It's cold before she even takes a first step out into the weather, shoveling long forgotten memories and difficult politics behind her. When she sees him, it doesn't surprise her. His suit is covered with a thin dusting of snow, and she realizes that this is the suit that he always seems to wear, even as he stoops low to help dust snow off statues and other ornaments that decorate the massive lawns on the way.
He looks tired, and Amelia wonders if the news has hit him, or if something else fluttered to life, killing with it, joy. She doesn't say anything as he continues those steady steps, half-worn heavy bounce, half-distracted pausing. Amelia remembers that he is poor when he stops not far from her house, and she realizes that that is why, he doesn't come bearing gifts, or wearing a new suit, all fitted just for him, or why he pauses to help even at the risk of his suit busting at the worn out seams.
"Hi," She breathes like a forgotten echo, and she hopes that her mother doesn't come out and see her talking to him again. Toris is like a forbidden person in her world, even when it feels like he shouldn't be called forbidden. No other man made her pause, and no other suitor felt so unlike a suitor to almost be considered a friend.
Amelia knows the ground that she walks on, and she knows without a doubt that today with the chill in her bones is still another day that she won't tell her mother that she kind of wants to be a spinster, even a writing one doesn't sound half bad. To be one is to forgot marriage customs, and gentleman that come to the door; some seem to truly be gentleman and others mere 'woodsman' that never worked a day in their life. They dress well, but feel almost barbaric to Amelia. It's why it's easier to pretend that she'll be allowed to be a spinster despite her family's decade old wealth.
"Good evening," And she feels like she's stepping into a play with the words that fell so easily from his lips. It feels refreshing to know that he'll catch her in the play of words that shatters, breaks, and bends around tradition.
"Good evening, Sir." She emphasizes one of her favorite words, just to watch the flicker of recognition hit many men's eyes, and even now, it doesn't feel like a sham to not see it in his.
"The weather is bone-chilled." He steps closer, and she smiles at the turn of phrase, just eager to rest one gloved hand against his arm, and step away for a moment before her mother finds her again and tells her that she's lucky she survived as no one else did. Amelia hates the talk of how hard it was for her parents to have her, hates to hear of miscarriages and the stillborn sister of hers, and she knows that perhaps ignoring it won't make it go away, but it will help to hide the ache that hits her bones every now and again at the thought.
"It is." Amelia finds that it's pure warmth to slip her arm around his, and to press just close enough to nearly press her side against his. It isn't really rebellion if she isn't running away or refusing to get married. She doesn't say much about it, even when her mother once accused her of being unmarriable. The insult feels like a sharp burn to her side, and she's glad for the breath of relief that being near Toris inspires in her.
"Would you like to walk with me?" It's perhaps terrible timing, when she'd already pressed close in order to do just that. To walk down long forgotten paths, drenched in heavy snow, and feeling like ice chilled over, with Toris is a special gift that Amelia often does not have words for.
"Certainly." Her smile is warm like the last vestiges of moonlight on a pre-dawn morning, and it's easy to fall into this rhythm that is only made new by Toris's presence as any other suitor would make the days and the seconds seem long. It was only long to be apart.
Words don't flow in the quiet of snowy paths, half-snow men that wear the hats, gloves, and coats of the little gentlemen that snuck out of their houses to leave lessons and find a common ground outside that will freeze without coats and get yelled at. Children had to be well behaved after all.
Amelia wonders if falling in love is a lot like rebellion or if it is as bittersweet as the last vestiges of Summer that melts away into easy Autumn and an even easier Winter that storms and swirls in a kind of cold that no one seems to enjoy. Sometimes it seems like the half an hour or so of getting dressed only works in the Winter, from fancy, tall boots to long dresses that almost devour them in their wake to the coat carefully buttoned and her hair mostly pinned far up that tickles her neck at night and during the early mornings before her handservant comes in, a little girl eager to please a family much wealthier than her.
