“Welcome to Château des Trois-Rivières, mistress Beaumont, Du Bellay and Meier.” The servant on the far right of the group greets us, while all of them make a light bow towards us.

-I assume she’s the head servant.-

“My name is Rosemary, and I’m head maid of the estate.”

-Nailed it.-

“These are Julie, Marie and Stephanie, they will also help you get ready today.”

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled.

“Is it on purpose that all your names end with ‘ie’?” Ria asked out of the blue, but now that I thought about it, it was kinda funny.

The maids started giggling and Rosemary replied. “I can assure you it’s purely coincidental.” She quickly straightened again and after a soft cough she resumed. “Would you please follow us to the dressing room? You can leave your luggage behind on the luggage trolley, one of us will then bring it to your room.” Rosemary pushed open one of the big dark oak doors which revealed the entry hall of the castle together with the aforementioned trolley.

We all nodded and followed her in, on our turn we were followed by the other maids. The room we entered was very impressive. While I was somewhat used to the grandeur of our school, this was on another level entirely. Purple carpets with golden thread ran through parts of the room, connecting the several doors with each other, together with a massive staircase. Contrasting itself with the clearly very old stonework of the castle’s foundation and outer part. The entire room was lit up by the glass windows on the side walls of the entrance, depicting a collection of roses and poppies. A big chandelier and electric torches would’ve provided even more light if need be, but were currently extinguished.

“Wow.” Ria was also clearly impressed. Emma was just looking around without saying a word.

After having put our luggage on the trolley, Rosemary turned back to us. “Mistress Di Roma would have very much liked to have greeted you herself, but she got stuck doing the last bit of paperwork and preparation for the events this evening.”

“Ah, that’s a shame, I would’ve liked to meet her as well.” I said, and we all continued on following Rosemary.

“What is she like?” Emma asked Rosemary when we made our way up the big staircase with two of the three maids still behind us. I think it was Stephanie who stayed behind with our luggage. -Maybe they should consider nameplates, but then again, everyone who’d been here previously got plenty of time to remember their names.-

“Mistress Di Roma is a very kind soul.” Rosemary began as she turned right to take the second part of the staircase where it split in two directions. “She takes care of us extremely well, and I think I could go on to say that every single one of us owes her a great deal.”

I looked behind us at the two other maids and they both nodded. “How so?”

“You see, most of us were born in an orphanage and had very little chance to ever get into a loving family. But then Mistress Di Roma came along and picked us all up from what looked like a hopeless situation.”

“But she groomed all of you to be in her service, no?” I asked.

“While this is true, we all got a good education, get paid a lot, have plenty of free time and are all allowed to live in the castle. She treats us like family.”

“And are you allowed to go off on your own, like get a different job if you’d want to?”

“Of course. Plenty have, in fact. Naturally, there are some things that people have to promise to keep secret, given the nature of the people who live here other than us. But everyone has so much respect for her that that has never been an issue. As far as I know, she even keeps regular contact with those who do leave. As I said, we are all practically family.” After her story it did sound like she was a good and compassionate individual indeed. If anything it definitely made me want to meet our hostess even more. It also made me wonder just exactly how many orphans she had saved over the years.

Rosemary led us into another hallway once we got to the next floor, and then up yet another staircase. This part of the castle looked newer than the first part we were in.

“How long have you been here, Miss Rosemary?” Ria asked her a question now.

She stopped for a moment to think and then continued walking. “It’s got to be 30 years now. I got adopted when I was twelve years old.”

“And she’s been beating me in all kinds of mind games for at least twenty of those years. She’s especially skilled in poker.” Viktor’s voice almost made me jump up a little.

“Ah, Viktor, nice of you to join us.” Rosemary greeted him with a laugh. The other two maids did the same.

“Where the heck did you disappear to?”

“I just wanted to go for a walk.”

“Hmmm.”

“I had honestly not noticed he was gone.” Emma shrugged.

“That hurt, ein kleines bisschen.”

“Awh, poor Viktor.”

“Thank you for your compassion, Corelia.” He wiped a non-existent tear away.

“By the way, Rosemary, you don’t really need to be so polite with us.”

She smiled. “We do this usually if we don’t know our guest’s preferences yet, but I’ll keep it in mind, thank you.”

When Rosemary opened the next door, we were met with an incredibly well-lit hallway, it had huge renaissance windows that made you forget you were actually walking around in a castle.

“This is one of the best spots in the chateau to look over the surrounding area.” Rosemary stated. “Feel free to take a moment to take a look.”

We walked up to the windows and stared out of them, the surrounding area was stunning, apart from the little village down the hill it was very much nature wherever you looked.

“Amazing.” Emma looked out in the distance. “Skipping the track meet was definitely worth it.”

My record scratched. “Wait… Oh my Goddess. I completely forgot about that!”

“Are you okay with that, Emma?” Ria asked.

Em looked at us, the sun on her skin made her look even more beautiful. She smiled. “Don’t worry about it. With the entire situation, I wasn’t in the mood to run anyway. Your mental state is just as important as your physical one when it comes to running. And now I get to be here with y’all without being tired as hell.”

“Next time you have a race, we’ll definitely come and watch you! Right, Rora?”

“Definitely.”

Em blushed. “Thanks.”

“If you aren’t going to be too embarrassed to run, that is.”

