A Powerful Little Love

Chapter 33

Another year gone.  Amorette shuddered when she thought of just where her life could have taken her if she had let it, but on the day of her twenty-sixth birthday she was really no further along than she had been ten years ago.  Granted, she had made new friends and lost old ones and was now a young widow.  In essence though she had returned full circle to the lost and rather unsure mind-set that she had suffered at fifteen.  One year ago she had still been at logger-heads with Athos and she had yet to meet the man who would become her husband for a short time.  When Amorette really considered it, the time she had spent in Paris over the last year had rushed by so quickly.  Three weeks of recovery and Claude's incessant chatter and caretaking had Amorette almost driven to distraction.  How was it that three months almost felt like three years?

Amorette had felt well enough to be up and about a few days after her falling ill but there was a part of her that feared the questions and stares of other people.  Thus, she stayed within the safety of her own rooms most of the time and only occasionally took short walks in the gardens or visited Claude's rooms to see her new baby.  Claude had rather enjoyed playing mother to Amorette and had spent most of her time making sure that Amorette ate and slept properly.  Amorette was sincerely glad though that Claude had seen fit to leave her alone the night before her birthday.  She woke alone in her rooms and lay for a long while enjoying the silence.  At length Tilda came along and opened the curtains and windows so that the sounds of courtiers frolicking upon the lawns drifted up through the windows.  Amorette bathed and dressed as she normally did and then curled up on a couch in the parlour. 

Buckingham visited her shortly before lunch to deliver his gift to her.  Amorette's old friend hugged her warmly as she thought a brother might and then held her at arm's length to inspect her appearance.  If he was upset that she had shut him out for the last three weeks, he didn't show it.  Vaguely she wondered if others would be able to hide their annoyance just as well.  Many times over the course of the first week of her being ill, Athos had knocked upon her door.  Tilda would peer around Amorette's bedroom door meekly, fully expecting a shake of the head from Amorette as the only answer.  After the first week or so he seemed to take the hint and stopped coming.  Amorette couldn't think of anything worse than Athos seeing her in the state she had gotten herself into, and anyone else for that matter.  Only her maid Tilda, Claude and Constance were able to come to her freely. 

Buckingham had been good enough not to press the matter when Tilda had turned him away the one and only time. He didn't come again until Amorette wrote him a note that she was well and would see him if he wished to call upon her.  So there he sat opposite her with a large box on the table between them.  Amorette knew what would be underneath the lid of the trunk and so she did not immediately rush towards it.  Instead she let her friend tell her of his travels since she had last seen him.  Buckingham was only too happy to fill the silence as he always did, and seemed to sense that more than anything Amorette needed him of all people to keep to a sense of normality whilst with her.  He barely asked her a single question about herself and Amorette was immensely glad for it.  She didn't feel that she would ever be ready to answer certain questions about the last month or two of her life and if she ever were, she wouldn't be answering them to Buckingham.  Her friend was always so mischievous and decidedly pleased about one thing or another that Amorette did not recall a time when they had really touched upon matters of their hearts in an in-depth manner; so to have him behave as he normally did around her was comforting.  She wanted everyone to behave as if nothing had changed, but she couldn't help it if they didn't.

At length Buckingham had Amorette open the lid of the trunk and Amorette let out an appreciative gasp.  She had expected Buckingham's gift of another dress to be of a rather garish colour and flamboyant in design and shape but the silk that flowed through her hands was something entirely different.  A coloured dress would have had to stay locked in the trunk for a great deal of time because Amorette was still in mourning, but the one before her now she could wear very day if she so wished.  It was like nothing that Buckingham had ever picked for her before.  Black silk skirts were overlain with a grey taffeta that almost created a shimmering effect, and the heavy black velvet mantle draped very nicely on top.  The bodice was of plain black velvet also, but the neckline was encrusted with tiny pearls in a swirling pattern that carried on into the tops of the sleeves.  It was perfect.  Amorette felt a tear roll silently down her cheek as she felt Buckingham move across the room and hug her from behind.  He didn't need to say anything.  The simple gift of the dress and the gentle embrace that he held as Amorette admired the dress was more than enough to convey her old friend's feelings.