by April Jane
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Once Anastasia was settled in the armoire with a blanket draped around her shoulders and a cup of tea wrapped in her fingers, she watched Isabeau stoke the fire. Anastasia had been surprised when Isabeau had been the one to bring the tea in and pour it. One of Victoria’s endless maids would always be on hand during tea time to do every deed that Isabeau had taken upon herself, and Anastasia had realized that she didn’t know how to pour a cup of tea without sloshing it over the sides, let alone start and stoke a fire. She had always relied on the maids as well.
Isabeau replaced the fireplace poker, the resounding ding of metal the only sound in the room for quite a while. The wood wasn’t warm enough to pop quite yet, and it was eerily quiet to watch such a raging fire make so little noise.
Isabeau delicately placed herself on the edge of the parallel couch and picked up her own glass of tea, taking a sip before replacing it in the saucer. “I suppose I should explain,” she said to break the silence.
Anastasia nodded once. “I would like that,” she said. She didn’t feel as if Isabeau had betrayed her, even though she assumed that was what the normal reaction would be. She simply felt empty.
Isabeau took a deep, shuddering breath and began. “Three years ago James’ wife Marie-Anne became ill. At first we all thought that it was a chest cold—James, Mary and I. But it would not let her alone even after months, and we called a doctor. He said that she seemed to be fine and that he would give her some medicine. The medicine did not a thing, and before we knew it, she was always in bed, unable to move from all of the coughing.” She paused, looking over into the fire. “She was a beautiful thing, Marie-Anne. She had hair that was dark as the night and eyes that were nearly the same color. Her skin was the same color as the fairest horse’s coat, as if she had been dusted in bronze.” Isabeau’s voice was soft as she continued looking into the fire. “Even when she started coughing up blood, she was the most beautiful thing I had set eyes on.” Suddenly, her gaze snapped back to Anastasia, who was feeling that ball of lead in her stomach again. “It took her two years to die. It killed James every day to see his wife wasting away before his eyes, and when she finally died, I think that it unburdened him in some ways and gave him new shackles. James has been down constantly, you see. My brother used to laugh and he used to smile; actually smile. But ever since she died, he has not smiled or laughed once.
“It killed me inside, seeing him like this and being unable to do a single thing. I wanted to be able to care for him as he has always cared for me. James is always caring for people who do nothing to deserve or earn it. He has such a large heart. So I wanted to bring his smile back. You look nothing like her,” Isabeau added, waving a hand at Anastasia’s general vicinity. “That is why I thought he would receive you better.” Isabeau looked as if she expected to be hit by Anastasia, whether physically or with words.
Anastasia was quiet for several moments. She had seen the deeply layered sadness in those remarkable eyes, now that Isabeau mentioned it. “I forgive you,” she said simply. She knew what it was like to watch a loved one waste away until they are nothing but flesh and bone and jagged breaths. She had gone through the exact same pain as James and Isabeau watching her father die. It had only taken weeks, and Anastasia couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like if she had been forced to watch her father’s health decline over two years. She shuddered at the thought.
Isabeau gave her a tentative smile. “You are not obliged to stay.”
“I am,” Anastasia said, not bothering to explain to the woman exactly why. Isabeau didn’t question her, and Anastasia decided that she like the woman’s non-prying nature. Everyone back home would have picked every word she said apart until they came up with their own conclusions. “However, I doubt I am any position to make that decision. James should be the one to decide.”
Isabeau nodded. “He will let you stay.”
Anastasia scoffed, not even needing words to express her doubt on that matter.
Isabeau’s gaze took on an earnest countenance. “You will see. James is actually a very nice person. Once he gets over the shock of you arriving suddenly into his life, he will come to like you, if not to love you.”
Anastasia raised a single eyebrow, sipping her tea. “I would like to see that happen,” she said wryly.
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The first few months passed exactly how Anastasia had predicted they would. Every time James saw her, he turned away and refused to look at her. When he did, she would always catch him staring at her hard, as if trying to figure out exactly who she was simply by observing her long enough.
Anastasia was given work. She had never worked a day in her life with the maids all around to help, and Elise had to teach her how to do many things: wash the dishes, cook, feed the animals, and sew clothes. While she complained at first, she found that she liked being useful. Anastasia had never realized what she had been missing out on when she had never touched a brush to scrub clothes before, but she enjoyed the hard work and the fact that she could get something done with only her hands.
The lack of noise slowly got better. Anastasia made herself go outside, if only long enough to feed the chickens or milk the cow, but that slowly got better as well. Isabeau became one of her closest confidants. They found that they liked the same literature and discussed books sometimes hours at a time.
It was quiet, and there was no tea and no consistent visitors. Once, the animal doctor had come to help a horse give birth, and the neighbors from miles away came to have Thanksgiving Dinner with them. They congratulated James on his new wife, which he took with great dignity. He acted very well throughout the entire thing, making Anastasia almost believe herself that he liked her—if not loved her—as Isabeau had said would happen.
