Hey folks! First, big hugs from Tavy and chocolate for the wonderful peeps who reviewed this!!
And, yeah, from prompting of reviewers and friends, I decided to make this "vignette" into a very short story. Maybe 5 or 6 chapters. The next chapter is more than twice as long as this one, I promise! Hope you enjoy!
--sancti--
South Carolina, 1779--2 years earlier
Ansley watched her fiancé passively from the opposite side of the ballroom. With one eyebrow arched annoyingly, the twenty-something woman observed the man who would be her husband.
My husband. She thought frostily. Won't that be positively…dull. Ansley could just imagine them on their wedding night. She'd be completely attentive and ready and he'd be balancing numbers in his head concerning the cost of her maternity clothes. Ansley had to smile at her own joke and she hid it successfully behind her glass of champagne as she took a delicate sip.
"Misses Hookar!" Ansley cringed at the mistake of the old woman who slowly closed the space between them, her cane clacking against the floor and her many skirts rustling loudly.
Ansley smiled politely. "Not yet, my Lady Moore. It's still Miss Parrish, I'm afraid."
The elder lady narrowed her eyes, crinkling the edges of them and causing her entire face to squeeze together. Ansley prayed she never lived long enough to look that old.
"I could have sworn I attended some wedding not long ago," She mumbled, her English accent crisp, "The bride wore an awful dress, made her look like a damned peacock!" She spat, striking her cane at the floor.
Ansley smirked and a small laugh tumbled out of her mouth. The woman was amusing, despite her nauseating perfume that was quickly putting out Ansley's appetite. "My Lady, I can assure you, my wedding dress will never resemble an exotic bird."
Lady Moore grunted in response. "Let's hope so," she turned to leave, but halted, eyeing Ansley with a cloudy blue eye, "Exactly when is the date, Miss Parrish?"
Ansley pursed her lips, then curved them into a tight smile. "We haven't set one yet, my Lady."
Young Miss Parrish excused herself, retreating to another quiet pocket of the ballroom. Most of the guests were on the dance floor, flitting about like something from a fairy tale. The gentlemen, some of them officers of his Majesty, were dressed handsomely, their uniforms crisp and professional. But all of the gentlemen held an air that said, "We are Englishmen, and you are not to forget it."
The women were like dolls that the men guided along the smooth ballroom floor. Their faces were powdered white, their wigs exquisite. Every lady had a false blush along her cheekbones and smooth, lush, red lips. The dresses were grandiose and festooned with jewels and silks that swished about and glittered in the candlelight. Ansley looked at them numbly. She'd been brought up just as they had, properly and luxuriously. And like many of them, she was forced into the same, unfortunate situations that graced the lives of rich little English women.
Feeling a snit darkening the already stormy cloud hovering above her head, Ansley drained the rest of the sweet, alcoholic nectar. A wine waiter seemed to be immediately at her side with a tray of a dozen full glasses of champagne.
"Another glass, madam?" He offered, his voice nasal and hollow as he eyed her with inert hazel eyes.
Ansley was about to decline, when her gaze strayed across the room to her fiancé. Their eyes locked and the smallest of an acknowledging smile graced his plain features before he turned them to a very young woman next to him with an impossibly large bosom. Ansley bit her lip until she thought it might bleed. When the waiter understood that she would not need his services, he walked past her, but Ansley gently stopped him by putting a hand to his arm. She gave him her empty glass and took a full one from the tray.
"You only live once." She murmured, taking a long swig from the glass, exhausting half of it.
Ansley then turned away from the scene of her future husband fawning over the little adolescent with his charms. She didn't bother excusing herself as she rudely made her way through the little crowds, receiving a gasp from some old woman and a, "Upon my word!" from an elderly gentleman. Finally, Ansley had broken away from the stifling swarm of powdered faces and champagne and slipped through a door. She had no clue where she was going, only that she was happy to be away from her revolting fiancé and that charade of a party.
