Maverick (FCRAs Winner)

Engagement

Another update, ladies and gents! I'm hoping to bring in some twists and turns over the next few chapters to keep you all on your toes...best of luck to everyone in the FCRAs, I am loving all the stories I am reading and the talent out there is just crazy!

Until next time...

The house looked even more audacious after six months of simplicity. Well, five months, three weeks and four days to be precise. Not that she was counting, of course. Hannah perched awkwardly in the tapestried seat, trying not to sink into its voluminous folds. She had never been allowed to sit in the seats of the front living room, instead she was relegated to the side benches or standing if she was allowed in at all.

And yet now here she was, sipping syrupy tea in impossibly dainty china and waiting for her mother to make an entrance. It was astounding how things had transpired. Suspicious too. Hannah couldn't shake off the feeling that there was a macabre reason for her being shown such hospitality.

A sound made her turn to the door, narrowly avoiding sinking into the chair beyond return. A figure emerged from the shadows.

Julian.

All at once, three months of confusion and resentment welled up inside her. The moment outside her parents house that night in the rain had lingered in her mind and played on her thoughts when she was idle. The faint smell of whisky on his breath, the warmth of his arms, the magnetism of an outsider, a fellow maverick. She didn't know what she felt when she was around him, but it was elating and addictive. It made her forget all her worries and instead fill with hope for a bright future without solitude. And she was sure he felt it too. And yet, stood there now, she couldn't read him. Did he care about what had happened that night at the ball? Or that eternal moment on the back steps?Did he feel that connection?

He took a step towards her, the light hitting his green eyes and clearing all thought from her mind as she lost herself in them. But they were sad, almost frustrated. They seemed to be looking straight through her as if deliberately trying not to see her. The resentment turned to fury, and Hannah could feel the bubbling boiling feeling in her hands as the heat rose up her neck to her ears.

"Look at me!"

The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them, far more forceful and far louder than anyone had expected, including her. Julian's gaze shifted and all at once her soul was being read, all the insecurities and hurt exposed to those green pools of truth. Hannah tried to look back; to read those pools and glean something that told her he felt the same; that her lamentations had not been in vain, that there was a real and powerful reason why she had heard nothing from the man she thought she loved for the last six months, but there was nothing. All at once her soul was trampled.

"Hannah, I wanted to...it all happened so fast...please understand-"

Julian's hushed platitudes were cut off as Duchess Luceille's announcement echoed down the hallway.

"And here we all are together for the big moment!" She entered larger and redder in the face than Hannah could remember, flanked by her usual tray of treats and followed by the Duke and Lily.

Hannah got up as her sister entered, rushing to embrace her. Lily was unusually hesitant; though feeling her frail body wrapped between her arms, she was not surprised. She felt as if she may break at any moment. Pulling apart, she kissed her little sister on the head.

"How have you been? Has mother been hiding my letters from you? I can't tell you how much I have missed you." Hannah hugged Lily tightly, but she pulled away, avoiding her gaze and glancing over to Julian. Hannah frowned.