2. Part II
Part II
“But to see her was to love her, Love but her, and love forever…”
~ Ae Fond Kiss, And then we Sever – Robert Burns
“It will only be for a little while. I know. I’m terribly sorry. You’re right, it is very rude of me.” Guilt washed over Persephone in a wave as she tucked an angrily chittering Mr. Roundtop into his drawer and slowly closed it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. You can meet him soon. Wish me luck!”
The guilt was joined by anxious anticipation as she straightened and stared solemnly at her appearance in the large looking glass propped on her dresser.
Given the abruptness of Lord Ashcroft’s arrival, there hadn’t been much time to prepare.
With a muffled shriek, her mother had sent her racing upstairs to her room via the servant’s stairs.
Her lady’s maid had met her at the top of the steps, and together they’d managed to quickly pin most of Persephone’s stubborn brown curls into something resembling a coiffure and fashion a light blue sash around the waist of her plain yellow morning dress.
The results were moderate at best. Unlike her mother and younger sisters, Persephone would never be known as a Great Beauty.
But the animals she’d rescued and tended to over the years had never seemed to put much value in her appearance so long as she as taking care of them; surely Lord Ashcroft would be the same.
Lord Ashcroft.
Lord Alec Thorne.
Lord Alec Thorne, Earl of Ashcroft.
She wondered what she would call him. What he would like her to call him.
In public settings, even amidst family, her parents always referred to each other as Lord Montague and Lady Montague, albeit with matching twinkles of affection in their eyes (her mother’s somewhat more exasperated than her father’s).
Their marriage had been arranged as well, and it had ended in a happy, albeit somewhat chaotic, household with three daughters and one hedgehog.
She could only wish the same for herself.
“Wish me luck,” Persephone whispered to Mr. Roundtop, who made a muffled thump sound of displeasure from inside his drawer.
Frowning, she grabbed the silk fan her mother had warned her not to forget and dashed out of the room, down the staircase, and to the closed door of the front parlor where Lady Montague commonly received all of her guests.
When she pressed her ear to the wood, warmed by the late morning sunlight streaming in through the front hall, she could hear the low hum of voices, one feminine, one masculine.
Thankfully, her father had taken both of her sisters to the market at the first break of daylight, promising them new hair ribbons while he searched for oddly shaped trinkets to add to his collection of unfinished inventions.
Otherwise, the parlor would have been buzzing like a beehive.
Persephone took a deep breath, drawing it all the way into the bottom of her lungs.
Snapping her fan open, she gave it a few testing swipes through the air before she nodded at the maid standing discreetly beside a potted fern to indicate she was ready.
Not only to enter the parlor, but to meet the man that had been promised to her since she was a squalling infant.
The man that had been her past, her promised future, and…
as soon as that door opened… her present.
“Good luck,” the maid whispered, unwittingly replying to Persephone’s request of Mr. Roundtop before she turned the knob and announced in a louder, clearer voice as the door swung inward, “Miss Persephone Montague.”
The fan wilted uselessly to Persephone’s side as she froze in the doorway, her wide eyes going first to her mother, who was perched elegantly on the edge of a velvet chaise lounge, and then to the man sitting across from her, his profile angled away.
At the announcement of her name, they both stood, the man rising from his chair with the supple ease of a lion stretching.
Much like a lion, his hair was gold with shades of darker bronze.
It tumbled across his temple in a swath of rich silk when he turned to look at her, affording her a full view of his chiseled jaw, firm mouth, straight nose, and cool, slightly bored gaze the color of the sky after a storm had passed through.
He was lean and fit, his impeccably tailored clothing hugging long lines of muscle and sinew.
Unconsciously, Persephone’s hand drifted to her belly, which was soft and round and enjoyed an extra sweet cake after dinner from time to time.
This was her fiancé?
This… this… Greek god carved from marble and brought to life?
She’d imagined he was handsome. Wasn’t that how all young ladies pictured their future husbands? But this was… this was too much. He was too much. And she was far too little.
“No,” she blurted, shaking her head as she stepped back into the front hall. “No, I’m sorry, this is not going to work.”
