Winter of 1870
For a moment, Anne thinks she can see the girl in the red dress bring her wedding gown to life. In the time it took for one to blink, she sees brown hair cascading down in soft curls, and a pair of iridescent eyes stare at her before, once again, the gown is nothing but dusty old silk.
"I remember the day I made this. It was a winter in January, seventeen years ago. It's very old-fashioned, but it's still here. I was told to alter it and have the waist let out, but word came that it wouldn't have the chance to be used any longer. It felt wrong to try and sell it to another bride."
Anne and Raymond share a look of equal surprise before Anne breaks the silence.
"Do you think Papa would want to have it back?"
It is a stupid question, but, nonetheless, one with no answer.
Raymond gives her a look filled with conflicting emotions, his mind obviously rattled. He then turns to the shopkeeper and says, "No. Keep it here."
Anne's eyebrows shoot up.
"Why?" Besides the fact that it would dig up old memories, it was still Raymond's mother's wedding dress.
"Miss Julia, keep it here until Anne can wear it."
"If you insist, milord. But... would you at least like to fit it? It seems a few sizes too big for her. And it needs alterations. It's twenty years out of date."
"No. No alterations. Anne, can you fit it?"
Lowering her gaze, she nods shakily. Something felt off about it all. "I'll try." In truth, she does not want to wear a dead woman's wedding dress. It makes her feel as if she were a thief.
George drinks.
It is not whiskey, or wine. The bottle in his hands is filled with laudanum, its sickeningly sweet taste slithering its way down his throat. It is not enjoyable. Honestly, it is disgusting, but what can he do? Its effects had long been lost on him, but it still dulls the pain. Both from his grief and the new wounds that mar his chest.
His eyes meet those of the man in the mirror's, and he bares his teeth at him, eyes flashing. He contemplates smashing the looking glass with his bottle, but thinks better of it.
Grumbling, he stalks over to the mirror, slamming down the old photographs of Raymond and Anne. He needs a break. He can't drown in self-pity while staring at the smiling faces of the two children who are now his only will to live. Pitiful. What would she think about him now?
Again, he takes another deep swig. The thick, cloying liquid burns his throat, stronger than treacle. His memories of her are forcefully burned away, leaving behind an empty whisper he does not deign to hear. Hers is a voice he has shut out for seventeen years, and he does not plan on listening to it anytime soon.
For a second, as he turns back to mirror, he sees her. Wide, iridescent eyes. Accusing him with their innocence. Your fault.
"I know," he snarls. "I know."
This time, with his bare hands, he really does smash the goddamned mirror.
Anne looks and feels like a fraud as she steps out of the fitting chamber, a corseted bodice the only thing keeping the too-large dress from slipping off her nearly emaciated frame. She watches as Raymond's eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. When she looks at the mirror, she realizes why.
Though the dress is two decades out of fashion, it is still one of the finest dresses she has ever worn and, considering her taste for finery, that means something. Its colour contrasts sharply with her midnight hair, and makes her milky skin look even paler, though that is not much of a good thing. Each diamond and pearl catches the light, and she feels as though she is slightly more fetching than she had been in her sickbed, feverish and bleeding out.
Even as she stands there, looking like a snowy mountain because of the tonnes of silk that clothe her, Raymond looks dumbstruck and speechless, as if he's seen a goddess.
"This isn't going to fit me," she squeaks out, holding up the fabric. Still, it does not shake him out of his trance. She feels as if calling him a drooling numbskull would be appropriate, but for some reason, she can't bring herself to do it. Not in his dead mother's wedding dress.
"Well, the front could be remedied by a sash or a false bodice," suggests the dressmaker, picking up Anne's bony wrist as she examines the sleeves that are much too short for her arms. Too wide and too short. "You and the late duchess' frames are vastly different. New lace cuffs could help with those."
"I think I need to wear a crinoline under this. I don't fancy that."
"I think you look breathtaking," Raymond blurts out, seemingly having regained the ability to speak. "Yes, it's much too big, but it's nothing a few well-placed binds on the dress can't fix."
"Why did we have to show him?" groans Miss Julia. "It's unlucky for a man to see his bride before their wedding day. It's such an awful spoiler."
"I don't think I can wear this. It's much too short and loose in all the wrong places. Besides, I think Papa wouldn't appreciate it. I mean, he's been trying to erase her memory for the past seventeen years. I wasn't even born yet. And now? He still hasn't forgotten her. This would just be a sad reminder."
