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"I amnotdoing what he wants, or what anyone wants. I am a man of free will,” Tommen argued, his voice sounding somewhat brittle. "Society has made it so that we have no choice but to tread carefully where a man of his status is concerned."
"Where is your pride, Tommen Andrew Pierce?" Prudence snapped at him, and Edwina winced at her palpable anger. "I did not birth a weakling. You will do well not to let others step on you. Obsequiousness isnotin our blood."
"Mother—” Tommen began to speak but she cut off.
"Do you think that little fiancée of yours would spare you a second glance if she knew about your mistreatment of our fortune?" He was quiet, likely because he had no response.
"Now, if you want her to walk down that aisle tomorrow and become Roxanne Pierce, you will be quiet, and listen to your mother!"
Confused and dismayed by what she had heard, Edwina quickly left the door lest she was discovered.When she walked into their bedchamber, the first sound that met her was tiny sobs coming from the bed. It was Kitty.
Since that night that Kitty had returned from the dinner that she had been all too cheerful to attend, her mood had not been the same. She was glum and vague in her interactions. She had even skipped dinner tonight. Edwina had been dealing with her own problems and she had not gotten the chance to talk to her to learn what was troubling her.
"Kitty, are you well?" Edwina asked, going to sit down beside her.
"I don’t know." She sniffled again, pulling her covers over her head and refusing to turn to face Edwina.
"I only wish to know if you are well. You do not look and sound like yourself.” She touched her shoulder. “I am here if you want to talk, Kitty."
"I should have married that old Lord Tillman and saved myself this heartache," Kitty mumbled.
"What heartache, Kitty?" Edwina asked, her concern growing. Puppy immediately leaped into her lap from where he was at the foot of the bed. He did not understand that it was not the time to play. Nevertheless, Edwina placed a fond kiss on his crown before picking him up and setting him down on another part of the bed.
"I am paying for being too picky about the man I wish to marry. It was only a match, a decent one, and I should have agreed to it." None of what she was saying was making any sense.
"You did not like him, Kitty. He was rather old." Edwina sighed. "We have to be careful with our choices." She was being careful in the choice she was making now, and she wanted her friend to do the same.
"I wasted four years, scrutinizing every man that came my way and discarding them after only to fancy the worst of them now, an incorrigible rake without feelings." Kitty sniffled again and buried her face in her pillow.
“Won’t you tell me what happened?”
Kitty shook her head emphatically. “I cannot. I am too ashamed.”
"You should not be ashamed of your feelings, Kitty. The heart can be a treacherous little thing," Edwina said, thinking of her own miserable heart.She honestly did not know what to say to Kitty to make her feel better. In fact, she did not know how to save herself from a similar predicament, much less another person.
She did not wish to force Kitty to tell her anything, but she hoped that she would reveal what happened in time.
“Do not mind me, Edwina. I shall be better in the morning.”
Edwina gave her a pat on the back before rising to prepare to go to bed. She spent most of the night mulling over her stepmother's words, wondering how she could possibly make life worse than it already was for her.
* * *
Tommen and Roxanne's wedding was a simple affair, held in the Estate's chapel. The couple appeared happy during the ceremony, and so did the guests present. Edwina felt anything but. Still, she maintained a small smile on her face. After the ceremony, the wedding breakfast followed inside the Mansion. While everyone made merry, Edwina and Kitty kept to the fringes of the ballroom like the wallflowers that they were.
She had spied Albert talking to the parson before the start of the ceremony, then he had disappeared. The ceremony went on without him. She did not know which called for more anger; the fact that he was still holding onto something already lost, or his damned pride that had pushed him to oblige Tommen when he knew very well how painful it would be for him to watch them get married.
Although she tried her best not to dwell on his pain and the true reason behind it, Edwina still found herself going back to the bitter, unchangeable truths. However much she told herself that she needed this reminder of why exactly she could not be with him, why she had to keep that wall she had put up between them, she knew deep within her what her treacherous heart truly wanted.
At some point during the event, Kitty began to feel faint, and Edwina took her to their rooms. She was on her way to find Camilla when the sight of Roxanne talking to someone near the conservatory stopped her dead in her tracks. But it was not so much Roxanne’s curious interaction with the stranger as it was the man himself. He had his back to Edwina, but his stance, the very air about him sent an uncomfortable familiarity shooting through her. She knew him, but for the life of her, she could not recall who he was.
His interaction with Roxanne spoke of a certain degree of tendresse between the two. He was not a brother, no. The exchange felt too intimate for that.When he caressed Roxanne's cheek, Edwina found herself touching her own cheek. It felt almost as though she was the one in Roxanne's place now.The most baffling thing was how much like a memory this all felt. It made her want to cry. She sucked in her breath when the tears burned her eyes, but she did not shed them. She did not shed tears without reason, and she did not understand the reason for this strange feeling.
Whatever the duo was saying, she was too far away to hear, but she could almost see the man’s sad smile even though his back was to her. He placed a lingering kiss on Roxanne's forehead now before brushing past her and heading in the opposite direction.
"Edwina," a voice behind her jerked her out of her strange experience. She turned around to see Steven walking toward her. "I suppose I should congratulate you on acquiring a new sister," he said.
She did not respond, only stared at him as he walked toward her. She felt very distant from reality at that moment. "Are you well?" he asked, tilting his head to one side as he scowled.
