Duplicity App

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Name: Diane, Duchess Tremontaine Door: Left Canon: The Riverside Series Canon Point: End of Tremontaine, Season 4 Age: 37 Appearance: Gray eyes, blond curly hair, delicate and pretty, short and delicate, fine-boned. History: Diane, the Duchess Tremontaine, was born Louisa to no one important at all. She was orphaned young, and grew up in a group home until the day (when she was 12) that the real Diane Roehaven picked her out as a servant. This Diane was self-absorbed and selfish, choosing Louisa mostly because the two looked very similar, the same delicate build and the same blonde hair. The only noticeable difference is that Louisa's eyes are gray, while Diane's were blue. After working for Diane for years, Louisa disliked her intensely, but she never let that show, always appearing meek and obedient. She was the handmaid to the girl who was supposed to marry William of Tremontaine (at age 16) - and after their carriage was beset by highwaymen on the way into the city, she murdered the real Diane and pretended to be her. Louisa didn't arrange for the highwayman to set upon their carriage, murder the driver and their defenders, but once he had she saw what she had to do Louisa did murder Diane, dress herself in Diane's dress, and walked the rest of the way to Tremontaine. Upon arriving there she found a house with a good name but that was falling into significant debt due to the whims of the current duke. Diane's own marriage to William was one of those whims - William's father sought to add Northern blood to the family due to romantic historical ideas. Diane quickly set about putting the estate in order, entreating William to take an active interest in politics to advance Tremontaine's interests. She would talk through with him the points he needs to make, and he would take her counsel, he respected her. She also started several risky trade ventures, since taking risks was going to be the only way to make back their fortunes. Early in her marriage she also had a daughter, Honora, who she thought could marry well to serve the house until the day that Honora decided instead to marry a minor noble with barely a penny to his name. Despite continuing to try, Honora was the only child Diane had with William. Diane always has to keep things in a delicate balance, but when she's 33 her grandson is born, and her life and station become suddenly precarious. William, the Duke Tremontaine, falls in love with a university student, Rafe Fenton, who has no respect for the nobility and is actively hostile to Diane. While Diane and William have always been faithful to each other - an usual thing among Hill nobility - William starts sleeping with Rafe, and worse than that he stops listening to Diane. Diane's current plans to return the family fortune rely on a profit sharing deal with the Kinwiniik Traders and getting a law passed through the Council of Lords to support the chocolate trade. William misses the vote, instead spending the time in bed with Rafe, who tells him it isn't important at all. Once it becomes apparent that Diane can no longer rely on William she starts involving herself through other means, meanwhile he loses himself in thoughts of Rafe and Rafe's dreams of creating a school outside the influence of the University. But among Rafe's other dreams is the desire to prove the planet is round, which would have significant navigational effects. The Kinwiniik know it, of course, but they fear the Landish scholars finding out, because it would greatly affect their monopoly. William comes to Diane to tell her about the possibilities, the need for them to be free of Kinwiniik alliances. When Diane says that those Kinwiniik alliances are what's keeping Tremontaine alive he tells her "damn the good of Tremontaine" and that he doesn't care about her politics anymore because he has passion in his life again, and that Rafe is so much better than she ever will be. Obviously Diane could not let that stand, so she started poisoning him, a drug that made him hallucinate and made him mad. This enabled her to continue to act for the good of Tremontaine, and to remove the influence of Rafe from her life. She continues to work with the Kinwiniik, and has William moved to the country to recover while she acts more directly in council. Eventually Rafe discovers where William is being stowed away and Diane agrees to stop the poison (although at this point his mind can never truly recover) and to send him to a place where neither of them can reach him. The Kinwiniik end up taking him as a favor to Diane, and Diane tells the city that he's dead. That taken care of, she begins the attempt to become Duchess of Tremontaine in her own name. It takes a lot of careful political maneuvering, proving of herself, and outright blackmail, but she does get there. In the course of it, she learns that she needs to operate in politics through proxies, that the City is not willing to accept a woman being political. Personality: Negative: Manipulative. Diane knows what she wants to get and she will stop at nothing to get it. She's many things to many people, and she does her best to keep people wrapped around her fingers. This is seen when she breaks up with Lionel Chesney, because she thinks he's grown presumptive and she isn't enjoying herself any longer. She manages to make him think it's his idea and that she's doing it for his own good, something that causes him to promise that his vote is always hers, that he will always think of her fondly. William knows that she's prone to this, and when he accuses her of being uncaring, of not holding a candle to Rafe's passion, Diane says that he rouses passion in her, and he calls bullshit on her. When she's looking for a new paramour, she looks explicitly for "someone clever and beautiful, who would do what she told him and adore her enough never to question anything" Negative: Vindictive. Diane forgets nothing and she will carry a grudge forever. She remembers them in the plans of repaying people for what they've done. When Lord Davenant says that he'll make her Duchess Tremontaine in her own right (as opposed to through her marriage with William, with a caretaker appointed once William "dies") in exchange for her marrying him she feels outraged. She has difficulty seeing a way around it - she needs unanimous support of the current council to become Tremontaine and at one point asks her swordsman to murder Lord Davenant. He refuses, even when she says she'll protect him from the consequences, and tells her that she is better than this. Diane is offended by the implication that he thinks he's better than it, and sets up a duel to the death (perfectly legal) between the swordsman and the student he's been teaching. It's a moment of pique that she regrets later, but at that point she's already put the events into motion. Negative: Fearful. Diane's position is built on a lie, and she's terrified of anyone finding it out. When William turns against her in favor of Rafe she realizes that she was wrong to ever feel safe, to believe that safety could be bought with any price. Sometimes her fear drives her to think less strategically, like when she starts trading blows with Lord Davenant, even knowing that every time she rebuffs him he wants her more, and it takes the intervention of a friend for her to realize that she needs to stop the cycle, not just keep besting him one blow at a time. She wants understanding, for someone to see her and know her and accept her, but she's also afraid of it, she knows what she's done. Positive: Loving. Diane genuinely cares about Tremontaine, and seeks to advance it not only for her own power but because she feels a duty to her estates and her people. She calls Tremontaine "her passion, her art, and her life’s work" and while she is unwilling to talk about it to others (because it's a weakness that could be used against her) she carefully considers the prosperity of her retainers and the people who work Tremontaine lands. She also genuinely loves William, even after he tells her that he could not have loved her. That is why she cannot kill him, why she stops drugging him when she realizes how much it's taking from him. She doesn't see a way around it, but she hates it, hates Rafe for bringing her to it. Positive: Focused. She's very good at finding her goals and setting them into motion, pursuing a path which will lead to them and adapting her plan when she encounters obstacles without losing sight of the original goal. She has a great ability to work with what she has, but she also never loses sight of the bigger, more important goals, like the good of Tremontaine. She even thinks in terms of her own death and eventual succession, approaching it with a solid pragmatism. Powers and Abilities: No supernatural abilities, except for her inventory Inventory: Swan earrings, a poison (Shadowroot, what she uses on William, which causes hallucinations but also seems to grant some degree of knowledge in the visions, for instance William hears the ravens tell him that Diane is a false duchess and a usurper), tremontaine ruby ring Samples: One, Two