Author's Note:
The title is still negotionable just to let you know and it is a brand new story so I will update chapter by chapter. Vommet please, I need to know if this is worth my time through yours :)
editing it the rating wont change from R but its PG13 so don't let the label restrict you guys.
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Chapter One
This all began with an invitation, an invitation to a bachelor’s house as an masquerade ball. I was sitting in the lily and maroon colored wildflowers meadow. The charred remains from the fire five years ago had long started to grow back, i dug the earth into my nails. My fingers were black from the char under the dark brown dirt that day when I dug into it when I saw the sight of my sister that had the letter. She sported a new flowing dress laced and ribboned white and pale pink, my sister, Judith Oland raced towards me.
Her pale, wheat blonde hair thick and straight streamed behind her, under her falling-off gable hat as she briskly walked toward me, eyes bright. I felt a ping of jealousy stream through me before I squashed the thought. My sister was beautiful and took the suitors by the handfuls in this town without even trying. I couldn’t hate my twin sister; she was also the most selfless person on the continent, unlike me. We were almost opposites, my reddish hair (Compliments of my father’s side of Irish) that was in ringlets that was almost always never tamed, cat shaped bright blue eyes, freckles with slightly tanned skin. Lest not forget my infamous awkward curtsey and a temper to match my Uncle Leon that was a Scottish sailor for the King.
“Di! Diana! Look what the messenger brought us! An invitation to a ball! Oh it’s been too long!” My sister smiled in delight as she twirled herself gracefully in front of me as she got close enough for me to smell the flower perfume on her and see the ivory paper in her hand.
“Jude, the last time we went to a ball was last month. Has Evelyn got her greedy hands on it yet? You know she’ll only go to a ball if someone famous is hosting.” I tried to peer at the letter while still laying on the long grassy floor but got a clear view of my high cheeked sister’s profile instead. Impatient, I pulled myself up to stand when my sister reached out and pulled me up by my hands and started to dance. Making us both dance and laugh. When we were both breathless when we rolled back on the grass, our hair falling out of our bonnets completely off, it lays on the grass with us.
I stared into my sister’s steel blue eyes and easy smile that reminded me so much of our mother. Thinking of her saddened me, she had died here, in this meadow. I was only ten years old but I remember the fear, the heat of the fire here years back. The yelling of arguments, crying, I think from myself. And then blackness. The silence. I had suppressed my memory which always made me wonder.
What had happened that night?
My mother took just me for the day for shopping, with Judith napping in the loft and father working in the fields, and ended up at dawn in the meadow. The place my mother loved to take us to play and talk without anyone hearing in. It was a lovely day, we ate sweet meats and had even gotten a tailored lavender purple dress I got to wear all day ended in a fiery grave for my mother. A year later, my father had remarried. As much as he loved his former wife, his daughters desperately needed a motherly figure to take care of Jude and I while growing up into womanhood.
So our father married a young heiress; Evelyn Clout that was five years older than us when she married our father while passing his prime. After some miscarriages, she finally produced an heir. Our youngest sibling Abe that had most of Evelyn’s features. Black wispy hair, freckled face with button brown eyes, and plump pink lips. The boy was adorable, but his mother was sour and vicious when it came to her child that she loved the most. Things were peculiar the first two years of my little brother’s life, teetering in balance.
“I wonder if Charles will be there too…” My sister’s light voice trailed off, almost dreamily. Her fingers brushing off an invisible peck of dirt off her dress, I checked myself as well.
I rolled my eyes and said, “Not him again. Do you really like him? His family lives on a farm, Judith. I love you but…no. he has no money to spare for your dresses and trinkets.” That earned me a good naturedly glare from sister dearest. She propped herself a hand under her chin and took a long look at me and shook her head. With a rustle of her dress, she stood.
“A typical Diana response, when your mad you use my full name, I’m not dull Di. You’re turning into Pa every day, cynical and typical. And farther away from Mum Diana, she married with love in her heart.”
“Mum’s marriage was arranged, Judith. Every marriage is like that. Please get that through your thick head. Dad would lock you up like those fairytales Mum told us if he heard you talk as such! So I suggest you keep this to yourself, or I won’t have a sister to share with anymore.” I said sharply. We both had the pain showing in our eyes.
I didn’t want to turn into my father, as much as I looked like his side more and more than anyone in our family, because he was almost devoid of love now since the incident. More gruff everyday, only warm on some day’s; until we accidently mention Daphne, our mother. He would turn red, go out of the house to the pub down some blocks until midnight with the smell of booze too strong to handle. Which is why we avoid telling him when we go to the meadow when he’s around the house and not working. The place we were forbidden to go to.
“I’m not like everyone else, if I love him, I will marry him. You're going Diana, whether Evelyn says so or not. I am going to take Susan out for a play date with Charles’s younger siblings so I cannot accompany you home. William might still be in the stables, get him to take you out for a dress, the ball is tomorrow.” She said coldly, dropping the letter at the edge of the forest as she left. I felt ashamed but I couldn’t take it back. I could never take it back.
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What do you think?? Thanks -Hayden
