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“Grace says it’s not for us, not really. It’s meant as our dowries.” Alicia gave a barking, dismissive laugh. “As though we are prize hens to be bartered over or won. We must marry right, Grace always tells me—though every time any gentleman makes overtures of marriage in my direction, she is quick to shoot him down and banish him from our social circle. We must marry right, so long as she marries before I do.”
Alicia suddenly looked up at Laurence sharply. “Not that any of the men who have approached me have seemed anything other than perfectly dreadful. I…have been tempted to accept an engagement or two, but even as I entertained this notion I knew it was more to seek an end to this terrible limbo of neither
From somewhere overhead came the cry of a lonely eagle. With another sigh, Alicia craned her head back to look up into the sky through the canopy of green leaves. “You know, today is the first time I can remember when I actually stopped to think about what it is I want. I have always had my schedule dictated to me, by Grace or my parents or suitors or…I don’t know, what London society expects of me. Everything I have done has been to appease others’ expectations. And the sensation of determining my own actions according to my preferences was a strangely frightening one.”
Laurence felt Alicia’s muscles tense as she sat beside him. He was tempted to reach out and put a comforting arm around her, but his good sense prevailed, and instead, he joined her in her idle activity of picking apart fallen leaves.
“I still don’t know just what it is I want, but I do feel I’ve come closer, at least.” A gust of wind blew through the trees, and Alicia paused before continuing. “I think of what I remember of my parents’ life before Mother got sick. They never cared much about social standing the way Grace does—they always seemed so very happy to do little more than travel and enjoy one another’s company. And now I begin to ask myself if that is so very much to ask for myself as well.”
Her voice dropping to nearly a whisper, Laurence craned his neck to hear her soft, pitiable words. “I am just…so very tired. Tired of Grace. Tired of constant social wheeling and dealing. Tired of being on display, of being pursued for all the wrong reasons. Come to think, I’m tired of absolutely everything normal about my life, and I was so focused on the day-to-day that I never even realized how tired I was!”
As Alicia’s words finally came to a close, they were replaced with an insistent sniffling sound. Laurence looked in her direction with concern to see that she was crying.
Oh, no,Laurence thought, feeling his heart swell with pity. His head swam, his muscles surging with energy. He did not know what it was he felt like doing, but whatever it was, he wanted to make these feelings of hurt that were plaguing Alicia stop more than anything he had wanted in his life. Whatever the thing was that had wrapped around his leg, he felt it tug insistently now.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Alicia said, wiping away tears angrily. “I know all this must sound so terribly pathetic to you. Here you are, earning your living from the sweat of your brow, pulling life from the earth with your own hands…and here is a poor rich girl from the city, complaining about not knowing what to do with all her money.”
“No!” Laurence said. Alicia looked up at him, blinking—she seemed as startled by the fervour in his voice as he was himself. “No, Alicia, that’s…that’s not it at all,” he said in a gentler tone.
There was so much more he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her how she was clearly a wonderful, special woman, one who should never have to relinquish her own wishes for the sake of her sister or anyone else. He wanted to tell her how much he hated to hear how distraught she was. He wanted to offer her his sympathy—more than that, to give her solutions to her problems so she need never be troubled again.
But the longer his eyes swam through Alicia’s grass-green irises, the fewer words he felt he had within him. He no more realized that he was drawing closer to her as she drew closer to him than he realized he had just called her by her first name.
Their eyes closed, their words forgotten as their lips touched in a brilliant explosion of light and warmth and fresh summer apples.
