish will be good to know too and of course Mandarin, Japanese and Korean for your martial art studies. Is there an other language you would like to learn?"
But miss Gwyneth was not listening to a word he said. Master Hugo did not stop however, he went on when there was no response. Still, even I wandered what was going on in her head.