“Shut up, you idiot.”

“Hehe.”

After we’d taken in the sights we continued on our journey through the chateau which actually didn’t take very long as the rooms we were supposed to get were just around the corner. Viktor said goodbye for the moment because his room was still deeper inside of the chateau.

“Julie, can you attend Mistress Meier and Marie, you Mistress Du Bellay? I will attend to Mistress Beaumont myself.”

“Yes ma’am.” The two maids bowed.

“Wait, we won’t get dressed in the same room?” I was taken aback by suddenly getting separated from my girlfriends.

“It will be faster and easier to do it in separate rooms. We already pre-sorted a selection of clothes based on your sizes.”

“Don’t worry, Auro, we’ll be fine.”

“It also will stop Emma from being blushy all the time!” Ria giggled.

“Hey!”

I laughed at their little comedic skit. “Alright then.” then I looked back at Rosemary. “This won’t take long, will it?”

“Shouldn’t take longer than an hour.”

“Oh Goddess.”

“We better get started.” Rosemary gently goaded me into the room.

And thus, my trial began.

Rosemary plonked me down on a chair in the middle of a well decorated room which was full of closets, mirrors and a couple of dressed mannequins and took me in for a couple of moments.

“Hmm…”

Being alone in a room with her was actually quite terrifying. She had a lot in common with a certain math teacher when it came to her aura.

“I take it you are not much into dresses.”

“To look at, yes, to wear, not really.”

She stayed silent for a couple of seconds and then nodded. “What about heels?”

“Haven’t worn them much.”

“Mhmm.” Rosemary then started walking around the room and started grabbing several outfits together and a couple of pairs of shoes. Needless to say, I was also practically forced to undress down to my underwear. “Here, you see this screen over there? Could you change into these?” She handed me a new bra and panties. They were lacy and dark red.

“Wait, really? What’s wrong with the ones I’m wearing?”

“Trust me when I say these will be more comfortable.”

“But couldn’t you have chosen a less… sexy pair?”

“No, sorry. I can’t really find more plain pairs for a formal outfit.”

“Alright then.” I sighed and headed behind the privacy screen to get redressed.

“And your girlfriends will probably like that set more.” She said, as I just walked behind it.

“Was that comment really necessary?” I blushed. “I want the more formal Rosemary back!”

Rosemary laughed.

I hesitantly put on the new bra and panties, but just as Rosemary had said, they were surprisingly comfortable. -And to be completely honest, it also looked quite nice.-

“Are you ready? I’ve already put together a couple of outfits for you.”

“Uh… Yeah.” I shyly walked out from behind the privacy screen.

“That looks very good on you.”

“Thanks…”

“Here’s outfit number one.”

“How many are we going to try out?”

“Ah, just all of these.” She pointed at an entire clothing rack full of clothes, each with a set of matched footwear.

“Holy shit. This is going to take all day.”

“You better get a move on, then.” She smiled. “Because we only have forty-five minutes left.”

“See, it was perfectly doable, Mistress Beaumont.”

“Drop the act already, demoness.” I sighed, exhausted from switching outfit after outfit. We’d gone through tuxedos and all kinds of suits, she’d even put me in a dress as if by a miracle I’d somehow like it, but that clearly wasn’t an option as it just really didn’t feel like me.

In the end, both me and Rosemary were happy with the result.

From the bottom up it consisted of black thigh boots with a small heel, although it was still a bit too high in my opinion, but they looked nice, so I let it drop. The way they fit around my legs felt comfy too. Followed by black skintight pants with red accents. A white shirt which was mostly hidden by a dark purple waistcoat with a black tie and a long black fitted leather jacket to finish it all off. The jacket felt like it was made for me, as it fit around me incredibly well.

“I love the way it fits this snugly around me.” I inspected the jacket more closely, the leather was very nicely detailed as well.

“That’d be because all these clothes were in fact made for you specifically.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we got the measurements from your uniform.”

“Oh wow.”

“Does that mean all these clothes too…”

“Don’t worry, we recycle the materials as much as we possibly can.” Rosemary reassured me while she took something out of a box that was set on one of the closets in the room. “Mistress Di Roma prepared this for you as well.” She handed over a long piece of black cloth, embroidered with silver thread, the other side of the piece of fabric was red.

“Uh, thanks, but what is it?”

“It’s a shoulder mantle.” She gently took it from my hands. “If I may.” And continued to drape it over my left shoulder and fastened it to my outfit. “It really completes the outfit.” Rosemary showed me a mirror, and she was right, it did give the entire get up something extra.

“Why did she give it to me, though? And did she know I was going to wear this if it fits so well?”

“It’d have fitted pretty decently on most of the outfits, maybe a bit less so on the dress, but the chance that you’d pick that was pretty low to begin with. As for why she gave it to you, you’ll need to ask her yourself.”

“I see…”

“But we’re pretty much ready here, here’s something for if you want to go on an evening stroll.” She handed me some black leather gloves. “And if you would want a cane to go with it, we can make that happen.”

“A cane! I doubt Viktor would like that, though.”

“Eh, he has no say in it, so it’ll be fine.” Rosemary helped me from my chair by lending a hand and opened the door for me. “I’ll get that cane ready as soon as possible.”

“Thank you very much.”

We left the room and waited for my girlfriends to appear.