The corners of the earl’s perfect mouth tightened. His gorgeous gray eyes narrowed.
“Persephone,” her mother hissed, jabbing her finger at the floor. “Persephone, come in here–”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Really, I am.”
And turning on her heel, she fled for her life.
***
As far as first introductions went, Alec supposed it could have gone better.
Actually, he amended, his brow darkening, he wasn’t sure how it could have gone much worse than his fiancée taking one look at him, turning white as a ghost, and literally sprinting in the opposite direction.
Usually, he had the opposite problem. Women flocked to him like pigeons to bread crumbs and he was the one looking for a quick exit.
It felt… strange to have the shoe on the other foot.
Even a little insulting, if he were being honest. Especially given how Lady Montague had been in the middle of assuring him that her daughter was elated at his arrival and thrilled at the prospect of marriage.
Now she looked as if she’d just taken a bite of fish that had sat out too long.
“My… my lord,” she said, fluttering a fan in front of her flushed countenance. “I… I apologize on Persephone’s behalf. I’m sure she meant nothing by it. The nervousness of new brides, you understand.”
“She isn’t a bride,” he pointed out. Which was the entire bloody point of his being here, wasn’t it? To marry as quickly as possible. A little difficult to do, when the woman he was betrothed to
“Oh.” The flan fluttered faster. “But she is soon to be. After waiting for so long… that is to say, not too long, we’re not complaining… I am sure she is merely overwhelmed. Wait right here. I’ll go fetch her.”
Alec held up his hand. “If it’s all the same to you, Lady Montague, I would prefer to seek out of my own fiancée. If you would kindly point me in the right direction–”
“The gardens behind the house,” Lady Montague sighed. “If she’s gone anywhere, it’s likely there. You can go through the front door and there will be a stone path to your right. I’ll have lemonade brought to the rear terrace.”
Alec inclined his head, the very picture of a polite suitor even as his molars gnashed together.
It wasn’t enough that he’d nearly run four good horses into the ground to get here as soon as possible.
Now he had to go traipsing about outside in search of a fiancée that Beasley had all but assured him would be awaiting his arrival with a bouquet of roses at the ready.
He was the one that was supposed to be leaving her.
Not the other way around. What other inconveniences would he be made to suffer in pursuit of what should have been his free and clear?
A black cloud followed Alec out the front door and the heels of his boots striking stone were the bolts of lightning cutting through it as he made his around the side of the Montague’s rambling country estate, a home comprised of various materials and different sized dormers and columns, as if it had been pieced together over decades by different architects. A few of whom may have been drunk.
The gardens themselves–if they could be called that–were just as disorganized.
Whereas his gardener had ruthlessly trimmed the meager hedges behind his London manor into organized lines of uniform green, the labyrinth before him was a coiled mess of unpruned rose bushes, overgrown shrubbery, and a cascading blanket of wildflowers in every size, shape, and color, the majority of which had started to go to seed courtesy of shorter days and longer nights.
The air smelled like… dirt, he noted, his nose wrinkling at the unfamiliar scent, so different from the stench of London, a potent combination of brackish seawater, manure, and thick, smoky coal belching out from factories in waves of black.
It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Neither was the sight that greeted him when he blindly chose a worn path leading into the middle of the maze and found his bride-to-be in its center, sitting on a bench with her legs crossed, exposing the lovely curve of a calf encased in a sheer white stocking.
He stopped before she noticed him, his frame partially concealed behind the towering husk of a sunflower. In the drawing room, he’d only caught a glimpse of her countenance before she fled, and his first impression hadn’t necessarily been favorable.
Plain.
That was the word that had come to mind.
Plain features, plain hair, plain body.
But as he stared at her sitting in the sunlight, surrounded by a canopy of colors, Alec found he was forced to do something he rarely did.
Admit he was mistaken.
At first glance, a daisy could be seen as plain.
After all, what was so unique or special about a yellow flower that grew in abundance?
But if one took the time to look closer, they couldn’t help but notice the beautiful, classic simplicity of the daisy’s countenance.
Or the richness of its curls. Or the small, delightful spattering of freckles across its cheeks.