Annabeth decided to take a walk on the terrace after breakfast. The terrace overlooked the rose gardens and the classical temples, the dairy and the poultry yard, a pond, and a grove of oak trees. Somewhere among the oaks was Mr. Solace's hermitage.
The temples and hermitage were constructed to appear as picturesque ruins, prettied up versions of the ones in Annabeth's books. The roses had been allowed to become slightly overgrown while the oaks stood in straight columns and rows like a formation of soldiers.
Annabeth made a mental note to sketch this view once before she left Skye Castle.
"That was quite the trick you played, Miss Chase," a low voice called to her.
"I don't know what you speak of, Sir," she replied innocently.
"You had no right to send that letter to Miss Dare!"
"She deserves to know what her lover was getting up, that he was jilting her by flirting with another young lady behind her back."
"I am not Miss Dare's lover."
"Then why do you carry around her portrait?"
"She is a dear old friend. I think of her as a sister."
"Oh, is that all? You expect me to believe that?"
"Believe what you like, Madam. You do not need my leave to do so."
Lieutenant Jackson turned his back on her and walked the house. Annabeth huffed and walked down the steps into gardens.

A stone poultry house with a shingled roof stood on the banks of the pond.

"Look, the chickens are out!" Lady Thalia called when the young ladies  approached the poultry house.
A dozen bantam chickens clucked about and pecked at the ground. Nine of them had mottled black and white feathers and red combs and wattles.

The remaining three birds were tan and dark grey.

Each of the girls was given a handful of breadcrumbs and dried corn kernels to feed to the chickens. A white peacock dragged its snowy train of feathers out of the poultry house and gave a eery, high-pitched shriek.

"Let me guess," Piper asked him. "You would like to be fed too?"
She tossed him a handful of feed which he pecked up off of the dirt. Miss Levesque sprinkled bread and corn onto the pond for the swans and mandarin ducks to eat.

Lady Thalia and Dona Reyna gathered eggs from inside the poultry house. They handed each egg they found to a servant, who washed them in a bucket of water and dried them with her apron.
"We'll serve these soft boiled for breakfast," Lady Thalia announced when they emerged with a full basket of eggs. Her large beige hat, adorned with black ribbons and feathers, bobbed as she made this announcement. She had managed to keep her white skirt, black and cream striped bodice, and snowy linen fichu clean despite walking along dirt paths.

Miss Levesque clucked and cooed at the chickens who came running to peck up the feed she threw at her feet.
"You're great with them," Piper exclaimed.
"I help keep the poultry at Styx Abbey," Miss Levesque told her. "And the dairy as well as help my father with his accounts and letters."
"By Jove," Annabeth added. "You're a busy young lady."
Keeping a poultry and a dairy were pastimes for a gentlewoman, though not something the mistress of a house would bother with. Usually it would be done by a daughter of the house, like Lady Thalia, or some genteel dependent. As Hades Di Angelo's natural daughter, Annabeth imagined that Miss Levesque was treated more as the later than the former.

When breakfast was finished, Miss Levesque accompanied Annabeth into Skye-on-Styx. Annabeth had run out of the blue thread she needed for her sampler and wanted to buy some more from the mantua-maker's shop.
The sign outside of Mrs. Arachne's
shop featured a spider weaving its web, which Annabeth thought was an odd choice.
"I have a headache," Miss Levesque told her after she walked out of the mantua-maker's. "I thought taking a walk and getting some fresh air would help but it hasn't. Can we stop by the apothecary?"
The apothecary had his establishment on the other side of the village green, where the county regiment had just finished drilling. Some of the soldiers whistled at them as they passed by and shouted things at Miss Levesque like: "black bird" and "black cat." Miss Levesque averted her gaze and kept on walking but one of them followed her. He grabbed her waist and pulled her close.
"Come on, Blackie," he sneered, "Let's have a kiss."
She cried and tried to fight him off by scratching his face.
"Look at this, Sloan," he called to his companion, "The black cat has claws."
Annabeth rushed in to help her friend and boxed Sloan's ears when he tried to stop her.
A tall, fair-haired officer stepped forward and shot the men a look which would make the toughest brute in the British army run, crying to his mother.
"Is this how soldiers of The Crown treat ladies?"
By his scar, Annabeth recognized him as Captain Castellan.
"Nakamura," he called to another officer, a grim faced young man with an eye patch. "Have these men flogged for their lack of gallantry."
Nakamura lead the two malefactors away to receive their punishment.
"I'm sorry ladies," Captain Castellan continued. "I thought I'd whipped these scoundrels into better shape."
Annabeth dipped into a curtsy.
"I thank you, Captain Castellan," she replied.
"If you hadn't come to our rescue," Miss Levesque gushed. "Who knows what would have happened?"
"Any gentleman would have done the same."
He swept them a bow before departing and Annabeth and Miss Levesque continued on their way to the apothecary. Miss Levesque went inside while Annabeth waited outside.
She noticed Captain Castellan walking across the green towards her.
"Miss Chase," he called. "Might I speak with you for a moment?"
"About what, Sir?" She answered.
"About a mutual friend."
Annabeth gestured for him to walk with around the green. It would not proper for them to be seen standing there together.

