A Powerful Little Love

Chapter 50

"It is in vain to say that human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.  Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot.  Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth.  Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too ridged a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they out to confine themselves to makein puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.  It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."

Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre

So that was what it felt like to be loved, and loved in return. Amorette had never shied away from her own feelings, having been so undoubtedly sure of them from an early age but perhaps she had hidden herself away because of them. That part of her life was over now though. She scurried out onto the Paris streets again, relieved that it was still early morning and only a few people meandered here and there. Nevertheless, Amorette pulled the brim of Athos' hat down to further cover her reddened face. Surely everyone would take one glance at her attempt at inconspicuousness and laugh in her face. How could they not know how she had spent the previous night when here she was barely after sunrise; scuttling back home in last night's dress with a man's hat upon her head?

If all of that were not a clue, then her sheer happiness should be enough to tell anyone that her mind was still a few streets back, in bed with a musketeer. The reality was that Amorette didn't really care who knew, but it was the matter of her friends bombarding her with questions that she wanted to avoid. To her, it was still important that what she had with Athos remained solely theirs for a little while longer. They had not danced around each other for all of those years for nothing after all.

It was as the height of the buildings gradually began to diminish and Amorette reached the banks of the Seine that she took in the wonderful sight of the rising sun. It was such a rare occurrence that late in the year to be able to witness the wonder of a red sunrise that Amorette stopped to look out at the horizon. It was as if she herself and her own emotions were controlling the weather. The pelting disturbance of rain from the evening before was long gone to be replaced by the tranquil simplicity of the rising sun in the East. It might have been cold, but Amorette's cheeks were so inflamed that she barely noticed it.

Regretfully she had to turn and make the river crossing to return to her own rooms, but her mind was not upon where to place her feet. The change of weather also marked the change in Amorette. Long gone were the futile and petulant worries she had let invade her mind the day before. They had never meant anything at all, but perhaps for Amorette they had been a way to fill the void and the time. Now though, the man she had been in love with since she was five years old loved her in return; even if he had not directly said the words. Strangely, Amorette didn't think that she wanted him to. Having known Athos for so long, she understood that he was not the type of man to flippantly throw out such a statement carelessly even if the time did feel right. He was the strong and silent type, needing little to no assurance at all that Amorette loved him. He wouldn't tell Amorette that he loved her just because it might be something that she needed to hear. No, he would tell her only when he himself needed to hear it.