Chapter 100
Outside the grand double doors of the estate, beneath the fading chill of early spring, Millicent stood with the serene authority that seemed carved into her very being. Clad in a deep crimson cloak that caught the breeze like a banner, she was the image of composed sovereignty. Beside her, Vincent hopped in a matching cloak. I stood to her left, similarly cloaked, though far less composed, my fingers twitching with anticipation.
Behind us, the household staff formed a perfect line, their black cloaks a neat row of shadow against the pale stone of the entry.
My heart thudded with an urgency. Excitement danced through my limbs.
Bending low to Vincent, I seized his face in both hands and bestowed upon him a flurry of kisses. The very first person I wished to show Cecilia was him. Even if she no longer remembered me, it mattered not. She would remember this.
And then, there it was. The royal carriage bearing the Reinzim crest turned the bend and approached the gates.
With the grace of a startled goose, I leapt up and seized Millicent's arm. "Look! Look! They are here!" I cried.
"Yes," she said softy, "they are indeed."
I dropped back down to Vincent with urgency. I cupped his small face in my hands once more, and looked him squarely in the eyes.
"Now listen to me, you must act adorable. Extraordinarily adorable. When Auntie Cecilia arrives, there shall be no tantrums. No hair-pulling. No forcing her to play games against her will. If she says no, you must accept it like a proper gentleman. No stealing. No biting. No screaming!"
From behind us came the sound of stifled laughter.
I turned and narrowed my eyes at the gathered staff. "Well, every word I spoke is fact."
"Your Ladyship!" Eris giggled, "our young lord is not that bad."
I straightened and placed my hands upon my hips in the manner of one preparing a formal rebuttal. "Shall I recount the tale of the time he bit your arm?"
Eris looked momentarily defeated. "Ah. Yes. You are correct."
The guards had begun parting the crowd beyond the gates, preparing a clear path for the carriage. Millicent wrapped her arms about me from behind, her embrace gentle. She rested her chin upon my shoulder. "Vincent has met them a handful of times over the years. They adore him."
"Are you quite certain they are not merely pretending? Out of politeness? Or diplomatic obligation? Or royal obligation? Or, pity?"
She gave a soft laugh and, with great tenderness, placed her hands upon the gentle rise of my belly through the layer of my cloak.
"Do not distress yourself," she said as she pressed a kiss to my cheek. "You may send the entire household into a frenzy if you wish, but let us spare the child."
Eris clasped her hands as if in divine supplication. "Your Ladyship," she exclaimed with dramatic flair, "where in this land might one find such a person as Her Grace?"
Millicent chuckled as she released me.
"Have you tried hunting for one in the marketplace?" I offered, glancing again toward the gates. The guards had somehow managed to disperse the entire crowd. The gates creaked open, and the air thickened with excitement and nerves.
"I have hunted," Eris said with despair. "But alas, I am not as gorgeous as you."
"Have you tried being gorgeous?" I asked.
"I have! I wear my hair up, I apply the boldest red to my lips, and still, not one man looks in my direction!"
"What precisely do you intend to do with your hair?" I asked Eris, eyeing her with the scrutiny of a disappointed artist. "It is already so short, you might as well comb it with a spoon. And that bold blazing red lipstick, what purpose does it serve? To illuminate alleyways in the dead of night? Heaven forbid I encounter you in a corridor after dusk, I should sooner believe a demonic orb had come to snatch my soul."
The entire staff dissolved into laughter, while I stood quite perplexed. I had, after all, offered nothing but unfiltered truth. Honest counsel, really.
Even Millicent chuckled, placing a hand to her brow.
I ignored them all and turned my gaze toward the gates. The carriage had entered the drive now. Mounted soldiers flanked both sides with impeccable formation, their armor gleaming in the sunlight like sharpened silver. Behind the lead carriage, a modest procession followed. Exactly as one would expect from royalty with proper upbringing.
I could bear it no longer. My feet betrayed me first, carrying me forward.
"Florence, careful!" Millicent called, hurrying to my side with an alarmed expression.
"I am not galloping," I muttered. But she insisted on hovering as though I were a wayward child about to leap into a fountain.
Then I heard the thunder of many feet.
The staff, it seemed, had abandoned their posts and were now trailing after me.
I picked up my pace, heart pounding with anticipation. I was calling out to Cecilia without saying her name. Then, a blur of motion. Vincent darted past me, giggling like a mad imp with wind in his curls.
