Astoria

e p i l o g u e

Antony pretended to look insulted. She laughed, hitting his shoulder playfully.

"No offense, Antony," she said, "but your younger self did not quite cut the handsome figure that you do now."

He laughed, and she pushed on. "I always loved watching the people dance...watching the ladies in their dresses and the men in their suits...I just liked to watch it from above. I...never did dance in the grand ballroom at the Borgavian Palace. I regret it a bit now...But anyways...I always watched my father and mother dance. They always seemed so in love to me...I always wished that, when I grew up, I would have a love like that..." She smiled, looking at their intertwined hands. "And now...I do."

He squeezed her hand gently.

"Now you tell me something about growing up in Astoria," she said, after a moment.

He seemed to be thinking about which story to tell her, but she suddenly remembered something. "Antony," she said. "Isabella and I were playing two truths and a lie once...that time when I rode Emery without your permission? And she mentioned something about you taking her diary and hiding it in the woods. Tell me about that."

Antony looked thoughtful for a moment, before laughing. "I remember that," he said. "It seems so long ago now...Isabella seemed to be constantly frustrated about the fact that I read books and spent more time in the library than I did exploring the grounds with her. One day, the book I was reading at the time disappeared. I, of course, blamed Isabella, even though she insisted that she had not taken it. I spent the day thinking of a way to get back at her. Then...I hit upon a dastardly way of getting revenge. There was one book that Isabella cared for: her diary. So that night, when she was sleeping, I stole into her room and took the diary. I then left the palace, saddled my horse, and took off into the night. I spent the night trying to find the perfect hiding place out in the woods somewhere.

He chuckled. "Imagine Isabella's anger when she awakened and her diary was missing. She knew I had hidden it, because I could not find it in myself to stop smiling smugly at her from across the breakfast table. She went off to find it and spent the entire day scouring the woods before I revealed that I had never found the perfect hiding place for the diary in the woods...so I had brought it back and put it in its normal drawer...while Isabella was out riding like mad through the trees!"

They both laughed.

"Antony!" said Meredith. "When she told me that you had stolen her journal and hidden it, I didn't believe her! My incorrect guess is what resulted in my wild ride on your horse!"

He laughed, and she smiled, settling against him once more. She was about to speak when the driver brought the carriage to a halt. He opened the small window between the driver's seat and the passenger area of the coach.

"We've arrived, Sire," he said.

***

"Good," said Antony, nodding.

He opened the door and exited the coach, offering his hand to Meredith. Down the bricked drive, he could see the other two carriages pulling up and the footman opening the doors to assist Samantha, Prissy, and Jade down to the ground. One brought Nash's chair and lifted the little boy into it.

Meredith took Antony's hand, allowing him to help her step down from the carriage.

***

She turned around and gasped, her mouth falling open in what her mother, in the days of parties and dresses, would have pronounced as extremely unladylike.

"It's...It's..." She found herself unable to speak as tears began to fall from her eyes. "Antony..." she whispered, finally. "My...my home..."

Antony simply smiled, and took her hand, escorting her forward up the driveway and into the courtyard.