This was not the first time such a night took place, though its outcome was rather different.
Another rotund leering man, at least thirty years her senior sat at the long highly polished table. The candles light reflecting off the countless pieces of silver tableware, ornate platters and terrines filled with all manner of decorative foods and between them deep crimson vases filled with the heady aroma of assorted white flowers. She was not happy, for this was another night where she would play the part of the demure maiden, her hair perfectly styled atop her head with golden pins resembling flowers, her dress blood red silk and fashioned in such a manner to look respectable though also to enhance her perfect form. She was the one to place this man at ease, to flatter with complimentary words, to look into his eyes with such sweet innocence, to make her fathers wish of whatever this man had, his own. Many agreements were made over the dinner table, some for land, some for goods, though not all of these business associates were foul.
A toymaker sat beside the round man, quite elderly and thin, he wished to purchase tin from her father to make his intricate gifts. He delighted her with a small square metal box that when opened tiny stuffed cloth birds tweeted and sprung out upon springs to surprise the bearer. Too much attention was given to him, her childlike delight placing a genuine smile on her lips for the first time that eve, but the profit made from tin was nothing to her father compared to the ore rich land the other man held. All it took was an all too familiar scolding look from her father for her to return to her task at hand. She stood beside the landowner, poured his wine and tried not to grimace when his hand gently touched her rear, when his lips met her cheek, when his gaze lingered upon her bosom. It was then he had his price, the young woman, barely twenty one years old, who had never courted a man and was groomed to be the perfect wife. The father agreed, marking their new found fortunes of coin and lust over brandy and tobacco.
The toymaker looked upon her with pity, her perfectly practiced smile faltering upon catching his eye. He understood, she was in turmoil, to honour her family or to do what her heart instinctively told her to do, that being to flee.
