Adeline

Chapter 7 - Adeline

The next morning, she was right, for she woke up, sprawled in the middle of the king-sized bed, and Arthur was not next to her as he had been when she fell asleep. She waited for a while, she didn't know how long, lying in the bed in the same position as she woke up in. The soft covers were wrapped around her legs that were now bare against the cool air. Her night dress had edged its way up in the night and now somehow the sheets were tangled around her. She didn't know what time it was but the sun was streaming in through the gaps in the curtained windows, and so she assumed that it was sometime in midmorning.

The grey, golden light was warm and comforting, but she couldn't lie still when she didn't know where Arthur was, and so she decided to open her eyes. The room was different in the daylight, the light that fell slowly into the room. Particles of dust floated through the air in the beams of light coming in from the pained windows and she followed the room with her eyes around to the floor to ceiling mirror where Arthur stood, only his underwear and his shirt on. He was tying up his tie in the mirror, focussing hard on the knots that he was trying and not noticing her as she sat up to look at him.

"Good morning." She said hazily, stretching her arms into the air and yawning. He turned around to her and forced a smile. She noticed that his eyes didn't smile with him and his hair was dishevelled. He was tired, only just woken up and washed himself. And he must have had a hangover.

"Hello." He replied, walking over to the end of the bed and finishing off his tie. This was the first time that Adeline had seen Arthur's bare legs and she tried her best to look up to his eyes instead of down at his bare thighs. His legs, like his chest, were muscular, but not too defined, and covered in little invisible blond hairs. His black socks were already on and pulled up around his ankles.

"Are you okay?" She asked, worrying over his hangover. She felt like a princess, sitting amongst the white sheets and piles of pillows, gowned in her satin night dress. Her dark curls bounced down over her forehead in the same dishevelled way that Arthur's did.

"Yes." He nodded, "Just a little headache."

She smiled at him, "Lightweight."

"I actually drank quite a lot." He replied, returning to the mirror and sorting out his hair. He obviously seemed uncomfortable with Adeline awake and seeing his bare legs, and so went swiftly to the wardrobe to put on a pair of brown trousers. He pulled them up quickly, and she knew that had she stayed asleep, or lying in bed, he wouldn't have climbed into them as quickly as he did.

"Sure." She said, swinging her feet around to the carpeted floor by the side of her bed, "Do you know if there are any clothes for me?"

"You can wear some of mine. There are lots of clothes in that dresser from when I was much smaller."

"Thank you." Adeline said. She glided in her white night dress over to the wardrobe to look for a day suit to wear to breakfast. She never had breakfast, so this was a new thing for her. Usually, there wasn't a set time for food in her life, and she just ate when she could. She wasn't like those women that would go on hunger strike if they were taken to prison, because she thought that radical. She shouldn't have to weaken herself, stupidly starve herself, and put herself in pain to get her point across. She shouldn't have to suffer any more than what those in power had already made her do.

"Wait." Arthur walked over to her, his shirt messily un-tucked and his sleeves rolled up. He looked like a rugged farmer in these clothes, "I just want to see you some more in that dress. You look so nice in these pretty clothes," He smiled at her, taking her cheeks in his hands and holding her face up to his. He kissed her, something that she wasn't used to when she had just woken up. Despite not being commonplace in her mornings, she could get used to it.