That was the first time James had ever given Anastasia a smile that hadn’t been cold. It had also been the first time he had embraced her. His arms had been strong, stronger than even her own father’s arms, and despite the fact that she knew that she would never likely get another embrace from him, she couldn’t help but think that his arms were the safest place she had ever been on the planet.
After the first six months, her mother wrote her and asked how she was. Anastasia delayed writing back for almost a week. She constantly thought about her answer and tried to determine the correct response. If she said that things were going well, her mother’s next letter would press her on the details of their wedding—which hadn’t happened yet. If she told her the truth, she would get the smug reply she knew Victoria was itching to write. She eventually asked Isabeau, who ended up writing the letter for her and posting it the next day without Anastasia even reading it.
She didn’t want to know what Isabeau had told her mother.
That night, Anastasia was awoken by a strange sound coming from the room next door. Marie-Anne’s room. That had been off-limits ever since she had stepped inside the first time, and Anastasia felt her eyes widen in the near-dark as she heard footsteps in the room. They were light, but not light enough to be Isabeau’s. The slender girl could walk across the floor as silently as a ghost if she so wished. Wrapping her nightclothes around her that she had sewn when Isabeau’s had proved to be too small, Anastasia crept out of the bedroom, walking as silently down the hall as she could. The door was partially open and she peered inside. The window was situated in a way so that the entire room was bathed in pale moonlight. Anastasia saw James sitting on the bed, hunched over as if he were in physical pain. He had something clutched between his hands, something that looked suspiciously like a wedding dress. It was a grand thing, the most expensive thing in this house. Even from her vantage point of eight or so feet away, Anastasia could see the moonlight glinting off of the pearls that had been sewn into the bodice.
She stepped closer, wanting to see James’ face, but his too-long hair hung in his face like a curtain. I should go, Anastasia thought as she watched his shoulders. They were usually in such a strong, straight line that she hardly recog
nized him. Then, she realized that they were shaking. He’s crying, she thought. No proud man would want their wife to see them in a state such as this.
As she took a step back, the floorboard under her foot creaked incredibly loudly, and James’ head snapped up. As the moonlight hit his face, Anastasia saw that he wasn’t crying as she had originally thought. His face was utterly dry as he looked up at her. His eyes narrowed, and when he opened his mouth, she thought for sure that he was going to tell her to get out.
“Come, sit,” he murmured, almost quietly enough for her to think that she had misheard.
She hesitated a moment before following his command. He patted the side of the bed closest to the wall. Anastasia sat down softly, trying not to disturb his peace. “I apologize for intruding. I heard a strange noise and came to investigate, but I never meant to—
“Shh.” This was not a suggestion, but rather a command. Anastasia closed her mouth and watched James’ hands stroke the pearls. His hands were long and bony, like her father’s, but calloused and rough from a day’s hard work. “I presume Isabeau has told you about Marie-Anne.”
Anastasia nodded hesitantly. “She has. Mary tells me a bit about her sometimes, as well. About her smile and the way she treated Mary as if she were a human being and not just a servant.” Anastasia glanced up at James, trying to gauge his expression. His eyes were lowered, dusky lashes brushing his high cheekbones. His face was, as usual, mostly blank. She couldn’t glean a single thing from his countenance.
He turned to her quite suddenly, and Anastasia couldn’t help the start that went through her as his hand landed on her shoulder. She was suddenly aware just how very close they were.
“When I fall asleep at night,” he said, his voice softer than she had heard it since that first day. This time, though, it didn’t sound like death. It sounded like life and everything that it held; the pain, the passion, the love, and the hate. “I cannot see my wife’s eyes any longer. They were always ingrained on the back of my eyelids, and I never thought that they would leave.”
“I—I apologize,” Anastasia said, not knowing what else to say.
“Instead of dark eyes that I see burning at me through that void where sleep and consciousness collide, I see your eyes.” This admission shocked Anastasia so much that for a moment, she wondered if she were inside of some odd dream her malicious brain had whipped up.
But the hand that was moving down her shoulder to grasp her hand was quite real, as were the shivers that she felt through the thin material of her nightclothes. She had half of a thought to jerk away from the sudden touch, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to.
James wrapped his fingers around her own, knuckles sliding along hers as if they had been meant to be put together. James kept their hands like that, not moving another inch for several heartbeats before he spoke again. “Is it wrong of me to see your eyes?” he asked, and when Anastasia drew her gaze away from their interlocked hands, she could see the fear that was contained in James’ eyes. He didn’t want to let Marie-Anne go, she could also see that.
“No,” she found her lips moving without her agreement. “It is not wrong.” It was a whisper that sounded much too intimate and she flushed.
