Ordained

Chapter Seventy-Eight

When Emmeline awoke it was with breathless excitement. Any day now Cassius would be returning. His last letter had announced that it would take a few weeks for all of the troops to be mobilised and sent home, but the main thing was that he was finally coming home.

He had said two to three weeks. So between fourteen and twenty-one days. Emmeline had crossed each day off in her mind since the letter had arrived. When, after what felt like an entirety, the fourteenth day finally came, she had found herself rising with the sun. Anticipation had her stomach muscles tense with excitement that today might be the day she would finally see him appear on the horizon. Clementine had found great delight in Emmeline's vague request to look 'better than normal', decking in her best dresses, jewels with elaborate hairstyles and makeup to match. She quickly vetoed the rather extravagant makeup Clementine suggested, but had instead allowed her loyal maid to indulge her fantasies when it came to her hair.

"So do you believe that today will be the day Mistress?" Clementine asked whilst braiding. It was obvious that she enjoyed Emmeline's reaction whenever she asked this, the maid seeming to share her mistress's excitement that she and Cassius were soon to be reunited. When Emmeline had questioned her on this she had simply gushed. "It's just all so romantic. You and the young Mas- I mean his Grace." That had all the answer she had been given and honestly, Emmeline didn't mind. It felt nice to have someone routing for her.

After well over a week, Carmen had emerged from her chambers looking thinner but with her signature mask of disdain firmly back in place. Whatever kindness Emmeline had earned had evaporated, or rather Carmen just seemed intent to ignore that a moment of almost kinship between them had ever existed. Her food hadn't been taken away but the snarky comments had returned. She had been blindsided when she had walked into the library one morning to find Carmen holding court inside. A gaggle of similar-aged women all clad in respectful black, were sat with her, a full tea party happening as Emmeline wandered in. While an unusual venue for tea, Emmeline hadn't thought much about it other than lamenting the loss of a day's reading to distract her.

When Carmen was there the following day, Emmeline began to realise that this was just a new punishment for her. It was no secret that she enjoyed many hours inside the library, and positioning herself inside Carmen had taken that privilege away from her. She hadn't outright banned her as she had done before, but the cruel comments she threw at her the moment Emmeline stepped inside was a compelling deterrent. Emmeline tried to rationalise it as grief, or perhaps a coping mechanism, but whatever the reason Carmen was on the war path once again and Emmeline was determined to avoid the Marcellus matriarch as much as humanly possible. Fortunately Mr Olivers and Mr Graham, the Marcellus' stewards, had been all too happy to fetch books for her when she had asked, negating her need to enter the library at all.

With a crown of braids framing her features, Emmeline played with the curls that hung loose as she sat on the steps of the entrance hall. The hall contained large expensive portraits of the Marcellus family dating back generations. One bored afternoon she had followed the train of paintings as it snaked through the house till she found the very first Lord Marcellus in a distant corridor. The hallway as empty and lifeless and the eyes of those framed upon the walls. Drifting back towards the gardens, as she always did when in this mood, she headed into the entrance hall. With her favourite shawl around her shoulders, she sat down on the bottom step tracing Cassius' portrait with her eyes. If it weren't for his likeness hung in the entrance hall she would've forgotten the exact details of his face, having had so little time to really get to know him before he left. He was younger in his painting, his features more boyish than she recalled.

In the days leading up to his arrival she often sat herself down on the grand staircase so that she could study his face in this way.

He had admitted he had forgotten what her smile looked like. What else had he forgotten about her? She should've sent him a miniature of her likeness, she cursed, realising too late. Anxiety bubbled inside her as Clementine helped her dress for yet another day of waiting. What if he didn't like her when he got back, what if she wasn't as pretty as he remembered?