"My Lord!" Katy shrieked behind him as she gave chase. "There are horses coming, do not run so fast!"
"Chase me!" Vincent shouted with boundless enthusiasm.
"Vincent! Stop at once!" Millicent swept past me in pursuit like a duchess turned mother hawk.
Then Lina passed me.
Then Maria.
Then the footmen.
And there I was, lumbering up the path like a winded noblewoman in the third act of a tragedy, thoroughly abandoned.
Was anyone going to wait for me?!
At last we neared, the wheels of the grand carriage coming to a graceful halt. The door swung open, and out stepped Charlotte, draped in a flowing white cloak, her silvery hair cascading in gentle waves about her shoulders, catching the light like woven frost. Her clear blue eyes glimmered with familiar warmth. That serene and radiant smile reminded all who beheld her why she was adored not merely as royalty, but as a person.
She bent elegantly, arms open wide.
"Charlotte!" Vincent cried with all the reverence of a child greeting a deity.
And then to my absolute horror, he lunged.
He launched himself into her arms, seized a grand handful of her lustrous hair, and promptly brought the both of them crashing to the ground. "White hair like mine!" he declared, positively delighted.
By all that is holy. This boy and his obsession with white hair would be the end of me.
But to my great surprise, Charlotte laughed. "I missed you too, my little man."
Then emerged Cecilia.
She descended with quiet grace, cloaked in a light blue that set off the inky black of her hair and the gentle solemnity of her dark eyes. There was a softness to her that never failed to still my breath. My heart was already full, but at the sight of her, it overflowed. Cecilia, my dearest friend, the very first piece of my heart I had ever entrusted to another.
"Cecilia!" Vincent cried again, clearly determined to tackle every woman he admired.
He released Charlotte's hair with great reluctance, leapt to his feet, and lunged at Cecilia, only for her to step neatly to the side. Vincent's face met the carriage door with a thud that echoed like divine punishment.
The entire crowd gasped.
I had warned him. I had expressly warned him. And now the boy had introduced himself to royalty by attempting to give himself a concussion.
Millicent was already ahead of the rest, bending low to inspect the boy's face.
"Oh Vincent, I am so terribly sorry," came Cecilia's voice, soft and graceful, and laced with quiet remorse. She too knelt beside him, joining Millicent just as Charlotte, in a flutter of white cloak and mild panic, hurried to the scene.
"Millicent," Charlotte said, "is he harmed?"
Millicent let out a sigh, already rising to her full height. "Only a bruise to the forehead. Nothing grievous. It shall fade in a day or two."
"Come here, you little storm," Charlotte cooed, pulling Vincent into her arms.
Meanwhile, I approached Cecilia. Every fiber in my being wished to gather her into my arms immediately, to crush her against me in sheer joy and long-awaited reunion. But alas, such an approach might render her senseless with fright.
I would be civil. Poised. Refined. I would not throw myself at Cecilia like a windswept romantic heroine from one of those scandalous novels Millicent pretends not to read.
Still, I inched closer.
Cecilia stepped toward me with the poise of one born to be adored by both court and crown. Her smile was gentle, her voice as soft as spring rain. "Greetings, I have heard many things about you. It is a pleasure, truly, to at last make your acquaintance, Your Ladyship. I am Princess Consort Cecilia."
"And I too have heard many things. Though none, I wager, could match the truth of standing before you now. I am Marchioness Florence Lorynthall. The honor is mine."
There was a pause, and then she lifted her right hand, unhurried, and brought it to my cheek. The motion was perhaps unconscious. Her palm cupped my face with an intimacy that did not belong in a first meeting. Still, she smiled, as though caught in a memory she could not name.
I leaned into her familiar touch, my heart melting.
Her gaze settled upon the left side of my face, where my dimmed violet eye met the world with less brilliance but no less love. Her thumb brushed my lashes, so lightly I barely felt it.
"My lady had the same eyes," she murmured. "These same shades."
Her hand lingered, and for the briefest moment, so did something else. A flicker. A stirring.
"You remind me of her," she continued. "Very much so."
Then, suddenly, she stilled.
Her eyes widened, as though a door had opened somewhere deep within her, or perhaps as though the wind had passed through her soul and left a whisper in its wake. And in that hush, she spoke-
Slowly. Quietly.
"We will run away together. Just the two of us."