Somehow they had done it. Somehow they had snuck unnoticed from the house, a house so full of eyes and ears that it had seemed a complete impossibility in the hours leading up to their escape. Escape. It seemed such a harsh way to consider it – like she was running from some wrongdoing or cruelty, neither of which she had suffered. Stifling boredom – yes, limitations on what she could achieve – yes, expectations of her sex – of course, but never any true harm. In truth, though, escape was exactly how it felt. She was running to him, running into a changing time and their very act was a representation of that change.
And now she lay beside him, very much his wife. He slept soundly with his face turned to her, his chest bare and face soft, lashes brushing his cheeks. She traced a line of honey coloured freckles with her fingertips, they dappled the pale skin across his shoulders – a secret unknown to her until now. Only weeks ago she would have blushed, thinking of the evening they had just shared, in the bedroom of a hotel in the middle of God only knows where. But now, it seemed perfect, the most natural way they could have been with one another, marking the beginning of the life they were about to embark upon together.
As she joined him in sleep, for a brief moment she worried about her family – finding the note – that they would find them and ruin this moment, what they would do to them, what they would do to him. Somehow though it didn't seem important – her worries could wait until the morning. For now her father still innocently believed him to be nothing more to the family than the chauffeur. It was unbeknownst to any of them he was a now a member of the family – their son, their brother, her husband.