Page 5 of Victorian Bride

“Do you think you will remarry?” Mya asked. She wasn’t sure if the question was impolite. It just seemed that Lottie was too young to be alone. She had Eleanora, but it wasn’t the same.

Lottie gave the question only a moment's thought before she shook her head, the curls of her chignon dancing against the nape of her neck. “No,” she said. “It is hardly in a man's favor to wed me now, when I have the right to keep them from meddling with James' property. If they cannot steal my wealth off me, they have much less reason to woo me.” She smiled. “And, in truth, I am happy as I am. Eleanora and I get along well here. We are both free to pursue our interests as we please, spend our money as we please, and generally live as we choose. It is not a bad life to live.”

“I didn't realize it was so...” Mya wasn't sure what the word she sought was.

“Restrictive?” Lottie suggested as they stepped onto a path of smooth paving stones that wound through a carpet of bright bluebells.

The delicate scent of the flowers filled the air around them, and Mya, breathing it in, felt as though she had walked in such a place before. But she could not recall where, or when. Ahead, a latticework gazebo grew pink climbing roses. Lottie led her to a bench beneath one of the arches and they sat there together, breathing in the heady perfume of the blossoms, deeper and richer than the barely there scent of the bluebells.

“I suppose that is one way to describe it,” Lottie said. “Though it does depend somewhat on the man. James was never fond of controlling me. Perhaps he knew how useless it was to try.” There, again, was the flash of her smile, bright and amused.

“Did you love him?” Mya asked. She wanted that. The love that could move mountains. That could make time stand still. It was silly to think of that right now. She didn’t know who she was or if she already had someone. She might even have a loving husband at a home, waiting anxiously for her. She might have… She sighed. She hoped Lottie had that kind of love with James.

Lottie was silent for longer than Mya would have expected, and she almost regretted asking the question.

“I'm sorry,” she started to say. “I—”

“No,” Lottie interrupted. “Do not concern yourself. It’s not a bad question, only one that is not simple to answer.” She looked down at her hands, folded together in her lap. “James and I didn’t know each other well before our marriage. We courted, of course, but it was more a business match than a love match. We did, in time, grow fond of each other, and I suppose what we had could be called love, but it was not the romantic ardor I think you meant when you asked.”

“I think I was in love,” Mya said.

It was a thought that had been building throughout their conversation, making itself impossible to ignore. She did not know quite where it came from, but it was there all the same. Blurting it out to a woman who was still almost a stranger didn’t entirely seem like the solution, but Mya couldn’t help feeling that the woman sitting beside her would understand.

Lottie turned to look at her, brows raised in question. “What makes you say so?”

It was Mya’s turn to be silent, wrestling with her own inability to describe the certainty settled somewhere deep in her chest. Like the phantom ache of another heart beating next to her own. There was meant to be someone beside her.

“I feel it,” she said finally. “It’s not a satisfactory explanation, I know, but I don’t know how to describe it any further.”

“You need not.” Lottie reached up and plucked a rose from the vine winding its way along the wrought-iron leg of the gazebo. She turned the bloom over in her hands, stroking the soft petals with the tips of her fingers. “Some things simply are. We know them, and we cannot describe them, because the truth of them is deeper than the flimsy construct of words. Perhaps Eleanora could make a better attempt of it, but some things, I think, are not meant to be spoken. It is why I use a paintbrush and not a pen.”

Mya thought of the white stag, turning his head to meet her gaze with his great, dark eyes, and the way her chest had filled with something bright and nameless at the sight of it. The stag. She couldn’t remember things, but she remembered the handsome beast?

Without memory through which to view the world, too many of the things rattling around inside her had no words to describe them. No context in which to place them.

Perhaps, she thought, Lottie was right. Maybe some things were better left unsaid. Maybe even with her memories, she wouldn’t know how to put words to the feelings that welled up in her. She breathed in the peace of the garden, and side by side they sat in companionable silence, neither of them saying anything at all.

Chapter 3

“We can come sit with you when the doctor arrives,” Lottie offered as they made their way back up the path to the house. “If you would prefer it. He’s a very kind man, and you have nothing to fear from him, but I know how intimidating such encounters can be. You’ve been… well, out each time he’s come.”

“I would like that, honestly,” Mya admitted.

“One or both of us shall rescue you, then,” Lottie promised. “If nothing else, medical checkups are not terribly exciting, and we would not wish you to suffer. Eleanora would be quite put out with me for failing as a hostess.” She didn’t quite manage to keep a straight face as she said it, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth and her dark eyes glittering with suppressed laughter.

Mya, despite the slight nervousness incited by the mention of the doctor’s visit and concern for what it might reveal about her health, found herself giggling. “I believe agreeing to put me up indefinitely for free makes you both incomparable hostesses, purely by virtue of that action.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, do not tell Ella that. If she thinks she has to impress you, we’ll get to go to more parties.”

“Are you telling me that you’re using me as an excuse to go shock high society?”

Lottie gave her a wide-eyed innocent look that Mya didn’t believe for a minute. “I cannot believe you would accuse me of such a thing.”

Mya shook her head, laughing, and then winced at the pain in her shoulder. “I’ve known you for all of four hours, and I already know better than to trust that expression on your face.”

Laughing, Lottie led her up the steps onto the porch. “Ella always falls for it, you know.”

“I don’t believe Ella does fall for it,” Mya retorted. “I think she just indulges you and your whims.”