Captivated souls

Lady's Love

Arietta's POV:

Young and beautiful.

This is how everyone describes me.

I never really thought much about it. My beauty was, after all, only a physical part of me and I wasn't going to be young forever. I always say as much to whomever uses those words as a compliment. They just laugh and continue to praise my lovely dark hair and fine dazzling eyes.

I can never tell if they mean it to be kind, or if they just want something.

Usually it's the latter.

I am finding that to be more and more true the older I get.

My father used to have three children. Two sons and a daughter whom was the last of his line because her birth brought about the unfortunate end of her mother.

That is me.

As for the other two sons, both older than I and wonderful souls that I will miss until my dying day. They were summoned to the wars and were both killed fighting for their king. Which left me in grieving and suddenly the sole heir to everything my father owns. Except - I wasn't allowed to have it alone.

I had to marry for my Fathers fortune and name to continue to prosper.

I had no way of keeping the line on my own. That was a shame of course but I didn't let it bother me. The older I became the more suitors sought after my hand. I say 'no' to all of them of course.

Except one.

Lord Unwyn.

My one and only love - which is shocking to most because - according to the older ladies of the court - a young lady rarely loves her future husband before marriage. It was so rare, in fact, that the elderly women start to say it's an omen, whether it is a good thing or not has yet to be seen.

Of course, I don't much care for what those elderly spinsters think about my adoration for my lord. I've known him for at least six years now, before he took his father's title, when he was just a young boy of sixteen. Now a grown man and waiting for my father to let me go.

I often daydream about him. We see each other twice a year before summer and sometimes he manages to stay a month during summertime. I always love those times.

I'm usually spending time in the calming woods by father's manor, hiding among the moss laden trees with years of life on them and who knows how many stories they have withheld in their silent trunks. Stories I can't help imagining and wishing they would tell.

I'm under such a tree this fine afternoon when I hear the loud and, mostly, off key bellow of Markus's bugle horn. He was always horrid at that thing. But one of his many jobs was to announce arrivals.

Wait.

My heart leaps into my mouth as I brush my shimmering hair out of my face. Arrival? Arrival of who?

Was Father expecting an important visitor? I really had no idea - quickly, forgetting I wasn't all to ready to see any Nobel, or anyone for that matter, in my outside dress, I run - my shoes long forgotten under a bush - to the gate of the woods and climb up to peek over the top. My blue eyes light up when I see a familiar carriage with even more familiar insignia on its door rolls up by four amazingly powerful black horses.

Unwyn!

I quickly, still forgetting what I must look like, open the latch and run out into the group of court carriers gathering to meet the young Lords entourage.