At The Gazebo

Chapter 4: In Their Own Thoughts

She let them flow; she let her tears flow. She was tired of holding them in her for all these long years. She was tired of running away from those memories and blaming herself for their ending. Events that not she, but Fate had the control on.

As though her legs had a mind of their own, they set walking. It was only later that she realized that she was heading toward the couple-filled garden.

Lady Gracia Martin, with her passion filled aching heart made her way towards one thing in particular, and it was the Gazebo. Not knowing that just a few paces before her, a man had started towards that very destination just a few seconds ago.

It was Lord Christian, surrendering himself to his reflexes and heading for a place which only brought him pain.

It was near dinner-time and the couples were all returning to the mansion. These two people of our acquaintance, though, were unlike the ton, heading in the totally opposite direction. Each of them drowned in their own memories, completely oblivious to their surroundings.

"Why don't you just go away and leave me at peace? Why don't you just stop twisting like a knife in my heart and making it bleed?" Lady Gracia whispered under her breath, begging those memories.

A few feet down her tracks, Lord Christian also had something to say,

"Why don't you come and face me in flesh and bones? Why don't you come running back to me as though the world never existed?" he said, referring to the lady in his memories.

Pensively, he sighed, "Oh, but the world does exist."

It was not obvious to both of them, even after reaching the Gazebo, that they had company. So lost were they in their thoughts.

Giving up on her strength, Lady Gracia leaned her weight on the first pillar her hand reached. She would have collapsed if not for the support of it, as the memory of one particular day in her past seemed to kindle itself within her, with such intense vividity that she was living through that day all over again, suffering the exact pain she had felt on that day.

Tears were now at their complete liberty, she squeezed her eyes letting many others out. Reaching under her bodice, she removed a hidden necklace, of whose pendant was a Man's ring. She held onto it tight, as though the possession of the man she had loved may give the solace she dearly sought.

Not far away, but on the other side of the gazebo, stood Lord Christian with his hands on the railing, leaning his weight onto it. It had taken a lot for him to come to this painfully familiar place.

His memories were becoming unusually vivid as well. A heavy tear rolled down his eye and this time he did not attempt chasing it. He let it escape.

The air grew still as the ton made their way into the mansion, leaving only these two dear souls alone in their reveries, at the gazebo.

This was exactly what the both of them had always wanted, to escape the society they so loathed. A society who loved with their minds rather than loving with their hearts. Who had enough ears for the lies and none for the truth. Who are no one when one is in trouble and who come near as though being a blood relation when one is shining bright. What was this society, dummies adorned in cloth and jewels?

Alas, it was the society they themselves were the prisoners of...

Lady Gracia stood alone-or so she thought-and in the lone of the abandoned gazebo, she could no longer hold herself together. A sob escaped her lips.

The pain that was kindled by the sweetness of her lost past, only but lushed itself in her heart.

It was only after she heard a concerned voice behind her that she realized of her unknown company.

No! It cannot be, she gasped in horror. Nobody must ever see the happy, well to go wife of Lord Martin in such a sorry state. What would they think?!

Thoughts swirled through her mind and panic seized her. And before she could ponder on whether to escape, that unknown company softly settled their hand onto her shoulder.

In a rush she further hid her face deeper into her bonnet. Hoping to somehow go undetected yet, she turned on her heels and aimed for the staircase, attempting to ignore the person behind her.

At her abrupt movement, they hesitantly retrieved their hand.

A long moment of silence sustained, but just as she reached the staircase, the person asked in a courtly yet soft manner,

"My lady, may I be of any assistance?"

She froze. That voice. She knew that voice all too well. It was that very voice she had yearned to hear for the longest of times.

It can not be! it must surely be another trickery of her mind.