Meeting in the Moonlight

I (Part 1)

Emmeline didn't want to be here tonight. She had already had a tiring week as it was without attending a social gathering. That being said, it was made slightly better by the fact that it was Katrina's mother who was hosting the ball, Lady Theresa: a slightly too eccentric woman for her modest tastes, but she liked her, nonetheless. Emmeline had been to Katrina's house many times over the years; their mothers had been friends and so they had practically known each other their entire lives. She knew her way around their home quite well. She knew all the little private hiding spots, knew where to stand in a room to better eavesdrop – not that she would, of course, ladies do not eavesdrop, or so she led her mother to believe – she knew where to sit in the library to not be seen as she escaped from the tedium of society with one of the many books.

That was where she wished she was now – or anywhere else in the house for that matter. But, as it was, she was stood in the centre of the ballroom surrounded by the sound of chatter, laughter, and the clinking of glasses, all of which were almost completely drowning out the sound of the music making dancing almost impossible.

She wished it was impossible, but Emmeline had learnt from a very young age that magic and wishes and all the things of fantasy were not real. No guardian angel, no magical realm hidden in the bushes, no faeries, no fairy godmother (the closest thing she had has Heide, her maid, a lovely woman of 4 and thirty who had been with her since she was five years of age) and definitely no prince charming to save her from whatever danger she was foolish enough to get herself into. And she had most wholeheartedly concluded, by the age of seventeen, that love was just as made-up as dragons and wizards. How else would you explain her current situation? For surely, if there was such a power in the universe as love, why was she stood here in her twenty-seventh year, dubbed a wallflower, with never so much as a love note let alone a love letter, all the while facing the prospect of dancing with the man she had been told to marry.

Ordered was probably more accurate.

For a woman who knew love did not exist, she was not opposed to marriage as a concept; she understood the advantages, the idea of spending the rest of your life with someone you trust and have faith in and at the very least the ability to have interesting conversations, even if love was never considered a factor. She also understood the more common reason for marriage amongst those she shared social status: business. She understood and saw the logic behind high society marriages being business transactions and deals between the families – whether that be for general wealth, the inheritance of properties, the doweries, or the exchanging of aristocratic titles.

However, none of that would be the case for her marriage – except, of course, for money.

The man, her betrothed (a very thought which made her shiver and want to flinch away in revulsion), was Sir Winston Baldry, a man older than she. While not opposed to the idea of being married to an older man, she had decided that a man almost three times her age was too old. Yes, he was wealthy. Yes, he was willing to look past her family's financial problems. No, he did not seem like a bad man. No, neither did he smell foul, nor did he look like an ogre (the only magical race Emmeline had concluded had existed at one point in time as Lord Brown was definitely a direct descendant). Yes, they were in the same social class. Yes, this marriage – from a completely logical and non-biased viewpoint – made sense.

That did not mean he was right for her.

He hardly spoke, seemed permanently displeased, and in many ways, he reminded her of Ebenezer Scrooge, but the truth was she hardly knew him – not that she wanted to. Not that she needed to either – her parents, for example, hardly shared words but their marriage was functional. It may not have been love, but it was a good deal for both parties.