Love is an Archer

2. Ghosts

As far as Amelia could recall, the dance had been held two seasons earlier at the Rotzen summer estate in the early days of the summer, though the night had seemed unremarkable in every aspect. The food was particularly uninspired (the delicate and finely decorated cakes from a specific French patisserie the Rotzen family had so often relied upon had not materialised, due in considerable part to their creator's untimely death – and his surviving apprentice's inability to replicate such fine sweets), while the decoration relied too heavily on sunflowers (Amelia's least favourite flower for their bright and imposing boldness), and the dancing was a disastrous tangled combination of limbs and tempos (she had never liked to dance anyway). The most notable guests were absent, taking rest before their first promenades the morning after, or basking in the glory of a supernaturally fast match at the start of the season. In their place were the plain of looks, the terrible dancers, and the awkward youths who hid behind fans or in the company of a gaggle of the closest acquaintances.

Such wry observations required Amelia squint hard enough to make out the shape of the evening through the fog of boredom. Naturally – and much to her mother's chagrin – Amelia had once again attached herself to the side lines, gazing on as the awkwardness melted with the wine, the giggling gaggles and fawning beaus starting to mingle clumsily on the dancefloor. She was content as a consenting wallflower, sighing at the tediousness of it all. Amelia's rolling eyes must have been accompanied by a noticeable sigh, she thought later that evening, as a restrained laugh behind her intruded upon her evening. Lady Amelia turned to see who was mocking her.

"Apologies, I wasn't laughing at you," the pretty dark haired woman said, a hand lightly touching where Amelia imagined a beautiful, peachy belly button might lie, hidden beneath the magnificent dark mauve dress wrapped around her body. Despite the beauty of the dress, the young lady – now wincing as she continued to stifle a smile – looked entirely uncomfortable in the garment.

"Are you alright?" Amelia asked, trying to dial back her unamused glare as she tapped her champagne glass and looked her fellow wallflower up and down. Admittedly, the corners of her mouth had started to twitch where they wished to relieve the stranger of the pressure of holding in their laugh – or perhaps to echo it herself.

"Aside from the blush of being caught and the tightness of this dress making it ever so hard to laugh at you, and the sheer tedium of this display," the stranger waved an arm to gesture to the dancefloor, "I am quite well, thank you for asking."

Amelia, still holding an empty wine glass delicately between her fingers, crossed her arms.

"Caught? I recall you saying it wasn't I you were laughing at. Which is it?"

"Is what?"

"Is it me you're laughing at or some other amusement?"

The young lady's smile eased as she fanned herself to blow away the redness in her cheeks.

"It was you; there, I confess! I apologise, it was quite unbecoming of me. It's just that I see a lot of how I feel in how you're standing." The young lady leaned closed then and lowered her voice so that the words trickled like honey into Amelia's ear, sending a warm flush through her skin and the hairs on her neck standing on end. "I also find this to be quite a bore," she whispered, before giggling again.

When Amelia skimmed her memories for that night, two seasons earlier, she was quite sure that it was at this point that she saw the young gentleman looking over at her from across the room. In some versions of the evening, however, she remembered entire conversations with the young lady that never happened, taking place in romantic dreams that she would never confess to in the light of morning.