by Ruby Scott
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 recognized 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 hi
de 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.”
But she felt nothing. It was as if her mind had shut down, leaving her unable to receive any emotion. Dread would have been a close second, thinking of the implications of having a husband. She would have to speak to him, she would have to touch him, endure the feel of his hand against hers and standing close enough beside him to feel the heat of his body. She would have to kiss him. Before the mere thought had sent shivers of horror down her spine, but there was nothing at the thought. She attempted to dredge up the feelings of disgust and horror, but still, there seemed to be a sense of unreality, as if she were stuck inside a dream that she would never wake up from. Would she simply stay like this for the rest of her life?
“Alice, darling,” Mother said, stretching her hands out, the first genuine smile that Alice had seen directed at her ever since her first failed attempt at wooing a man into talking to her at her debut ball and failed at every attempt since. “This is wonderful!”
Alice couldn’t find her voice for several moments. “Yes,” she finally said faintly, as if she were far away from her vocal chords and had to reach across a great length in order to issue a single sound “Marvelous.”
“You must leave immediately,” Mother said, reading over the telegram. “Your husband says that he would be happy to receive you whenever you are available next.
“Can we not put it off for a week so that I can gather my things?” Alice pled, her senses finally kicking in. “I need time to get ready.”
“You have been waiting for this moment for six years, darling,” Mother said, voice as hard as a diamond, and cut her like the sharp edge of one. Alice took in a sharp breath. Ever since her father’s death, her mother had showed Alice no real affection, and of course she would want to get rid of the last reminder of her late husband. Mother was the kind of woman who tended to ignore the little problems that buzzed in the back of her mind, not face them directly as Alice did with every other problem—save boys. “You are not getting younger, and I am not either,” she added, her voice not softening a bit. Alice winced. It was true; her mother was getting too old to work and would soon have to depend on some other source of income. Her brother hadn’t contacted the family in years, and Mother couldn’t very well ask a relative that was no better than a ghost for help.
For the first time in her miserable existence, Alice wondered if it was desperate need and not vanity that drove her mother to do the outrageous things she did, disregarding her daughter’s feelings and wellbeing.
“Mr. Bradbury would be more than happy to receive you as soon as you are available,” Mother continued, scanning the note. Her lips turned down a bit at the next sentence, and Alice watched her carefully for any indication of what she might be reading. She desperately wanted the note back; she hadn’t bothered to read anything past, ‘You have been selected’ before she began to panic and Gertrude had stolen the note from her. She spared the maid a quick and eloquently displeased glance. The maid glanced up at her and gave her a wicked grin that would have earned her a slap from anyone but Alice. She simply pressed her lips together and turned to face Mother again, waiting to hear the next sentence.
“You will be living in the settlement of Montana.”
Alice balked. No matter how miserable her life might be, she was able to live it in the lap of luxury. “Mother,” she said, her tone stronger than it had been. “You cannot let me go there.”
“And he is twenty years your senior,” Mother added thoughtfully, glancing up at the window momentarily, as if doing a mental calculation beyond years. “He shall be well settled, then,” she said, nodding. “And will provide you with a decent income and us a solid sum.”
“Is all you think about money?” Alice asked, not bothering to keep her tone’s volume from rising above what a young lady of good breeding should be displaying. “What about my happiness? I will be shipped off to a land filled with savages and I shall never be able to see you again, nor take a stroll through the park. There will be mountain lions and bears that will eat me if I attempt to—“
“Gertrude, sit her down,” Mother interrupted, not even bothering to glance away from the window. “Before she faints.”
“I am perfectly fine here,” Alice growled, yanking her wrist from Mary’s grasp. The maid was strong, but she hadn’t expected Alice to object so quickly and lost her grip. Her fingernails scraped along Alice’s arm in a most unpleasant way as she scrabbled for purchase. Alice bared her teeth at the maid and moved out of reach.
“Alice!” Mother’s voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip. “There will be no complaining and there will be no negotiation. You have no say in this since you failed to take the easy way out. This is no one’s doing but your own. Retire to your room and ponder over your mistakes and perhaps return a proper young lady.”
She stood, green eyes flaming as if they had been lit from behind with a hellish fire. Alice immediately subsided and dropped her chin in submission. She had only seen her mother like this once, when her brother had reappeared one night after weeks of staying out all night and day. He had been drunk and stumbling. He had been gambling in an opium and had lost all of the money that had been meant to buy the food for the week. Alice remembered the mouth-watering smell of walking down the road towards whatever tea party she and her mother were attending when she hadn’t had a single morsel to eat for two days. She also remembered being limited to one biscuit at tea and how she had discreetly consumed every single crumb that was contained in that small pastry.
Backing out of the room, Alice quickly made her way up to her room, trying to hold the tears at bay until she was alone, or as close as she would get with Gertrude trailing behind her, no doubt cackling internally and waiting to tell Mother the fine details of how she collapsed onto her bed and refused to move despite all of the promptings her maid gave her.
She did just that, not caring what Gertrude would tell Mother later, because she wouldn’t see mother very much after however long she could manage to get the maid and her mother to put this ridiculous and vaguely terrifying trip off.
“You could help pack,” Gertrude said in that annoyed tone that usually managed to provoke Alice into snapping something back about
her being an insolent excuse of a maid, but today she simply curled herself as tight as the corset digging into her ribs would allow and ignored the girl as she threw whatever she could find of Alice’s into the trunk that had remained shut for most of her life.
After all, it would delay her a bit, would it not?
###
The train ride thus far had been exceptionally boring. The city gave out to flat land and did not improve from that point on. Alice’s bonnet was being crushed into a shape that was contrary to natural, but she didn’t have the presence of mind, nor the will to push it off of her head. It shielded her from the rest of her train car and blocked out what little noise a flimsy piece of fabric could manage to do. Overall, it kept people from bothering her, and her from staring at the man who was situated much too close to Alice for her liking; a scant two feet away. Upon finding that one of those dreaded and foreign creatures was riding in her train car—on her side, no less, she had been less than thrilled. When the kind-faced woman sitting across from her if she was alright, she had huffed out an answer that had sounded more like an animalistic sound than an actual word. She hadn’t bothered to correct herself, though, and the woman hadn’t spoken another word to her.
The man was utterly oblivious of her discomfort, not bothering to move himself further away, though she was plastered firmly against the window to the point of pain and flinching every time he moved. She had no doubt that the woman sitting across from her thought that she was some sort of abused child who had run away from home, even though she had a maid who occasionally asked her if she could help her in any way.
Each time, Alice gave Gertrude an eloquent glance that she knew the maid girl could interpret quite perfectly, but never spoke a word. It would have been unbecoming of her to disrespectfully acknowledge even her maid when she was asking her for help, and most of all childish. She wanted to prove to Gertrude—and through the maid, her mother—that she would not take this by pouting and being a sullen child.
