Isabelle
The mantle clock chimed eleven, and all the guests were invited out on the back lawn. Bronze braziers lined the walkway and lawn, the fires within them burned brightly. The entire lawn was lighted as if it was only near dusk.
“Never mistake absence with abandonment again, Dear Isabelle.” Thomas whispered in her ear as they walked together outside. “Time will pass, Lovers will come and go, but I want you for an Eternity. No other will suit me. If you deny me this, you deny me true happiness. I will be cursed all of my days to a life without any warmth or hope. Cast forever into a darkness, denied your light. Surely Dear Isabelle you must know, only you have looked upon me with such eyes of love. I search for you there, you stop me cold. I would give anything, say anything, do anything to be by your side. Not for a moment, for a lifetime.”
Isabelle turned to him.
He looked deep into her brown eyes, he could see light brown strands woven within the deep forest. Everything he ever needed lay within those woods, all the animals he could hunt for food to sustain. Shade from the harsh summer heat. Camouflage from the king’s sergeants. He blinked.
“What am I to say to this?” Isabelle questioned. “You say you will return, but I hear no word for months. I fear your death. How would I know?” She moved with Thomas to a secluded corner near the garden. “I grow old Thomas. I want to have children before I die.” Isabelle covered her face for a moment in shame of what she had said.
Thomas pulled her hand away, “You will have, I promise you.”
Isabelle stole a glace at Charles who stood close enough to be at her aide but far enough he could not hear. Her heart was torn at the prospect, Charles was a proper gentleman. He was the very definition of Gentleman.
Thomas squeezed her hand slightly to bring her back. He would loose her to Time, he could see it in her glances. The thought of losing her filled him with a emptiness he knew he would never fill. He pushed the thought forcefully out of his mind.
Isabelle looked into Thomas’s eyes.
The countdown began, then the stroke of midnight. Thousands of doves were released in the air. The symphony that had been hidden behind the garden wall began to play. Thomas grabbed Isabelle’s face and kissed her gently on the lips.
There were a few gasps, a few giggles, and few other words spoken at the sight of Thomas and Isabelle. The entire crowd had turned to see from whence the music came.
Isabelle gasped in shame and rushed back inside.
Charles slapped Thomas in the face with his glove, “You Sir are a disgrace even unto Scoundrels. I demand satisfaction.”
“Pistols at dawn then.” Thomas was unmoved. Charles was fodder already, he just hadn’t the sense yet to give up and die.
Charles was shaken slightly by the coolness of his opponent. “In the East Garden.” he concluded and walked away.
Thomas watched the man walk away. Heated emotion had not served him well, and now his doubt was even apparent in his walk. No, he would not be there at dawn to take this man’s life. They may brand him a coward. Whomever he was supposed to be.