The Burden of Freedom

Chapter 8

At breakfast the next morning, I smile and laugh, trying to put on a good face. The suitors are now required to eat every meal with me, my father claiming that it will be a good way for me to get to know them better.

"If you are so opposed to marrying someone you don't know, why do you push them away?" he had asked me the previous day. Believing that eating meals with them was an easy solution, I am now required to do so.

This morning, I sit at the head of the table, my father at the other end. I can feel his eyes watching me, can feel him monitoring my every movement like a hawk watching its prey. So I smile as genuinely as possible and attempt to strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to me, knowing that if I start behaving, later it will be easier to convince my father to do what I want.

Unfortunately for me, this particular morning I am placed next to Colin and a dreary, grouchy man named Henry.

Starting a pleasant conversation with these two is going to be impossible.

Who should I try to talk to first? Neither option looks very appealing to me. On one hand, I have Henry who seems more interested in his potatoes than in anything else. On the other, I have Colin, who has already shown me what kind of a man he is.

I make my decision after a few more moments of contemplating.

"So where are you from?" I ask Colin, moving a strawberry around on my plate. He stares at me for a second, as if he is surprised that I chose to speak to him.

"The east." His answer is short and abrupt.

The east is a mountainous region, usually cold and snowy. I wonder if the frigid air there is what gave him such a disagreeable personality.

"So your family..." I say. My father's eyes are still on me, so I tilt my head and give a little smile.

"What about them?" he asks. His tone went from angry to hostile in an instant.

I just laugh, as if I find this humorous rather than insulting. "Are you from a noble lineage?"

Colin just glowers into his toast. "Does that really matter?"

I'm taken back by the question. Most men here are elated to boast about their noble titles, flaunting them as if they are the only important thing in this world. I had expected for Colin to be exactly the same, which is why I chose to ask him this particular question.

"Actually, I don't think it matters that much," I say to him truthfully. "I'm just trying to maintain a pleasant conversation with you, but you're making it extremely difficult."

I say the words with a sort of sharp kindness, a tone that my mother had used on me many times before.

Colin lets out a breath of air from his nose, his fingers pressing on the crease in his napkin. "I'm sorry, my lady. I just wasn't ready for the question and allowed for my emotions to overtake me. Please forgive me." 

I almost choke on the sip of water I'm taking.

"It's... quite alright..." I manage to squeeze out past the coughs. Colin just raises an eyebrow at me and then looks back down at his food.

He had just apologized? I didn't think he was capable of feeling remorse, let alone publicly expressing it. 

It had definitely seemed genuine. I study him, looking for a reason to be angry.

I can't find it in his broad shoulders, in his ocean blue eyes, in his dark brown hair. I can't find it in the way he tilts his head downwards, in the way his forehead wrinkles, in the way his slender fingers grip the silver fork in his left hand.