Post by indifferentred on May 18, 2012 9:30:14 GMT 10
Series: Quiet Affections
Title: Candlelight and Glass
Rating: PG
Event: 500 word dash
Words: 500
Summary: A young lady, a perceptive gentleman, a candle and a mirror...
Music and laughter and elegant conversation float out through the half-open window, all the things most calculated to aggravate her misery. In a few minutes, she will have to go in, and properly congratulate Ysabel and Marcus, but for now she can sit peacefully in the garden, watching the moths flutter giddily around her lone candle, and wish she were someone, anyone, else. Perhaps her mother will allow her to return to Rosemark for a few months. The wedding will be unavoidable - Ysabel is, after all, her sister - but witnessing the endless preparations will be unnecessary torture. She leans back against the bench, remembering.
*
“You asked my sister to marry you.” She is disgusted. How could she ever have liked this man?
He looks down on her pityingly, and she curses him because she cannot forget his heated kisses, nor their shared laughter. “It isn’t a crime for me to prefer another woman, Vivenne,” he reminds her, voice dripping with feigned innocence. “I apologise if your vanity has been stung - “
Pink spots of ire blossom on her cheeks. “My vanity?” Silence. Then: “You don’t deserve her.”
A cruel smirk curves his lips. “Well, fortunately for me, your father doesn’t agree.” And, whistling, he wanders off.
*
Opening her eyes, she lifts the gilt-handled mirror resting at her side and examines her face critically. Her skin is clear, and her grey eyes are bright and intelligent; but her mouth is just a shade too large and her eyebrows are better at accentuating withering put-downs than supporting simpering platitudes. She is well enough, she supposes. But plain enough to be still unmarried at twenty.
Too busily engaged in her looking-glass, Vivenne does not hear the soft footsteps approach her, until a man’s voice asks, “Lady Vivenne?”
She jumps - the mirror slips from her grasp, shattering at her feet. Vivenne winces and glares up at her interlocutor. He is thirty or so, tall (and how she hates tall men!), and dressed well, yet without ostentation. She vaguely remembers seeing her father greeting him with affection earlier, and after a moment her obedient brain presents her with his name - Wyldon of Cavall.
She rises unsteadily, and his arm assists her over the shards of glass; her evening slippers are foolishly flimsy. “Your father is about to begin the toasts. He did not wish to start without you…” His appearance thus explained, he waits quietly for her answer. A nice voice, she thinks fleetingly.
“Thank you, Lord Wyldon. I shall be in directly.” He bows politely and turns to leave her.
Reaching the garden door, he halts, framed by shadowy ivy and roses. “He does not deserve your regret.”
She swallows. “I - I do not know what you mean, sir.”
His brown eyes are kind as he observes her. “As you wish, my lady.”
He vanishes through the gate, and Vivenne is left to stand alone in the garden and marvel over a collection of words which have inexplicably lightened her mood.
Title: Candlelight and Glass
Rating: PG
Event: 500 word dash
Words: 500
Summary: A young lady, a perceptive gentleman, a candle and a mirror...
Music and laughter and elegant conversation float out through the half-open window, all the things most calculated to aggravate her misery. In a few minutes, she will have to go in, and properly congratulate Ysabel and Marcus, but for now she can sit peacefully in the garden, watching the moths flutter giddily around her lone candle, and wish she were someone, anyone, else. Perhaps her mother will allow her to return to Rosemark for a few months. The wedding will be unavoidable - Ysabel is, after all, her sister - but witnessing the endless preparations will be unnecessary torture. She leans back against the bench, remembering.
*
“You asked my sister to marry you.” She is disgusted. How could she ever have liked this man?
He looks down on her pityingly, and she curses him because she cannot forget his heated kisses, nor their shared laughter. “It isn’t a crime for me to prefer another woman, Vivenne,” he reminds her, voice dripping with feigned innocence. “I apologise if your vanity has been stung - “
Pink spots of ire blossom on her cheeks. “My vanity?” Silence. Then: “You don’t deserve her.”
A cruel smirk curves his lips. “Well, fortunately for me, your father doesn’t agree.” And, whistling, he wanders off.
*
Opening her eyes, she lifts the gilt-handled mirror resting at her side and examines her face critically. Her skin is clear, and her grey eyes are bright and intelligent; but her mouth is just a shade too large and her eyebrows are better at accentuating withering put-downs than supporting simpering platitudes. She is well enough, she supposes. But plain enough to be still unmarried at twenty.
Too busily engaged in her looking-glass, Vivenne does not hear the soft footsteps approach her, until a man’s voice asks, “Lady Vivenne?”
She jumps - the mirror slips from her grasp, shattering at her feet. Vivenne winces and glares up at her interlocutor. He is thirty or so, tall (and how she hates tall men!), and dressed well, yet without ostentation. She vaguely remembers seeing her father greeting him with affection earlier, and after a moment her obedient brain presents her with his name - Wyldon of Cavall.
She rises unsteadily, and his arm assists her over the shards of glass; her evening slippers are foolishly flimsy. “Your father is about to begin the toasts. He did not wish to start without you…” His appearance thus explained, he waits quietly for her answer. A nice voice, she thinks fleetingly.
“Thank you, Lord Wyldon. I shall be in directly.” He bows politely and turns to leave her.
Reaching the garden door, he halts, framed by shadowy ivy and roses. “He does not deserve your regret.”
She swallows. “I - I do not know what you mean, sir.”
His brown eyes are kind as he observes her. “As you wish, my lady.”
He vanishes through the gate, and Vivenne is left to stand alone in the garden and marvel over a collection of words which have inexplicably lightened her mood.