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Sansa liked Myranda. She did.
She made her laugh with her bawdy jokes and quick tongue, how she said things Sansa didn’t think most young ladies would ever dare to voice aloud. Myranda had soft brown eyes that crinkled at the edges when she smiled, and she smiled so much and so wonderfully, when she was being both earnest or mischievous.
Myranda was her friend and she liked her very, very much, she did, she did, she did.
“Alayne, is something the matter?”
Sansa snapped her gaze away from across the room, to simple little Bessa Lynderly who sat besides her, chewing her dinner entirely too loudly.
“No, nothing’s the matter.” She replied too quickly, too sharply. Though Sansa made sure to unclench her hand where it gripped the fabric of her skirts, instead laying it in apparent calm across her lap.
“Are you sure? You seemed to be looking quite a foul over something.” Bessa giggled, and Sansa could have poured the contents of the nearby gravy boat over her insufferable lap for talking so loud. Myranda and Petyr were not sitting so far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to hear.
“I am fine, Bessa, I assure you.” She said with the least forced smile she could manage “Here, have you tried the poached pears? You should, the cooks added honey this time, it tastes quite wonderful.”
“Poached pears? I’ve never had those. We don’t really eat pears at home, at least I don’t, but I don’t think anyone else does either. Not that I don’t like pears, but I don’t think we have any pear trees to get them from. Pears do grow on tree’s, don’t they? I wouldn’t know because we don’t grow them-“
Having successfully invoked Bessa into a longwinded monologue about pears (which honestly wasn’t difficult as Bessa was the kind of girl who could monologue over the shape and size of her own earlobes for half an hour, as Sansa had once discovered to her chagrin) Sansa again let her gaze drift across the room to another of the halls long dinner tables.
Petyr wore a green coloured crushed velvet doublet with a black fur trim at the collar. One of his newer ones, she knew. He had made an effort to dress nicely for dinner. Then there was Myranda, sat so closely besides him, so close Sansa bet if she bent down to look under the table she would have her hips touching his. Her big, wobbly hips. Myranda bragged that men said she had the finest curves in the vale, and one man had even said her arse was made up of two perfectly formed globes, and he’s never seen a finer arse. ‘Or maybe you’re just fat’ Sansa thought, and then had to look away again, guilt rushing through her at her own awful thoughts over someone who was meant to be her friend.
It was that stupid necklace he’d gifted her. That’s what was making her think such rotten thoughts. Ever since Petyr had come back from his last trip to Gulltown, his trunk laden with gifts. Bolts of lace, leather shoes, gloves and a pocket mirror, little pins for her hair with pearls in them….Sansa was so overjoyed with all the lovely little things he’d brought back with him. Little tokens just for her. Then she’d found the velveteen box, and the necklace it held inside. A gold chain interspersed with pearls with a big russet brown gem dangling from it. A beautifully made piece, no doubt expensive.
Sansa was flattered, until he informed it was not for her.
She burned red even now just from remembering it, she has been so embarrassed for herself. To make such an assumption and be wrong. Silly, stupid girl she was, thinking he would buy her such a statement of a gift. Lace and mirrors and hair pins were one thing, but jewelry such as this was above such trinkets, and not given between fathers and their daughters, but from lover to lover.
So to see it now draped around Myranda’s neck, Sansa felt an awful sort of jealousy. The kind that made you feel ugly inside at how furiously it burned in you.
Later that evening, when Sansa was tucked away in her bed, kept awake by feeling quite sorry for herself, she heard the door to the receiving chamber outside open, and foot steps move across the floor.
She made sure to shift herself under the covers so that she did not face the door as it opened, yet still draped her hair more attractively across the pillow.
“Sweetling,” she heard his voice in the dark, but didn’t deign to turn her head, pretending to be asleep.
“You didn’t stay very long at dinner.” He continued, sitting himself across the mattress but still she did not move. Trying to keep her face peaceful and her breathing steady.
“We played cards again, after the meal was done. Harry lost an entire bag of gold dragons on a particular bad hand, to Uther Shett of all people. It was very embarrassing for him, I enjoyed it immensely.”
Sansa tried to listen to the way his words sounded, even as he said them so lowly. She had begun to be able to tell how much he had drunk sometimes by doing so, but then he usually did not drink too much when he played cards. Liquor and gambling were a match he liked in the people he was versing, but not himself, he had told her once.
“It’s a shame you didn’t come, Myranda and the other girls missed you in your absence. Had wondered if you had taken ill….and I saw you roll over, I know you are not asleep.” He gave her a little jab at her hip under the sheets “So if you could start engaging me in this conversation, that would be lovely.”