Though Raymond shakes his head, he says, "I guess I agree. That dress was made for a woman five inches shorter than you, and about twice as shapely as you are," he pauses to stifle a chuckle at her glare. "And that waist makes you look strange. Still," his voice dips into a melancholy tone. "I wonder what she would have liked to do with it."
"She was buried in a different wedding dress, wasn't she? I think she would have liked Papa to keep this one. Not as a reminder, but... Well, no. As a reminder, actually. A little something to keep him going."
Anne does a small sign of the cross, offering a small prayer to the girl she would have called Mama. Strange to think that she died when she had been around Anne's age. For a heartbeat, she lets herself think of what could have been. What would it have been like if she had someone warmer and more caring than Margaret is. If Raymond grew up with someone to kiss his wounds and dry his tears other than Anne herself. Then she remembers that if the woman had lived, she and Raymond would never have become friends.
His mother should have survived.
"Let's get you out of that dress. I'll clean it up then you both can bring it home," says Miss Julia.
Raymond sighs. "Thank you. If Anne can't wear it, then I suppose bringing it back is for the best." He catches sight of her apologetic stare and smiles at her reassuringly. "Hopefully, our wedding will be soon, and I trust no one more than you to make her bridal gown. We were thinking a pale pink, not white."
"And flowers," Anne interrupts, sounding like her demanding old self. "Lots of flowers made of lace and those lovely ribbon things that are all over the ladies' section of the newspaper. White Alençon lace on a blush-coloured gown, oh, I adore it already!" There were times when she lost herself as fairytale wedding fantasies overcame her. Raymond shakes his head.
"With all those details planned out, I suppose I should be ordering the materials already. If you trust me to fashion her wedding gown, Earl Marshal, then I trust you to make her the happiest bride there ever was."
"I can most certainly try."
Anne meets his warm gaze as Miss Julia ushers her back into the fitting chamber. He smiles at her, and she bites back the urge to blush as she smiles back.
Because she keeps thinking of that smile, that agonizingly caring smile, she hardly notices the faint crinkling noise as she prepares to slide the dress off, but she does.
"Miss Julia, hold on. I think there's... paper? I think there's paper under the dress."
"It is probably just one of the thicker petticoats," the woman says, but stops and objects no further as Anne rummages through the gown's many layers. How a bride would walk in that, she hadn't the slightest clue.
Not one minute later, her hand finds something.
Nothing more than a water-damaged piece of paper. Once, it could have meant something, but it was unreadable now. There were only deep, shaky imprints of something that must have been written on a piece of paper above it, or something that had been scribbled on it then erased.
She hands it to Miss Julia to give to Raymond later, just to see what he would think.
"Oh, it must have been stuck here all these years. After cleaning it over and over... I'm sorry."
"Better water-damaged doodles than this dress covered in dust and cobwebs. It's perfectly alright, Miss Julia."
After Anne shrugs off the heap of silk and lace, she allows herself a cursory glance at the piece of paper. Nothing out of the ordinary. Black ink that water turned violet staining a yellowed sheet of parchment.
When she once again stands before Raymond, his eyes still quite glazed over in awe, she hands the piece of paper to him, unsure what to make of it.
"Y-you found it in the dress?" he asks, words stumbling all over each other. It is a relief to see him as he was since the drowning incident; a blushing, stuttering boy barely older than Anne herself. At the same time, she feels a girlish wonder at how she was able to elicit such a reaction from him.
"I did. Are you deaf? Stop staring! If anyone finds out you've seen me in my undergarments, then you'll hang," she quips, knocking him on the head. Things were finally starting to feel normal.
"No, I'm not staring. I'm just- I'm still... I'm still caught up in wedding fantasies." he whispers against her ear, grabbing her arm to pull her closer. Had he been anyone else, she would have given him a bruise, but instead, her face turns red at his suggestive tone.
"Quiet, you lewd arse. We're not the only people here." she hisses, though he ignores her and plants a kiss where her neck and shoulder meets. Right at the edge of her bandages. The sensation makes her shiver in delight.
"Anne, it's been a year since we last tried anything. After all, I've seen you in less than your undergarments, when we get home-"
"If you finish that sentence, I'll hang you from Ravensworth's tallest spire. I'll leave your arse bare for everyone to see, you stupid, stupid rake."
