Unchaining Alice

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Alice stared at Emilia, quite shocked that she spoke so candidly about such matters. She had no qualms with asking difficult questions. Alice honestly didn’t know how she felt about James. He confused her. He made her second guess herself.

“I … I can’t. No, he hasn’t,” she stammered nervously. James had not cast any spell on her. She still had her own mind. To be bewitched meant to be out of one’s own control. Alice would never give up her free will. But she could not deny the fact that she felt something toward him. He was like none other that she’d ever met and she didn’t know what that meant. 

“Your lips say ‘no’ but your face says ‘yes’, my dear,” Emilia said knowingly. “I know how frightening it is to feel your heart floating into the hands of someone else. It makes you feel anxious to know that you have to fully trust someone else with it. You don’t have any control. But if you take that leap of faith, if you trust only once in your life, the rewards are everlasting.” She spoke sincerely, letting Alice know that it was true.

If it was true that James was ‘smitten’ with her, then how was it fair for her to allow him to trust her when she was not being honest? Some time or another he would surely learn her secret and then he would feel betrayed and hate her. The thought of him hating her made her feel really uneasy.   

“Where I was raised, Comtesse, we did not fall in love with aristocrats,” Alice said timidly, looking down to her folded hands in her lap.

She felt Emilia’s finger on her chin as she raised her head up to look at her. “I know I’m not your mother, but I am a mother. Do you want to tell me about where you were raised?”

Alice wanted more than anything to divulge her story to someone but she knew she couldn’t. If they knew who she was and what she had been involved with then they would surely made sure she was sent home to face the consequences. She couldn’t get away with being a part of that. But there was something about Emilia that made Alice want to trust her. “I ‘ave lost many things in my life, Comtesse, if it is true what you say and I allowed myself to fall in love with your son then I don’t think I could survive losing that trust.”

Emilia furrowed her brows. “James would not betray you, darling, he would never ruin a chance that you give him.”

“It is not he that I worry about,” Alice replied. Her mind flashed back to the barricade as she saw her fifteen year old self fire the pistol that had been thrust into her hand. It was as if it wasn’t even her that was firing, it was an out of body experience. The bullet ripped through the arm of a French soldier and he had cried out in pain. To know she had hurt someone had frightened her so much, so much so that she had dropped the pistol and hid for the rest of the battle. She was a coward. “I am not an innocent little fille. If you knew me then you would not be so eager for your son to like me. You don’t know me.”

Emilia’s facial expression did not waver. “Perhaps,” she nodded. “Have you ever been married?” she asked brazenly.

“No?” Alice answered as if she were asking a question.