“I have hardly seen them!”
“Exactly,” Albina said. “According to them, you have barely left your room, doing so only to eat and bathe. Is that the plan? To spend the rest of your days locked away until you are old and gray? Or until you keel over, and the staff come to find you because the smell your corpse is making has started to drift downstairs.”
“Do not be so dramatic.”
“You cannot spend the rest of your life pouting.”
“I am not pouting!”
“Or hiding,” Albina pushed. “If you are not going to seek out your husband and try and make him see reason, then tell me please, what comes next?”
“This is not my fault!”
“I never said it was,” Albina said gently. “And believe me, I am as shocked as you are. Truth be told, I feel terrible guilt. If not for me, this never would have happened.”
“Albina...” Florentia’s hackles dropped, and her expression softened. “Do not do that, please. I do not blame you for this.”
“Perhaps you should.”
“It is the duke who I blame, and him only. And I feel bad enough, without adding guilt for your own feelings into the mix. So, if you insist on making me feel sorry for myself, I will have to ask you to leave.”
Albina snorted. “No, you won’t. Then you’ll be alone again, and despite how much you insist on pretending you are not so bored you might start pulling your own hair out, I know you better.”
Her boredom was starting to become a problem. So determined was Florentia not to see her husband—he should be coming to see me!—that she refused to leave her room unless she had to. A nice enough idea, if she’d had things to entertain herself with. But this was a new home. A new life. A new world. One that she was still getting her head around.
“I do not want to spend all day in my room,” Florentia sighed. “Obviously, that is not what I desire.”
“Then leave.”
“And do what?” she cried desperately. “Never mind that I am trying to avoid my husband and leaving my room will risk me running into him. Even if that was not the case...” She pushedher lips together, chin wobbling with sadness which she forced herself to keep at bay.
“My entire life, all I have ever wanted is to raise a family. When I used to picture married life, I pictured that and that only, Albina...” She sniffed and her best friend swung her legs onto the bed and shuffled in close, wrapping an arm around her in comfort. “What am I to do, now that this has been taken from me? You say I need to leave my room, and I agree with you. I just wish I had a reason to.”
Albina held her close for a few moments, nothing said, because there was nothing she could say. The words Florentia had spoken cut to the truth of the matter, and all the anger and hatred and frustration in the world could not change that.
“I understand that you are upset,” Albina said slowly, still holding her. “And you have every right to be. But this does not have to be the travesty that you imagine.”
“It is worse.”
“Do you know what I have always liked about you, Florentia?” She pulled back so she could look Florentia in the eyes. “How free of a spirit you are. You say as you please and do as you want—you always have. And where you see your life right now as a travesty, I am surprised you are not seeing it for what it is.”
“Which is?”
“An opportunity,” she said, eyes glimmering with a sense of mischief. “So, your husband wants to ignore you? He wants to pretend that you do not exist? I say good. You are a duchess with the world at your fingertips, free to do pretty much whatever you darn please. Better that you know you can do anything you like, and your husband will not stop you.” She pumped her eyebrows. “The world is your oyster, Florentia. All you need do is open it.”
Florentia frowned to herself in consideration; excitement tingled inside of her, dulled because it did not cure the issue, merely averted it. “But I do not want to do anything else. I do not even know what I would do!”
“Then figure it out,” Albina pushed her. “Experiment. Have fun! Do whatever you wish and find a reason to...” She snorted. “A reason to leave this room because it is starting to smell stale?—”
“It is not!”
“-- and I cannot see myself returning until it is given a good cleaning. Which will require you to leave!” She widened her eyes a Florentia and then burst into a fit of giggled. And Florentia, despite herself, soon began to do the same.
This suggestion by her friend did not solve her problems. It did, however, give her a means to forget about them. She was right, Florentia knew, that staying in this room forever was no way to live. All that did was give the duke a victory, as if she was admitting defeat by giving up.
She would not give up. She would not lie down. This marriage might not be what she wished but it could still be something great. Her life was not over and with this renewed sense of enthusiasm, Florentia was determined to prove it.
Without thinking, she jumped from the bed.