Anne hears a matronly chuckle, making her jump away from Raymond. Having finished folding up the wedding dress, Miss Julia stands across them, a sparkle of a good memory shining behind her tired eyes.
"I'd hate for anyone to get on your bad side, milady. I think those threats are things you'd mean to keep."
Despite the embarrassment, Anne glares at Raymond, who is unsure what to say. Again, he looks dumbstruck until she nudges him sharply with her elbow.
"Apologies, Miss Julia, but Raymond doesn't act too civilized in public. I swear, I had better buy him a leash. One with diamonds on it so he can feel at least a little better about himself."
"Get me one with my name on it written in gold letters."
She wonders why his school and polite society still hasn't thrown him out. Why she hasn't thrown him out. Miss Julia is outright laughing at them.
"He's usually not like this, I promise. I never thought that well-trained dogs wouldn't be behaved in public," she shoots him another pointed glare.
After the last of the old woman's raucous laughter fades, she shakes her head at the both of them.
"Oh, how I miss being young. Milady Anne, dear, the boy is only trying to make you smile."
"It's true!" exclaims Raymond. "I've tried everything, and I've come to the conclusion that you're not sad, you're just a killjoy!" He waves his arms about like a madman, and though she tries to stop it, the laughter spills out of her like a waterfall. Even when they were children, Raymond acted silly just to get her to laugh. In light of recent events, she thought that he wouldn't want to ever again, but... this was still the same boy.
"Ray, I love you, you big oaf, but don't do strange things in public. You can wear my stockings on your head later if you wish, but not in a dress shop with windows by which everyone can see us."
Forcing himself back into a semblance of composure, Raymond offers her his arm. To anyone else, he would look like the perfect gentleman, but Anne can see the mischievous glimmer in his eyes. She feels his hand on her barely-clothed rear and screams, stepping hard on his foot. He yelps, and there are more laughs from the shopkeeper.
After dressing, Anne is still flushed red.
"I suppose I should send you both back home. Milady, you still need to rest, from what I can see. You can select your winter dresses from the catalogue, but you'll have to go right home and tuck yourself under some nice toasty blankets afterward. I'll have them sent to you as soon as I've finished."
"Why, I'd love to! You get the best catalogues before anyone else. On the counter? Oh, Ray? Would you help me pick them out?"
She frowns when she notices that he did not follow her to the counter. Instead, his brows are knitted together in concentration. She sees the paper in his hands.
"Miss Julia, do you happen to have any pencils?" he queries before she can ask him what the matter is.
"Of course. Here you go, milord." She hands him a small graphite pencil from her front pocket, and he strides over to Anne's place beside the counter and begins to shade the paper.
His fingers dance over it ever so lightly, revealing the outlines of letters on the piece of paper.
"It's a torn page," he notes, eyes raking in every detail. "I wondered what it would show, but, unfortunately, we have no way of knowing anymore, but, I know how to see what was written on the page before it."
Indeed, the entire shaded page shows writings like those in the journal Anne had stumbled upon. What looked like a child's messy, looping cursive covering everything; from the lines to the margins. It must have been torn out of the journal at some point, but if the duchess never had the chance to wear the dress, how did it get there?
"Anne, remember the journal you were holding the night I met you?"
Slowly, she nods. "I-I... stumbled across it again the other day, why?" She knows that the answer is something to be dreaded.
"I need it. The letters are much too faint to read right now, but if I can find the actual one, then I can read that."
"Is something the matter?" Miss Julia asks, confused by all their hurried whispers and befuddled expressions.
"Nothing, ma'am. But Anne and I need to catch the next carriage home. Thank you for everything."
Miss Julia bows.
Anne takes the box with her coat, and then the much larger one containing the wedding dress.
"I'm afraid selecting my winter gowns will have to be postponed. But, oh, just get me the prettiest ones. All in shades of blue. Or burgundy. I like feeling the Christmas spirit." Though she tries not to show it, Anne knows that something heavy bleeds into her tone.
As she and Raymond walk out the door, the conviction in her heart only strengthens. She did not find that journal by accident.
And she already knows that they are at the centre of something big.
A/N: Yes, okay! Not nearly as uneventful as the previous chapter, I hope XD And that bit with George >.> My poor Georgie porgie, you weren't supposed to turn out this way *hugs* (actually, he was //slapped). Two updates in two days! And this was nearly 3k words, I'm so happy cx