A/N: Edited June 2018. Because the former form of this fic was...not something I was proud of.
People say I'm quiet and serene—the picture of a model noble woman. I never give myself over to anything inappropriate. I never raise my voice. I'm always dutiful to family.
But is that me, really? I find it hard to believe. It feels like a mask—now more than ever, after I was courted by two men and wavered between them. I never told my family about it—it never crossed my mind that I could. The mere thought of Father learning about it makes my heart race. I chose the man I was always supposed to. My heart and my duty were in alignment, so no one ever need know the rest.
I wonder if anyone knows that beneath my calm facade, I watch and I feel. I watched my fiancé flirt with one girl after another, and I thought it might kill me. I hardly understood what marriage meant before I knew that he would never see me as more than an ornament: a wife by law only, no love or affection beyond friendship. It was too late for me, though. I'd already fallen for him—perhaps that childish romanticism in me was holding out hope that one day he'd change, and love me back.
I was fifteen when I overheard some of the middle-aged noblewomen speaking in hushed voices about their husbands, and realized—in all likelihood, nothing would change. If he didn't love me now, he never would. But at least we were friends. Friendship could be good enough, I thought. It's more than most couples have, I told myself.
I never imagined that I'd attract the affection of someone who might actually love me the way I'd accepted Leonardo never would. I never imagined that someone could love me enough to ignore the differences in our social standing and court me. He showered me with genuine affection, and I knew that I could never be satisfied to be an ornament keeping house for Leonardo.
Who could have known that Antonio was the nudge Leonardo needed to see me—to fall truly in love with me?
Turning Antonio down—breaking the heart of the first man who ever cared for me was hard. But I could never have chosen any other way. I'd loved Leonardo all my life. As long as he couldn't love me back...well. But if he did, what other choice could I possibly make?
Nadja once told me to choose the man I loved, rather than the man who loved me, and so I imagined this must be the case for all women choosing between two men. She only has to choose the one she loves—she could only ever love one, right? The conflict emerges when she must choose between the man she loves, or a man who loves her. What other conflict could there be?
I was wrong.
I didn't find out until a few years after I'd grown acquainted with Nadja. She came to visit me often with Troupe Dandelion, and we spoke freely, the way I couldn't do with anyone else but Leonardo.
When she gave me her advice, she had been swaying between two men, just as I had been. She chose Francis Harcourt, and I imagined this was Nadja following her own advice, choosing her true love just as I'd chosen mine. As the years passed and Leonardo and I married, the love between us only grew. Nadja never spoke of Francis, and I hesitated to ask. But years passed, and she volunteered no information about her love life, so at last I nudged her when she was spending the afternoon helping me decorate the nursery for the child in my belly.
"So…Nadja, how have things been with Master Francis?"
The vase that she had been holding slipped from her hands and shattered on the floor. She hastily apologized, over and over again, and I told her that it didn't matter, over and over again. As I called in a maid to clean up the pieces, Nadja remarked, "But honestly, Julietta, do you really want anything breakable in the nursery?"
"It's just for decoration," I laughed. "The baby won't be able to do any damage for a long time yet."
"I imagine it'll be even longer before the baby can appreciate decor," Nadja replied, a teasing glint in her eye.
As I laughed, I forgot the initial question altogether.
That night, the wind raged at the windows, making them rattle. The sound kept me from sleep, and I thought back on my conversation with Nadja in an attempt to distract myself from the sound. And I remembered to her reaction to my question.
Were things going badly with Francis? No. There had been no pain there—just a sort of discomfort, like on the day that she had first told me that she was wavering between two men.
Eventually, my mind drowned out the unyielding rattling of the windows, and I dozed off.
I asked her again the next day. I made sure to wait until there was nothing valuable in her hands—I hadn't forgotten the vase—and then asked. I needn't have worried. This time, she gave me a sheepish, lopsided smile, and told me a story.
Before I heard her story, I thought that my love story was as dramatic as love could get.
Two men who looked exactly alike. She had fallen in love with not one or the other, but someone that was a combination of the two. And in the meantime, she had come to carry a great dislike for one under a masked identity, as well (although, I must admit, I can't imagine what kind of mask could hide the identity of one's true love—I can pick out Leonardo in a crowd from behind, from a distance, or in a mask).
All this was to say nothing of the rest of the drama that had surrounded Nadja at the time, as she turned out to be the heir to one of the most powerful families in Austria—there had been an imposter, and a conspiracy and everything.
How uneventful my romantic drama must have seemed to her, even when she was only thirteen.
But now, looking down from my balcony as she laughs and talks with two identical young men in the garden, I think that maybe it doesn't matter. For all that my decision was easier than hers, what sense does it make to draw such a comparison? Her love for both the men is palpable, even from afar.
Yet I do believe that one day she will choose the man clad in black. There is a spark that ignites in both their eyes when they meet that she and the white-clad man do not share.
I turn away from the balcony, leaving them to their privacy. I really must stop thinking about these things—it's none of my business, and I have no desire to turn into one of those judgmental gossips. Nadja has grown into a strong, wise young woman, and whatever choice she makes, I will support her.
I touch my stomach and smile to myself. I have a new love of my life to prepare for. I find myself humming as I head back to the nursery.
There's so much I never knew. Who knew that my friends could lead such dramatic lives, or that I could find such joy and peace in an empty room? I'd always thought of the love I felt for Leonardo as the strongest, truest thing I would ever feel. Who could have known that this babe in my belly would inspire a love as strong and as true in entirely new ways?
I smile a secret smile.