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“𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒃𝒆 𝒂 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆.” 🝮︎︎︎︎︎︎︎
── 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐃 knees bent into courtesy as the familiar sound of the sure-footed heels clicked round a corner. The sentiment was no different, a day unlike any other. Servants bowed as a matter of habit. It was what was done. Yet, the recipient was no ordinary aristocrat or privileged, spoiled, and insensitive lady. This one commanded the respect of others through her differentiation in this world - and slight fear at that.
The halls echoed with the freshly rested and revived footsteps of the woman traversing them, nodding her head in turn to those that stopped to acknowledge her. The grandeur around her had become all but routine, monotone to waltz past on the daily, and now a distant object of interest. Sure, the paintings were magnificent and the designs surrounding them equally so; but they had been there ever since the woman could remember, and so she walked on.
The light streaming in from the open doorways set a certain inviting and naturalistic atmosphere: homey to no fault. It provoked the woman to close her eyes momentarily as she subconsciously navigated the corridors, taking in a warm, enveloped breath, to exhale it in a contented sigh.
Occasionally, she had stopped to admire the picturesque and grand details of the walls she had grown so familiar with, the articles that she had so missed during their time away racing back to her veins as she considered them. It had been a long off-season, spent in Paris, France, where she had been born and where her mother had hailed from. An unusually long retreat for any family of the Ton to be so far from home, or to go without seeing the countryside.
Jessamy Halls, the family estate of the Bloomsbury ménage, had gone untouched by its residents for the full term of a year. It was unknown to all but the members of the family itself as to why, and it was a matter they graced over and side-stepped in conversation. The country manor was in no shortage of supply in comfort and solace to house the rather large brood that Baron Bloomsbury flaunted - and was certainly a very beautiful and bountiful estate indeed. In fact, it had been praised as the most sublime English estate by Her Majesty the Queen herself.
It had transpired, for reasons unknown, that the family had taken away from the glorious halls of the paternal line most likely for a change of scene. Focusing on the now, London was shining brighter than the day they had left, the family travelling together and arriving the day before last back in the economical covey that was London. After many an argument and familial quarrel, they had arrived unscathed and prepared for the upcoming social season. Well, bar perhaps one...