Damn him, Sansa thought, eyes snapping open. Even with just the moonlight from the window she could see the insufferable smile. Feel it even.
“I wasn’t ill….” She shifted to pull the covers closer around her “I was just tired, is all.”
“Which explains the deep sleep you’ve fallen into, no doubt.” he said flatly.
“Why are you here?”
“To say goodnight of course. Make sure you’re tucked up safely, to see that there are no wanton Harry’s hidden under the bed frame with bad intentions,” at that she felt the creak of the mattress to know that Petyr had indeed bent forward to hang his head and look under the bed.
“You’re drunk.”
“I am tipsy at best.” He said, flipping his head back up so quickly she saw him sway slightly.
She sat up in the bed to face him properly.
“Did Myranda make you drink?”
“Mm, why would you say that?”
“Because Myranda makes everyone drink, and you wouldn’t have been drinking when you were playing cards, so something made you drink after.”
He sniffed and let out a deep breath, and she felt as if she was right.
“Maybe she did… maybe we shared a night cap, a particular rum I’d brought back from Gulltown that was itching to be shared. That bothers you, sweetling?”
“Not in the slightest. You can share as many gifts from Gulltown with Myranda as you’d like, I wouldn’t care.”
“Oh,” Petyr said with a tone that sounded entirely too amused “This is still about the necklace isn’t it?”
“…it is not…” Sansa said, weakly, not even convincing herself.
“I have told you before, winning her over would be of benefit to the both of us,”
“I know.”
“And it hardly requires as much political planning as many other Vale Lords and Ladies,”
“I know…”
“So, if by buying her necklaces and flirting with her at dinners is enough to win her favour, why pass by such an exceptionally easy-“
“I said I know!” Sansa snapped, flopping back down onto the mattress with a huff, willing this conversation to be over “I just said I don’t care, so you can flirt and give her all the gifts you want, even marry her for all the amount I care!”
Petyr scoffed “Marry her? Why marry the cow when you get the milk for free…”
Then he noticed that Sansa was sniffing ever so slightly, and that she’d begun to cry, and at once his disposition changed to the way that most men change before a crying woman.
They become immeasurably uncomfortable.
“Oh…Sansa….sweetling,” his hand moved delicately to her side where she lay “Only a jest…”
“You know she jokes about it,” Sansa wiped furiously at her eyes for betraying her “Saying ‘wouldn’t it be funny if I was the next Lady Baelish, then I’d be your mother’ and she thinks it a great jest…”
Petyr took this in “Hm, presumptuous young thing isn’t she. As if I don’t have better prospects…”
His hand then moved to stroke gently at her hair, the curve of her face, and Sansa hadn’t the same annoyance of a moment ago to swat him away.
“You wore your good new doublet….you wanted to look nice for her…” she said in a small voice, face pressed into the covers.
“And there you are being presumptuous too, it’s a trend among you girls as of late.”
His fingers traced down to her chin, where he ever so gently tucked her chin up so she faced him. Then ran a single finger down the curve of her neck.
“That necklace wouldn’t have suited you anyway….I bought it to suit Myranda’s tastes, gilt and gaudy. For you I would buy silver, something more delicate looking. With amethysts or perhaps emeralds to suit your colouring….and then even if I were to buy you jewelry, you wouldn't be able to wear it, for you are just a bastard girl. You are meant to be modest and understated. So you see why I make do with buying you all sorts of small fancies to make up for what I cannot give you?”
Sansa gave a gentle nod against the pillow as he continued to stroke her hair, a soothing gesture that seemed like it would ease her off to sleep if she let him continue.
“Myranda is a means to an end, sweetling, and you yourself are that end. Every nicety and flirtation and gift shared with her is to bring benefit to you. Do you understand? Don’t ever think that you are of less importance to me.”
In that moment, in the dark of her room, as he told her everything she wanted to hear, Sansa was certain he absolutely loved her, but it was a fleeting certainty that vanished as soon as it came. As it always was.
She always wondering if he somehow simply read her well enough to know what she wanted to hear and then said it accordingly, never mind if he meant it or not.She lay there under his touch and wished she had the power to pry open his mind, to step inside and see herself how he saw her. Whether he thought she was as important to him as he claimed, or whether he saw her simply as a silly jealous girl he had to pacify with sweet nothings. She couldn’t imagine anything to hurt more.
When he gave her a kiss goodnight, she made sure to do so in the way he liked, and hoped it was better than any Myranda might give him.