Giselle Hermés

[Giselle Hermés (R)]

Name: Giselle Hermés, Comtesse de Moiré
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Race: D'Angeline

Appearance: Giselle is beautiful if not stern looking. Her eyes are a calm blue like the sky and betray nothing of her inner fire. Her hair is long and golden blond, sometimes coming to rest in soft waves, sometimes laying flat, the secret to do so, she has never shared with others. Giselle is an tall woman at 5'10, and though she looks slender she has a solid build and form that is deceivingly strong. The most striking feature of her is her long and slender nose, something that is a trait from her father's side of the family.

History: Giselle comes from a long line of skilled and talented trades people starting with her great great grandfather. Thiery Hermés was a saddle maker, a trade that he had learned out of need, but a trade that started a fashion for designer saddles for the rich. He was a patient man, born just outside the City of Elua, when a sickness hit it killed both his parents and left him in need of a job. A local leather smith took him in and taught him a craft, one he took to like a fish to water.
His hard work paid off when peers began to buy his saddles, and soon Thiery began making ridding boots, and soon ridding gloves. Within two years he had his own shoppe and was doing well.
His name spread fast and by the time his son, Giselle's grandfather, came to age of majority, word had spread to the crown and even they sat up and took notice. During the war in which Prince Roland fell, Giselle's grandfather Henrie-Maurice served as a relief solider and Thiery donated countless saddles for the effort. It was just before Henrie-Maurice turned twenty two, that Thiery was giving the title of Comte in honor of his family's diligence and service.

When Henrie was twenty six Thiery tired of his business and began to shy away, officially handing over his business to his studious and cunning son. Henrie, though an intelligent man, was not overly imaginative and holding to tradition kept things the same. Something that is believed to have made House Hermés suffer with losses. A rumour though, and never proven. Soon after meeting a young woman named Nanette in his late twenties, they were married and with in a few years they bore Guy.

Guy, Giselle's father, was the black sheep of the family, something that Thiery always blamed Guy's mother Nanette for, claimed it was her coddling him that led to his behaviour. Never the less he grew into a troublesome young man. Guy, who was in inherit, never had interest in his family's business, no matter how much they cajoled him or bribed him. He was a drinker, and more often a womanizer, thats probably how he ended up with Janelle from Kusheth.
Perhaps it was the drink, perhaps it was her cunning or intelligence (a trait they say she inherited from a long ago Shahrizai kin, another rumour bandied about), or perhaps it was her beauty. What ever it was, one day Janelle appeared at the family's estate in L'Agnace, heavy with child. The stress of the situation, they say is what killed Thiery. Guy had put his family's name in jeopardy and Henrie had to fix it.
Forcing the pair to wed, Janelle became an Hermés and soon bore Giselle. It was Henrie's thought that once the child was born they could tell if it looked like Guy or not, and if it didn't they would disinherit their son for good, and happily some would say.
But when Giselle was birthed, she bore her distinctive Hermés nose and it was then that Henrie began to slip at his work. After everything, his son had taking the family down the drain.
Janelle, despite her trickery, began to raise her daughter to take over the family's leather company. Guy, the constant drunk, became all but invisible to the family and despite the family's disdain for Janelle, she was training Giselle to take over the title.
Giselle who was raise mostly by her mother-who mysterious died along with Guy in a barn fire- proved herself day after day. Skilled in language, mathematics, sciences, history and more importantly business, she began showing her grandfather Henrie ideas for the family business. Henrie too notice of the young girls obvious good taste and keen business sense and by the time she was fourteen she was helping with every aspect of the Hermés leather company.

As Giselle grew, she grew closer to her grandfather. A relationship that neither of them thought would have ever existed. But after she gained her majority, and spent two summers working at the family's estate, Henrie found pride in a child he never wanted. The older Giselle got, the more of the business Henrie allowed her to take over eventually handing over his title to her when she turned twenty five. Giselle is the epitome of Couture and Courtier, and her stern often course manner and sexual appetites would have suited her to Mandrake had she not been born to House Hermés. In fact, Giselle had been to Valerian a few times, and has even mastered the bull whip.

Now, it's come quite aware that she needs and heir and her father has asked her to do just that. She comes to court to find a father to bare a child.