The Cadre of Embers

Chapter 4

Over the next week, Althea spent her days locked away in her room. Her aunt had demanded that she was not to leave the house. At first Althea had counted it as a blessing, considering she wanted not to take part in any of the things her aunt demanded of her anyway. However, once Lady Harriet realised that Althea had been spending her time reading the books she had snagged from the large manor-house library, she quickly had them removed.

Having absolutely no way for her to pass the time now, other than sitting in the window nook and watching people pass by on the crowded street below, her life was beyond mundane. Althea had even begun to put entire stories to the people she saw passing by.

At the glimpse of a young man carrying flowers and wearing a smile, she imagined him bringing home the boutique of primroses to his wife. She imagined her to be a fair haired woman, with big, blue eyes, like the portrait of the goddess Aphrodite her father had kept hung up in a hallway.

Upon seeing an old woman draped in a dark cloak, holding the hand of a small, stumbling toddler, she imagined that the woman was actually a dark witch. She needed the small red haired boy for a potion she was concocting, needing two strands of hair from a pure hearted child.

To say her days were dull was an understatement. Maybe she'd take a nap and awaken just before dinner, the one meal she was given, brought to her bedchamber by Cynthia. The poor lady's maid had worn a sullen expression each time she brought Althea a meal. It was the only human interaction Althea could get. Her aunt had not spoken to her since that night at the Duke and Duchesses ball. She wondered if her aunt would send her back to live with her father. Would he even have her? She doubted it. What would become of a "ruined" woman with no incentive to become a wife? Her aunt was likely right, her only option would be to work in a brothel. Althea cringed at the thought. She didn't actually want to live out her days selling her body to the highest paying males. But would living out her days with a man who only used her for her ability to bear offspring really be much better?

Suddenly there was a curt knock at her chamber door. Althea startled slightly, sitting up from her place at the window.

"Come in."

Cynthia's small frame strolled into her room.

"M'lady, Lady Harriet has requested your presence in the sitting room." Cynthia's face was neutral, not allowing Althea to gain an ounce of the purpose to this call. She didn't bother pestering her maid about it, for her face revealed that she likely did not know. She had probably been of little use over the last week, well with Althea being bound only to her bedchamber. She wondered if her maid was growing as antsy as she had been.

Althea followed the small woman down the narrow hallway and to the sitting room. Light harp music seeped from the cracks in the shut French doors. Cynthia pulled one open, allowing for the music to flow out freely now. It was an easy melody, light and peaceful. When Althea walked in, her aunt sat in the far corner of the room, entirely consumed by the embroidery in front of her. Did she even realise Althea was here?

As if reading her thoughts, her aunt snapped, "sit girl." She didn't look up from her needle work as Althea took a seat on the farther of the two white, tufted sofas.

The silent moments that passed felt like aeons as Althea sat, anticipating her aunt's reason for this summons.

She finally looked up, taking in Althea's complexion. She was sure she looked in absolute disarray. She hadn't, after all, bathed once since returning that night. The bottom of her gown had been caked with the dry mud of the garden, her hair had come loose from its updo and stuck to the nape of her damp, sweaty neck to which it now clung to itself in knots. The amount of dancing she did that night with her friends did nothing to her advantage. Her friends. She had often thought of those people she had met at the ball. Monique's endless smile, and warm laughter, the way Meg and James had danced together, without a single care, and Jasper. The way he had looked at her, she found herself reliving those too short moments in her mind over and over again. His breath as he whispered into her ear, 'I'm glad yer here Althea.' It was such a simple sentence and yet she couldn't get the sound of his hushed voice, the way her name rolled off of his tongue, the caress of his words on her neck, out of her head. It had consumed her mind these past days.