"My final letters, were they read? Or were they written in vain?"
Although born in France, Juliette Villeneuve often spent her childhood summers in London. With the passing of each summer, her adoration for a certain Bridgerton boy grew. During thei...
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ANTHONY'S POINT OF VIEW
THE FIRST TIME ANTHONY BRIDGERTON SAW JULIETTE VILLENEUVE, he was twelve years of age. His first impression of her was anything but extraordinary, in fact, he didn't even bat an eye. It was most certainly not love at first sight. For he was twelve and she was nine, and love wasn't even a sliver of a thought in his mind. The nine-year-old girl was nothing more than the niece of Lord DuBois who lived across the square. What he didn't know was that Lord DuBois and Lady DuBois, who had been married for all but six years, had just lost a fourth child to pregnancy complications a few months before.
Juliette Eléonore Villeneuve was sent as a beacon of hope in a time of darkness. Yet, the girl was too young to understand the circumstances of her visit to London. The girl who forever wore a large smile and snorted when she laughed a bit too hard, uplifted the mood of the DuBois house and brought a grin to Lady DuBois' face. Juliette enjoyed their company to such a great degree she decided — along with her parent's permission — to spend every summer with her aunt and uncle.
The first time Anthony met Juliette, he could not for the life of him understand a word coming out of her mouth. It had been a month since she first arrived in Grosvenor Square when they bumped into one another on a promenade in the park. Anthony, who wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as he ran around with Benedict, tripped over Juliette's foot and fell on his bottom. The young girl laughed softly as she stood over him, offering her hand for him to take.
Which he did.
She spoke in broken English with a thick French accent — one that she began to lose as the years progressed — and Anthony stared at her with a dumbfounded expression. All her words became jumbled into one large word due to his troubles with parsing the sentence. As she spoke, her cheeks darkened into a bright red and her accent thickened, a result of her growing frustration for failing to find the English equivalent to the words she wished to say.
Juliette had only begun learning the language a year before with her governess. Both of her parents were bilingual but preferred to speak their mother tongue — French. She had only just begun using English as a primary source of communication once she arrived in London. Of course, her uncle's mother tongue was also French, but his wife couldn't understand a single word in the language other than 'bonjour, comment ça va? and merci'. So, French was few and far between in the DuBois house. Each morning Juliette practiced with her governess — alongside her other studies — and in the afternoon she read aloud with her aunt or partook in casual conversation.
Throughout the rest of Juliette's first summer in London, the pair did not speak again. They saw each other briefly in passing no more than three times, and Anthony thought the girl was peculiar.
They did not exchange letters the months apart after they first met.
When Anthony was thirteen, Juliette visited London again. He wasn't expecting her to return. That summer they spoke twice more than the summer before for a total of three times. One of which occurred when Lady Bridgerton invited Lord and Lady DuBois and Juliette for dinner. Benedict had made a cheeky comment that caused a pea to fly from Juliette's nose in shock. At the sight, Anthony had difficulty stifling his laughter. Anthony wanted to be her friend, but he didn't know how to approach her.
