Blind? Seto stared at the slender young woman in front of him. For the first time, he took in how truly unfocused her wide, hazel eyes were. He had taken her refusal to meet his gaze as some sort of insolence. The truth was far more appalling.

He wheeled on Devlin. "I knew you were a hardened gamester, but I still took you for a man of honor." His voice was cold, his gaze murderous.

The duke threw up his hands. "I knew nothing of Miss Wheeler's affliction, I swear." He shifted as he paused, his eyes taking on a gleam Seto knew well to be wary of. "However, there was nothing about blindness in the terms we settled on. I do not see that there is any reason, with honor, you can cry off from my choice."

Seto ground his jaw. "You cannot possibly be serious."

"What was it exactly, that we agreed on?" Devlin smirked. "Oh yes, 'young, free of disease, in possession of all of her teeth, and passably pretty.' If I'm not very much mistaken, Miss Wheeler hits all the marks."

"She's blind!" Seto spat.

"That's not a disease," Devlin pointed out coolly. "It isn't, is it, Mother Margaret?"

The woman looked thoroughly flustered to be dragged into the middle of the dispute between peers. Seto was far too incensed to feel even a shred of sympathy for her. "She's no doctor!"

"But she can tell us how Miss Wheeler came to be blind, can't you, Mother dear?" Devlin pressed.

"R-really," stammered the abbess. "Why don't you just ask Serenity all about it. She's not deaf, you know."

His gaze swung to the girl in question. She was standing very still in the center of the room, her hands clasped tightly together, and her face very pale. Offended, was she? Well, she could save her wounded dove performance for a more appreciative audience. He wasn't going to accept these ridiculous terms just as a sop to the sensibilities of a streetwalker. He turned back to Devlin with a glare. "It won't do, Devlin. You know it won't."

"You are perfectly free to concede, your lordship, if the challenge seems too difficult for you."

"And you, your Grace, are perfectly free to go…" Seto clenched his jaw. There were some bounds that couldn't be crossed, and Seto prided himself on being a man of control. But, damn, he wanted to plant the man a facer.

Devlin's lips just twitched, as if he was completely aware of what Seto was thinking. "I am sorry, old friend," he said, "but there is the regard of a lady in question, and you know what they say." He shrugged. "All's fair in love and war."

Seto fixed his icy blue gaze on his. "So," he said, in tones that would have frozen the blood of lesser men, "it's to be war."

Heaven help me now.

Standing perfectly still, hands clenched painfully tight, Serenity fought to keep the words from slipping into the same blurred shapes as the world around her.

Maggie had not explained, had refused to explain, what she wanted her for when she had dragged her into the parlor, and now they were all standing around her, Maggie and these strange men, talking about her as though she were a bolt of dress-goods. No, worse. She was a bolt of dress-goods with a terrible stain all through its yardage, a length of silk carelessly wrapped and spoiled by rain. Damaged goods.

A horrible, most inappropriate laugh welled up in her chest, and she forced it down with an effort. What would Maggie do if her sweet, quiet, unassuming Serenity suddenly burst into a fit of wild hysterics?

That sobered her. Maggie had been good to her. Better than what Serenity knew all too well she would find if Maggie threw her out on the streets.

Fear clamped tight on her chest. That couldn't happen. Not again.

The taller of the two men was speaking, cold anger thrumming through his words. They made her flinch. A blind woman was clearly not what he had in mind. No, of course not. He was a peer, that was all too evident from the crisp enunciation of his vowels to the lordly disdain that dripped from his consonants. No matter that she had missed whatever title Maggie had given him. He was from a world above, and that world could not have anything in it that was inferior.

The old anger surged inside of her, hot and bitter. She heard her own voice break the taut silence. "You cannot require my presence any longer, my lords."

Instantly, the men stilled. She heard their heads turn towards her, felt the weight of their eyes. Pride stiffened her spine. Despite her cheap, faded clothes, despite her dreadful circumstances, despite the shapeless world of light and shadow she lived in now, she refused to linger to be discarded like so much garbage. With her head held high, Serenity whirled toward the door, blinking away the wetness that was not responsible for the blurry world around her.

"Wait."

His voice rang out like steel, sharp enough to slice a man to ribbons. Then, hard fingers grasped her arm, a physical command to accompany the verbal. Slowly, she turned toward the source of the voice. It was the taller of the two men who held her, she thought, and she turned her face towards where she guessed his own was.