"What is the news?" He asks, and she almost tells him of the politics, of the people that probably hurt and suffer in a different way, of the changing tides, and of just everything, but instead she answers what she thinks that he asked for.
"Mother wants me to marry Richard or Arthur or someone else. Mother wants to increase our family's wealth and have heirs to an impressive family." Amelia sighs, as her fingers twirl and twine around an arm that feels half-imaginary for a second more.
"You might be able to marry well one day." Toris doesn't say that she should, but he doesn't argue that he'd be the better choice. It both hurts her chest and warms it in a fashion that she's so unused to. No one had ever told her that the heart could be a confusing mess of a place, and that emotions swirled and fell at weird intervals.
"I might be able to." Amelia sighs, letting it drag in the cold air, "But what if that isn't all that there is to it?" It's simple enough of a question, but bold too. It's the way that Amelia likes to imagine herself when she isn't daydreaming about the kind of future that her mother wants for her. She hates that some days, it's more tempting than being a spinster. She's neither though, and she wonders if her mother has noticed yet.
"Some say there is." Toris's voice is soft, and she somehow likes how the hesitancy guards him and yet makes him feel more human, because somewhere underneath all of that, she's positive that he agrees with her.
"Some do." Amelia taps out the tune of an orchestra that she'd heard pretty recently with her parents on his arm, and she wonders if the Winter will abate for just a little while to give way to hope, to sunlight, and to Spring. She doesn't doubt that it will come one day, and that the nip of cold weather will stay off her powdered nose that despite herself, she never forgets to powder before heading out. She doesn't mind the little things, but she knows enough to mind the big.
Toris only hums in response, and she wonders if he'll know the notes that she plays on his arm, before she realizes that he couldn't. "Would it be daring to say that I love you?"
"It would." He answers, just like that. "We are not married or related, and you know that love is not this." He doesn't say that he doesn't love her, and she thrills quietly over that quiet admission. She hopes that she isn't reading too much into his words.
"Love can't be like this in Winter?" Amelia gazes up at the clouds that barely can contain snow anymore. It seems to be so easy and light to fall as flakes down on the people that crowd city streets, that wander the paths so easily, when they are in town.
"Cold keeps it away, unless you're married." Toris smiles, and the crinkle in his green eyes warms her up with the taste and chill of Spring, as Winter melts away in an instant for green fields.
"I don't think cold keeps us away." She nearly laughs, nearly lets something go into the air that feels more like a secret joy. How could cold separate them as it would anyone else? Most suitors don't come in the Winter, as if imagining that with flowers, a maiden's heart is more warmed.
"It probably wouldn't." Toris pauses, and Amelia wonders if he really is a quiet kind of revolutionary. He loves her, or so she's pretty sure. She trusts that he'd be the best kind of husband to have, gentle in all the little ways that mattered, hard working, determined, even though she knows that he is broke, and that her parents will deny her even that right.
"Is Spring close?" And, she wishes that it was a make believe language of theirs, that this was code, and that he'd hear the longing ache in her voice and understand. He is not a mind reader, even when Amelia wishes it.
"Still distant enough." Something in his slowing steps, startles her heartbeat into a crawl, and Amelia doesn't doubt that the chill has swallowed them up for another moment.
"It is." Amelia watches snow appear as if melting as it touches the ground and dimly wonders if her mother will notice the wet to her dress and the cold-tipped boots that she now wears: obvious signs that she wandered outside, against her mother's wishes. She'd be called a home for the foolish surely, when she gets back and her mother spies the signs of Winter on her nearly grown daughter, old enough to be married now anyway.
Toris stays close, and Amelia treasures the distant smell of something not quite Winter in his hair, and the gentle brush of wished for heartbeats against her arm. Amelia wonders if there is a price to pay for Winter, for warmth, and for falling in love with someone that is too broke to become your husband.
It would be easier to be a spinster, except she'd still wander with Toris to some nameless place and imagine that all of nature sings along to their tempo, to two falling hearts.