The hallway she found herself in wasn't lit, and she relied on the bright moonlight that poured through the massive windows that lined the corridor on one side. The cold light reflected off several paintings which hung everywhere on the tall walls. With the aid of moonlight, Ansley could see the portraits clearly. They displayed the ancestors of the hosts of that night's festivity. Ansley stopped before a very large painting, a portrait taller than her, of a young man in uniform. By the style of his clothes, it looked to be early 17th century. Ansley liked it. She admired his strong jaw and the determined gaze in his striking green eyes, a detail the artist captured very well.
"Extraordinary, isn't it?"
The intelligent, smooth voice startled her and Ansley whipped around to face a man half covered in shadow. He leaned against the wall a few feet down, the moonlight revealing only half of his body. But it was enough to realize the man was an officer, a colonel, as Ansley could recognize insignia. From what she could tell, he was anywhere in his thirties. He had raven black hair that was tied tightly into a queue, as was custom. His left eye, dark and intense, stared at her with an unknown desire. Ansley wasn't sure if she should be scared. She kept her wits about her though and acted unafraid.
"You nearly startled me, Colonel." Ansley replied, nonchalantly smoothing over a spot on the front of her dress. Her other hand grasped the champagne glass tightly, ready to throw it at the man if he decided to get fresh.
"I apologize," He said with actual sincerity. He then turned his gape away from her and to the painting.
"You'd never know it was a fake, would you?" The man said matter-of-factly.
Ansley's brow creased. "A fake? Colonel, the Hirems are renowned art collectors--"
"With a false portrait in their possession. Obviously a copy--a despicable one at that. How did they ever think they'd convince guests it was the real thing?"
Ansley shrugged her slender, nearly bare shoulders. "Well, that doesn't make it a bad painting, per se. Only a bad copy."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he stood straight, walking towards her until he reached the painting. The colonel leaned against the wall again, beside the painting, as Ansley stood on the other side of the massive portrait. She could see him better now. He was tall, certainly over six feet. And definitely a delight to the eye. He carried a strong constitution and great confidence. Something Ansley's fiancé lacked considerably. In fact, it was almost embarrassing how sickly her fiancé could get and his weakness, oh, she could never imagine him riding forth into battle, as much as she wanted him to at times. But the man before her was the perfect example of what a real man was supposed to be. And she liked it.
"My dear! There you are!"
Ansley didn't even realize she'd been staring at the colonel. She shook herself out of her recent thoughts and risked a glance at the man as her fiancé came stalking down the hall towards them. The colonel was also staring at her, amusement in his gaze. She looked away when her fiancé reached them. He didn't seem particularly concerned, but annoyed at her brief disappearance.
"Why on earth are you in here, did you get lost trying to find the powder room?" Ansley felt like spitting at his homely face in response to the question. His query made her sound like an idiot once again.
"Of course not, Wesley. It's simply such a beautiful house, I decided to explore."
He didn't seem to notice the colonel standing a few feet behind them. Either he knew he was there and ignoring him, or the man was really that oblivious. Ansley saw her fiancé roll his eyes, the moonlight glinting off them.
"Good God, woman! What was the Almighty thinking when he created you?!" Wesley spat.
Ansley was nearly eye-level with the man and she could never be intimidated by him. She let him know that the insult did not sting by staring hard at him.
"Darling," Ansley said sarcastically, "meet Colonel, um,--"
"Tavington." The colonel spoke for the first time since Wesley entered the hall. His voice was different somehow. Icy and unwelcoming. Wesley narrowed his eyes at he looked away from Ansley to the colonel, who had his hand out waiting for it to be shaken.
Wesley gave this "Tavington" as once-over before tentatively shaking the man's hand. "Colonel." Wesley said, snatching his hand away and turning to Ansley.
"Come, Angelica, we must leave at once. We have an early morning." He restlessly put out his elbow for Ansley to slip her arm through.
Sighing, Ansley complied, curtseying slightly to Tavington. "A pleasure meeting you, Colonel."
The officer nodded his head. "And you, madam."
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I have the next chapter complete and will upload it next week. But, should I continue or dump it?