"You are certain she is blind?" she heard the other man mutter to Maggie, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep the wry smile from her face. She was blind, but she certainly wasn't deaf. This was a skill she'd learned in her first weeks at the convent. Hester had been the one to first teach her the knack of it. The older girl had worked at a seamstress shop and ruined her eyes straining over whitework embroidery by dim candlelight late into the evenings. Once her eyesight was too poor for her to continue her work, the shop had turned her out, and she'd found herself on the street. Just like Serenity herself, she'd found her way to Maggie's. Just like Serenity, she'd had to find ways to compensate for her poor eyesight

"Are you blind?" the man still holding her arm demanded. Once again, his voice made her think of sharpened steel. The question jabbed at her injured pride. Stiffly, she drew herself up and merely nodded.

"Look," he began, then swore. He tried again. "That is, you have to see… Oh, damn it all to hell!"

From the direction of the other man, a low chuckle was unconvincingly turned into a cough.

The man's breath hissed between clenched teeth as he made a third attempt. "Listen here," he enunciated deliberately. "Your infirmity is regrettable, and obviously not of your own making, but surely even you can see that you cannot be suited for such a position."

"I'm afraid I can see no such thing, my lord," she informed him coolly. It was a pity she could not see his expression. Was he the kind of man to flinch? Or merely be annoyed? Perhaps his face would go purple with rage at her impudence. "As to being of my own making, I am afraid I must disagree with you there as well."

"Whatever do you mean?"

Memories pressed tight against the lids of her useless eyes, the last clear images she had ever seen rushing over and into each other. "It happened in an accident." The quiet calm of her own voice surprised her. "A carriage accident."

She could see it all, the valise lying on the worn sat of that dingy hackney, outside, mud everywhere, thick as clotted cream on a scone, the coachman swearing, the horses rearing, high-pitched whinnies cutting through the drumming of the heavy rain. That awful, awful wrench as wood and metal tore free, and the world whirling, whirling, into darkness, never to be righted again.

"Were you driving the carriage?" The sardonic bite to his words brought her back to the present, to the parlor in Maggie's house and the man standing before her.

"No," she admitted, "but you see I was attempting to leave my father's house, and if I had not done such a thing, I would not have been in the carriage, would I? So, it cannot be said that I am without blame."

"Divine judgment," the local vicar had said. "Sometimes it is swift and sure, as it was to Ananias and Sapphira." His wife had been kinder. She had attempted to find a position for Serenity, but none of her efforts had met with success. In the end, they had both washed their hands of her.

Serenity swallowed hard, but managed to keep her voice even. "Afterwards, my father would not have me back. I would have been a burden, after all, and a tiresome one. So, I found myself walking the streets of London, where some interesting women were kind enough to introduce me to their way of life and provide a roof over my head." She pulled free from his grip, now that it had slackened. "Anyway, women like me do not give of their time without recompense, so I do not believe I will waste any more of it."

She began to stride purposefully towards the door, when her exit was arrested yet again. This time, the man's hand landed on her shoulder. "Wait," he repeated, but this time the command was not quite so sharp. With a tug, he turned her back to face him.

"I beg your pardon," she said stiffly, but he did not release her. Instead, his grip on her shoulder tightened fractionally, and with his other hand he tipped her chin upwards, turning her face towards the light. His fingers were large and powerful, but not pudgy, although the skin that touched hers was surprisingly soft and smooth. But of course. Why would a lord have to sully his hands with work?

For a moment, he was silent, though she could hear his breath, feel his appraising gaze. Then, he spoke, and she was surprised at the note, almost like laughter, she could hear in cold, ringing baritone. "I have changed my mind. She will do."

The words seemed to be for his friend, not her. She was an object, yet again, with no will of her own to choose. Briefly, she thought of pulling away from this smug, icy peer and stalking from the room, but then Maggie was there, falling over herself with flatteries and assurances, the nervous tension plain in her voice.

Without Maggie, she would still be out on the street. If Maggie so chose, she could be there again. This might not be the future she would have wanted, but it was a future.

In the end, was there really a choice?

A/N:

whitework - white on white (can also be used for any thread-matches-fabric color combo) embroidery

hackney - hired carriage, used for transportation by those who could not afford to keep their own personal carriages and horses

I do have a specific origin and medical reason for Serenity's blindness in this story which is almost certainly different from the (vague, never-revealed) condition she has in the anime, and I will do the best I can to portray it accurately given a) I am not a medical expert and don't know anyone personally with this condition, and b) I'm trying to work within medical knowledge and treatments that would have existed in this time period. If anything I write seems really off, please let me know, but also keep in mind that Serenity's condition might not always be exactly like "typical" blindness seen in movies and tv shows.