James didn’t mention that, though. He simply grasped her hand more tightly and drew her so that her head rested on his shoulder. She could hear the pound of his heart through his shirt, smell the smoky, woody scent of him, and feel his breath stirring the air around her ear. She closed her eyes, relishing the sheer amount of heat that warmed her frozen body. “Well,” he said, and it was the gentlest, most beautiful word she had ever heard fall from James’ lips. “Good. Because I do not want to see any eyes but yours.”
His lips brushed her forehead, warm and softer than his hands and the stubble that marred his nearly perfect skin. She shivered against him, her free arm coming up to his shoulder out of pure instinct.
At first he froze, and Anastasia tensed, trying to pull away, but his other arm came up to keep her in place. Anastasia relaxed against him and didn’t move for a very, very long time.
For the first time since she had lost her father and her mother had forced her to look for a way to bring in extra money and then shun her for her actions, she felt at peace.
She would get up in the morning and greet this man as her husband for the first time since she had come. She could call Isabeau sister, and reach for James’ hand as many times as she wished underneath the breakfast table.
She could go and gaze at the mountains as she fed the chickens and gathered their eggs in a large wicker basket and watch the tall grass rustle in the breeze. The sky wasn’t her enemy any longer. The wide expanse gave her wings and let her fly to her heart’s content, and she never had to let her feet lift off of the ground. This place was now something that she had thought that she had lost the moment her father had died.
Anastasia was home.
THE END
© Copyright 2015 by April Jane - All rights reserved.
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The Bride’s Divided Heart
by April Jane
There was only one problem with Alice becoming a mail order bride: she was scared—bordering on terrified—of men. The thought of talking to one brought a blush to her cheeks; and the mere suggestion of marrying one made her feel as if she ought to go hide underneath her bed and stay under there until she was past the age of marriage.
But Mother insisted on parading her before each and every available bachelor in the city at every available opportunity. Alice was so awkward and unable to squeak more than a few words that none of them ever called on her again, much to Mother’s chagrin and Alice’s relief.
“We will find you a husband,” Mother said with conviction each time, and each time, that surety seemed to fade, until she was saying the empty words as if it were required of her.
While Alice’s friends were tittering about whatever man they had danced with at the latest ball and buying a new bonnet to impress the city’s most eligible bachelors, she was too busy trying to avoid any possible situations that contained men.
There was no basis for this strange fear of men. Alice had grown up around her infuriating brother pestering her as any brother felt the need to, and had no issues with her father until he passed away. Mother had become a woman of her own making up after that, and the house had felt empty, but there had been no sudden traumatic experience that had caused Alice to feel this way, but it was there all the same, inhibiting her ability to even carry a conversation with someone of the opposite sex.
It could have partially been due to the fact that she didn’t look like other girls. They could poke at their ribs and complain that they had too much padding, but that wouldn’t compare to how tight Gertrude had to lace her corset to make her look relatively like any of them.
She hadn’t known when it had happened, only that it was now affecting her everyday life. Mother was most certainly not happy about this newest development in her daughter, and she had endeavored to beat it out of her by sending her to grueling lessons that taught her to be the perfect life, and had signed her up to become a mail order bride if she failed to catch a husband the traditional way.
Alice had thought that the possibility of that becoming a reality had been little to none and had thought almost nothing of it after she had left the office, trailing behind her mother like a lost puppy and pulling her parasol low over her face to hide it from any onlookers.
Imagine her surprise when the telegram came for her stating that someone was interested in buying her as a mail order bride.
At first, she had gathered the courage to utter a few syllables that
insisted to the man behind the desk that he had given her the wrong telegraph, but he had pointed out her name that was clearly printed in the corner. She had mumbled her consent to the terrible fate and wondered if she could burn it.
However, her maid Gertrude had snatched the telegraph from her upon finding that she refused to tell the girl what the telegraph contained and proudly proclaimed to Mother that someone was finally interested in Alice.
Mother had glanced up from reading an invitation to tea and slipped her spectacles off of her hawkish nose, the very same one that Alice had inherited, frowning at Gertrude in a way that creased her forehead in the way she despised so thoroughly. “Pardon?” she asked.
“Missus Alice has gotten a response from the mail order bride office,” she said, sticking the note out for Mother to snatch up. Alice hissed a warning to Gertrude, but she paid no heed, knowing that the girl could do nothing while she was in the presence of her mother, and as long as she relayed the message, Alice would be helpless to rectify the situation later. If Mother found a way to make it possible to get her daughter married before people started calling her a spinster, she would take it as quickly as Alice could blink.
The realization seemed to pass straight over her head. She knew what she should have been feeling. Hopelessness should have been the emotion that washed over Alice as she realized that there would be no time to waste. She would hardly get to take in the fact before Mother would have her packed away on a train going wherever this prospective husband would be. She would hardly get to take a breath before she would be saying the words, “I do.”