No. Cherubs would weep with envy…just as Fleur was on the cusp of doing.
“No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes
Or give sigh for sigh!”
Suddenly, the quiet was disrupted. The quick click of a boot heel announced someone’s approach, interrupting Fleur’s watchfulness from her shadowed corner.
Fleur glanced over as Lord Cassian approached.
He bowed. “Lady Fleur.”
“Lord Cassian,” she uttered softly. After giving a small curtsy, she went back to watching. Rather, torturing herself.
“Hesitant to enter, my lady?”
“I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one.
To pine on the stem;”
“What is it precisely that exposed me?”
A smile flashed across the gentleman’s handsome countenance. Henry’s friend settled in to join her. He folded his arms and joined her in taking in Lady Angela’s stellar performance.
“Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them…”
While Fleur shrank inside the shadows, Henry’s man-of-affairs boldly held the entryway. She turned her attention back to the performance.
“Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed”
Only for a moment.
“This is reassuring,” he spoke quietly.
“Lord Cassian?” she said in a low voice.
Lady Angela’s voice drowned out her and Lord Cassian’s conversation.
“I’m not the only one late to Hartwell’s intimate gathering.”
“No.” She smiled. “But only one of us will face Society’s scorn.”
Just as only Fleur would be crucified for begetting a child out of wedlock. Since the age of Eve, women have borne the sole blame for every sin. Such was the world’s unjust way.
“Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead…”
The gentleman kept his gaze on the current performance. “Society is unfair and unforgiving when it comes to women and the standards they are held to,” he said, and Fleur heard the truth from which he spoke.
“So soon may I follow,