Inheritance

CHAPTER TWO

"I don't think my mother would appreciate you calling a compliment of my visage 'fun'."

"I don't care what your mother thinks." He stated, nonchalantly.

"Then whose opinion do you care about?"

"The woman I am to spend an inordinate amount of time with for the rest of my life, of course. Her opinion should be the only one to matter here, don't you think?" He said, giving me a strange look.

Something in his eyes made me so aware of the hand he was currently holding.

It was just a glove away from being a touch, or a caress.

His hand on my back felt almost warm. It made me feel safe, secure again.

And for a moment, just one sweet little moment, I felt as if every breath that has ever existed inside me, was robbed right out of my lungs.

***

That night I couldn't sleep.

The wedding is a month away, and maybe I should be ecstatic that there is something between me and this strange man.

Maybe I should be ecstatic to live my life with him.

But the image of my father haunted me, now more than before.

He wouldn't make it through the summer, I think.

Mama thinks I worry for nothing. But she hasn't noticed what I have yet.

He was getting more and more unsteady on his feet, sleeping more than usual and eating less.

Tap tap tap.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I was worried for no reason. Maybe I was overreacting.

Tap tap tap.

The sound broke through my reverie.

Standing up from my bed, I threw the nightgown that Colette placed at the foot of my bed on, and slowly moved to the window where the sound was coming from.

Must be another bird. They tended to lose their way and land on my windowsill sometimes.

But, when I looked down, it wasn't a bird.

No. It was an unkempt man that looked suspiciously like my fianceé.

"Excuse me, Sir? Are you lost?" I asked, my voice echoing across the courtyard.

"Well, if I were seeing another woman staring down at me, maybe."

And that was when I knew: I was marrying the most inappropriate man in all of France.

"What are you doing here? There is an appropriate time for calling on someone, you know. And it is normally over tea in the morning. Not in the middle of the night, half dressed and in the courtyard of Mercier Manor."

"I needed to see you." He said, stepping forward.

And then he started climbing.
Climbing up a very large building that did not have much foothold for him to climb up in the first place.

"Gerard! Gerard! I swear if you don't get down from there this very minute, I will kill you before the fall does!" I whisper-shouted, not wanting to wake my family.

Thankfully, he made it to the balcony before I could start panicking about what I would tell his parents should he fall to his death.

"You look lovely when your hair is down." He said, once his leg was swung over the threshold leading to my window. The smile on his face was one of the most boyishly charming things I have ever seen.

"And you are mad. Honestly, am I to take you to the asylum once we're married?"

He smiled even larger at that. "I needed to see you."

"Must be urgent." I said, suddenly too aware of the flimsy material covering my nightdress. And too aware of the smell of spirits coming off him.

"Anne Marie, I need you to know that I am more than happy to marry you." He said, his gaze softening on mine.

The comment made something inside of me leap a little.

"Why, thank you Gerard."

"But, I can't." He said, the light that was previously there, slowly going out of his eyes.

The shock that reverberated through me at his words made me stumble back a step. My heart was in my throat.

"We have been betrothed since childhood, Gerard. There isn't any question about whether or not we will be getting married. You cannot jilt me a month before our wedding."

"I...Anne Marie, I'm not who you think I am." He said, his voice turning slightly more desperate.

There was something about the look on his face that made me almost sick to my stomach.
As if there was something bad around the corner, something I couldn't see but that was there nonetheless. As if I knew, but I was jumping into the fire anyway.

"If you are not who I think you are, then who are you?" I asked, my voice sounding unsteady even to my own ears.

"A protestant, I think."

***
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