❝I am not sure I would have wanted someone to translate my fate sooner. I am quite enjoying the surprise you are.❞
⁂
| cressida x fem!oc |
| post-season 3 au |
| cross-posted on ao3 under the user @/holdthesun |
| disclaimer inside |
| Cat...
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𝕹o matter how hard she tried, Cressida could never quite express just how much she loathed the rain.
Every patter on the pane sounded like the mechanical swing of her father's grand pendulum clock, which stood broad-shouldered in the hallway, silently watching her prick herself for the fiftieth time on the embroidery needle. Silently watching her scrutinise a piece of music until the staves writhed around the pages, impossible to be played. Silently watching her contemplate her body in front of the looking glass, inhaling doubly as her hands pinch at the skin her mother had eyed disappointedly. Silently watching her cling to a pillow, unsuccessfully muffling the sound of a furious Lord Cowper cursing at her mother like she was at fault for every wretched circumstance in the world. Silently watching her hold her head in her hands, choking back sobs, because the Partridge girls were excelling at French, and she struggled to tell the difference between sens and sans, and she could never remember where the accents flicked towards, and why was she so stupid.
Silently watching her solitude, and keeping its time.
Now, as it pelts the glass of the inn mercilessly, having refused to relent for the last day and a half, Cressida could not despise it more. It seemed that as soon as she had set foot in her Aunt's carriage, the gates of Heaven themselves had opened, releasing their glory onto London, to wash its streets clean of her.
Her parents hadn't cried; though Cressida didn't believe she had ever seen them show any genuine, loving emotion. After all, she wasn't sure she had ever shown them any. Lord Cowper had refused to bid his only daughter farewell. Though what was she to have expected? Stubborn, remorseful embraces and tears from those who were exiling her? Foolish, foolish girl.
The Cowper house had been frigid and cold for as long as she could remember. Endless winters under a grey sun.
She removes her dress, gingerly folding it up and placing it on a chair before her fingers begin to fumble furiously with the corset she is in, still unaccustomed to tying and untying the laces herself. She dresses in her nightclothes and sits on the edge of the bed, watching the rain on the windowsill drip like hot candle wax. She feels her stomach churn, the hot currents of shame swirling around inside of her as she pleads to the god her parents pray to for a singular moment of peace. For a singular moment where her thoughts are not led to what she has done, or her parents, or the Austrian sunshine that could be kissing her temples, or what awaits her in Wales, or Eloise Bridgerton.
She shuts her eyes at the thought of the brunette, a hand touching her chest to aid the tightness that is growing, an action she had repeated in the silence of the night under very different circumstances not so long ago, careful and quiet that not even the pendulum clock heard her sighs as visions of the brunette fanned an embering heat inside of her.
