A Defiant Liaison

I

"I am a victim, I have no qualms with this word, only with the idea that it is all that I am." Chanel Miller, Know My Name 

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I.

Fast. Faster. Be faster.

The wind howled. It was a more vicious wind than Belle had heard in a long time. It was more than a storm. It had to be a hurricane blowing into Saint-Martin.

Rain simultaneously pelted the earth with unyielding aggression, soaking the dirt beneath her feet. Belle was nearly sinking into the mud, her bare feet frozen, and she could hardly see three steps in front of her as she trekked through the fields in the dead of the night. Her hair was plastered to her face, and her dress was completely soaked through.

But she wouldn't stop. Belle ought to have been afraid of dying in such a storm. Any normal person would have been afraid to be out in such weather. But she was not afraid. She could never fear death. She knew that there were far worse fates than death.

Faster. Be faster. Belle willed herself to be faster with every step she took. Every step was one step further away. Her rapid heartbeat rivalled the sounds of the thunder above as she pushed herself to keep going.

This was it. It was now or never. Belle had waited years for an opportunity like this. She had waited, suffered, endured her life for years without ever having a moment to run. It had taken a hurricane coming for Belle to have a chance.

And she did see trekking through a hurricane as a chance. She would rather die here, die now trying to escape during this storm, then remain behind and wish every day that she were dead.

A loud clap of thunder startled Belle awake, and it took a moment for her to grasp her bearings. She was not in Saint-Martin and had not been for a long time. She was in England, in a little Hertfordshire village called Ashwood, the place that had been her home for the last three months. The thunder that she had heard was from a summer thunderstorm which had appeared out of nowhere and had done quite well at frightening off any of the usual shoppers who would be out and about in the village. That same thunder had triggered her memories of a time that she so longed to forget.

"If you've got nothing better to do than sleep on the job, girl, then I'd sooner lease that space to someone who was going to make me a penny."

Belle looked up to see Ashwood's grocer, Mr Andrews, standing by a display of baked goods. He was a man of about thirty or so, with light coloured hair and pale blue eyes. He wore an apron over his white shirt, his sleeves rolled up out of the way as he cleaned, as evidenced by the broom he held in his right hand.

"I'm sorry," Belle apologised. "It won't happen again." She knew why she was tired. She was up most nights sewing Susanna's wedding dress. She would never begrudge making Susanna's gown. In fact, she was honoured to have been asked. Designing gowns, like the one that she was creating for Susanna, was exactly what Belle loved and wanted to do. She had always loved drawing, and her own imagination for these sorts of things had helped her create an escape for herself long before she had ever been free.

If her circumstances were different, Belle would have loved to do what she was doing for Susanna for other ladies. She would have loved to be able to create and make beautiful wedding gowns, ball gowns, and debutante gowns.

But they weren't, and Belle would never allow herself to feel ungrateful for even a moment. She might not have had her own shop, but she was working, and she was sewing. It did not matter that the sewing she was employed to do was fixing buttons and hems.