A/N the reason why you often seeing the heroes and heroines of period dramas having conversations while walking around a room or through a garden is because it was not social acceptable for an un married man and a woman to stand still and talk together. Sitting down and talking together was fine though. Interactions between courting couples were highly regulated in the Georgian area. Other rules included: you weren't supposed to call someone by their first name until you were engaged; you weren't supposed to ask a girl to dance more than twice at one ball unless you intend to propose to her; if a guy asks you to dance and you refuse him, you are supposed to sit that dance out and not accept another partner; and if you show a marked attention to a specific girl at a social event, maybe by asking her to dance twice, you were obligated to visit her the next day, the Georgian equivalent of calling someone after a date.

"Miss Chase," he asked her. "Would you carry a message to Lady Thalia for me?"
He produced a folded up piece of paper from the pocket of his breeches.
"I don't think it would be appropriate for you to communicate with her," Annabeth insisted. "After her parents forbid you from seeing her."
"I imagine they've told you a great deal about me."
"They have: Lord Skye and my friend, Miss McLean. She says that you toyed with her sister, Miss Beauregard."
"It's all true, Miss Chase. I do not deny it. But my intentions towards Lady Thalia were completely pure. I've never felt for any other young lady what I feel for her. You cannot imagine how painful it is for me not to be able to speak to her, or even be near her. Please, deliver this note to her and she can decide if she wants to continue with the correspondence."
"Miss Chase," Miss Levesque called from the doorstep of the apothecary shop. "Where are you?"
"I have to go, Captain Castellan," Annabeth took the note from him and put it in her pocket before running off the rejoin her friend.

"There's a letter for you, Miss Chase," one of the maids told Annabeth when she sat down in the drawing room for tea. Lieutenant Jackson had been telling the story about his first sea battle as a twelve-year-old midshipman. During the battle, he had acted as a powder monkey, carrying full powder legs from the magazine to the canons. The story was mostly an excuse for Jackson to brag about being the fastest powder monkey on board the Princess Andromeda, the ship he had served on before the Argo II.
The envelope the maid gave to Annabeth looked as though it had come a long away; the paper looked a bit faded, worn, and wrinkled. It had been originally addressed to Chase Mansion but then readdressed to Skye Castle.
"It's from my cousin, Magnus, in Constantinople," she announced to everyone in the room, interrupting Lieutenant Jackson.
Magnus had managed to secure a position as secretary to the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. His letters home to Annabeth were always filled with delightful stories about life at the Sultan's court and sketches of Constantinople's gorgeous palaces and mosques.
"My dearest cousin," Annabeth read aloud. "His Excellency and I recently attended the wedding of  Samirah Al-Abbas, granddaughter to one of the Sultan's most trusted advisors and a dear friend of mine, and Amir Fadlan, the Sultan's nephew..."
Magnus described the splendor of the wedding and the important personages who were in attendance as well as the food and music at the banquet which followed. Enclosed were a recipe for rose sherbet and a sewing pattern for a traditional Turkish costume like the one Miss Al-Abbas wore to her wedding: a long tunic with a tight bodice, a low neckline, and a split skirt worn over a sheer, bell-sleeved blouse and loose, baggy trousers. Such outfits were popular for portraits.

"Convey my best wishes to Mr. and Mrs. Chase... your affectionate relation and servant, M. Chas."

A/N 18th Century people had a weird habit of signing their letters with an abbreviated version of their names. Alexander Hamilton famously signed his letters to his nemesis Aaron Burr "A. Ham."

Annabeth left out the postscript: "Alex sends his regards." Explaining Alex to everyone would be difficult and awkward.
Magnus was Annabeth's oldest friend and the two of them were inseparable as children. They even looked similar: blond hair and grey eyes. When Magnus still wore petticoats, before he was old enough to wear breeches, people even mistook them for each other. He had always trusted her enough to confide in her.
She was shocked when he admitted to her in one of his letters for Constantinople that he was with another man. But that was how things were in Turkey. The ladies of the Sultan's court were mostly confined to the seraglio and were veiled whenever they went out in public, leaving the men to lust after beautiful, androgynous boys. Young men always misbehave while traveling abroad, if His Grace's stories about his grand tour were anything to go by. Magnus would probably settle down and marry a nice English girl when he returned home.

A/N the pansexual early 19th Century poet Lord Byron famously described the Turks as being fond of "sodomy and sherbet."

How fortunate men are to be able to go off and have adventures, Annabeth thought. They can have grand tours, like His Grace and Lord Skye, join the army or the navy like Lieutenant Jackson and go off on diplomatic service like Magnus while I'm stuck here, hungry for whatever crumbs of the outside world I can get.

Lady Thalia's boudoir had a rosy pink and sage green wallpaper and matching hangings. Ostrich feathers topped the canopy which hung above the day bed. Off to the right side was a dressing table draped in a white cloth.

When Annabeth knocked on the door of the boudoir later that night and was told to "come in," Lady Thalia was lounging on the day bed, underneath a rather gloomy painting of Christ on the cross, smoking a pipe. She wore a brown short gown over her chemise and corset.

"I have a note for you," Annabeth told her.
She handed over the piece of paper. Lady Thalia unfolded it and looked it over.
"Where did you get this?"
"I ran into Captain Castellan in the green. He asked me to give it to you."
"Thanks, Miss Chase." 
"It was my pleasure. I'd be willing to bring a reply to him."