The slight shake of her head is a little musical for the sake of the jingling, dangling metal hangings from her ‘eyepatch’; there’s a hesitation before she says,

“Our families were close, though,” as she moves into the familiar steps of a dance she can very rarely be coaxed into participating in except with him, “I was named for his mother.” The bell that should ring is particular: the matter of her name has come up before, after all, and her disparaging commentary on not Clothilde but Decima—

the insult that it had been to her mother, naming her after the Comte’s mistress.

“My lord was a favourite friend of his uncles.”

Annoyed the piss out of Lord Roux, though he’d been better than Emeric at keeping a lid on that. Most of the time.