Deprivation- The Feast and the Famine

Chapter 2- An Angel Appears

A year before Claudia woke to face a severed hand and a bowl of fruit, she faced an equally ornate room with a completely disparate set of worries. Twice, Claudia paced back and forth across the swirling, rose patterned rug, navigating without thought from the white divan next to the window and the red velvet chair near the door. Her hands rested in front of her as if to belie her nervousness.

There was very little Claudia could do to distract herself. When pacing failed, she put it aside. She fell back into the inaction that was all too familiar to her and sank across the divan. Her hand traced the flower patterns on the pillow as she gave in to her worries. 

Tonight was the night she was to meet her betrothed. The contract was drawn and with it her future decided. She twisted her hands around each other, not daring to wrinkle her dress. 

"Victor," she said his name to the nearly empty room.

Julien, her younger brother, looked up at her with eyes so wide they could not exist bexcept on a five-year-old. He lay on the thick, red-flowered carpet, partially hidden under the chair in front of Claudia's vanity. It was a safe corner, out of the line of sight should anyone with authority enter.

"I was going to marry you," Julien pouted.

Claudia bent down over him, her hand pressed on the brocade cushion of the chair. If she wrinkled the skirts sitting on them, who knew what her mother would do, but she longed to kneel next to him.  It was sufficient to ruffle his brown hair with her hand.

"I would choose you to live out my days with, my darling, but promises have been made."

"Did Daddy chose him?" Julien asked. How much fear that one simple word 'Daddy' held for the boy.

"That is the way of the world, my little man."

That she had not chosen Victor mattered little to Claudia. Few women she knew selected their husbands based on emotional attachment, and those that did usually managed amid scandal. She might have missed the dance of courtship, but the stilted banter and years of waiting in hopes that she would not end up alone did not appeal. Better to have it done with. So she made no attempt to fight her parents when they chose for her.

It only bothered her that she'd never seen him. Why couldn't her step-father have picked any one of the eligible gentlemen in the city? If Victor were repulsive or old, she would have no chance to resign herself before coming face to face with her fate. Perhaps then, she would displease him by showing her distaste. 

There would be hell to pay for that. 

And he would be hideous, probably a shambling monster forced by depravity to live outside the city. Why else would someone choose not to live where all the lovely parties were? So I will be sold, smiling if I know what's best for me, to a monster. 

Claudia sank to the floor and let out a short cry. It was not of despair—she lacked enough hope to allow for despair. Peevishness and discontent burned in her nerves and forced their way out in a vocal representation. She did not understand her feelings any more than she understood the chattering of the birds. Neither had a purpose. 

Julien ignored her outburst and began to play with his wooden soldiers.

Her mind veered away from fears over her spouse. Thinking was not a talent she'd ever been encouraged to develop, and her mind refused to linger in any one place no matter how fertile it was. Her thoughts moved instead to doubts about her own worth. 

I will make a good wife; she reassured herself. I am pretty, and I embroider very well. I will run a lovely household and bear healthy sons. The mantra did not cheer her. She did not believe it. There had to be more to life than that.