Final chapter to Heart Over Ambition. It has truly been a pleasure writing for you all, and I do so appreciate very much the wonderful, too kind reviews with which you showered and spoiled me with. I honestly did not think I would get this much. Thank you a thousand times over to those who always, with unfailing support, came back. I've also decided to follow Maddycat2000's suggestion of naming my chapters.
"And allegiance to the Order...is that the only fealty you require of me?"
"Yes. That is all."
"Young man, will you please sit still? The ceremony is about to begin, ye gods!"
A pudgy-looking man, stuffed in impressive coat and tails, barks at me impatiently through the polished glass of his spectacles.
"Please sir," I begin timidly, uncertain, "Where exactly are we?"
There are wrinkles above his puckered brow as he takes in my perplexed look.
"Where are we?" He gapes at me intently, as though only seeing me for the first time. "Only the most anticipated wedding since the Duchess of Louster's!" He explains in a manner so airy, I almost take him for a verbose, forty-year-old spinster. "The Middleton-Doyle's!"
"You don't say?" I rasp, feeling as though I should nearly faint from the shock.
Voices I was not aware of—some positively cooing over flower arrangements, a few commenting on the wonderful English weather, others positively moved, and weeping at the quartet's unearthly rendition of a love ballad—magnify ten fold. I feel that my ears should soon erupt from the madness, and I turn away, but not before witnessing the intense haze of colours that plummet before my eyes like a splendent shower.
Silver glints at every table; a delicate shade of purple at each pillar. Green spurts from the manicured lawns, winding itself about the reception's gorgeous wedding arch in an interlaced web of vines, answering the sky's soft whisper of robin's egg blue like a tickle.
A young couple dominates the spectacle, their arms lovingly locked together. It takes only but a minute for my eyes to take in Gemma…a Gemma I decidedly do not know.
Her unruly tangles of warm red hair are swept back, artfully, on either side by a chignon of blue delphiniums and lavender freesias. A necklace of amethyst glints against the pale hollow of her neck, small, asian pearls adorning her ears. She is dressed in an expensive white satin, trimmed with a fair bit of lace. A veil of fleece falls over her lovely green eyes, which are both sparkling, and crying profusely with excitement.
Beside her, is none other than Simon Middleton, his abominable quiff of brown, foppy hair, expertly curled and pomaded. He is clad in tails a handsome shade of mauve.
The two appear to have eyes only for eachother.
A minister speaks softly between the two of them, and it is all I can do to sit in my seat, the sudden need to kick something hard strong against the skin of my throat.
"Kartik!"
I look up in surprise at the frightened voice.
"Kartik!"
It becomes louder, more alarmed, and I haven't the slightest idea of how to respond.
The voice seems to come at me in all directions—
"Kartik!"
Fingers come fast and stinging against the right side of my face.
I am up like a shot, eyes wide with a great alarm as I seek my cricket bat frantically in the near darkness and hold it aloft like a sabre.
It is Gemma, positively taken aback at my sudden display of belligerence. I lower the cricket bat to the ground, tucking it quickly beneath the dark of my cloak with an exasperated sigh.
"What is it, Miss Doyle?"
Gemma's eyes narrow to slits at my weary address, and she chances a brief glance over her stiffening shoulder, turning back to me with a most strained expression on her face.
"What are you doing here?" She asks coldly through positively gnashed teeth, and I reply with a forced smile, "I sleep here."
Gemma appears as though she might like to strike me again, but it is only her words that are vehement.
"You might wish to find yourself another cot then, Mr. Kartik," She mutters, thoroughly discomposed, "I just returned from the vespers, and it is only the fog that's concealing you from the eyes of the girls! You are far too close to the path to chance sleep! And I thought you were…"
"Thought I was what?" I prompt Gemma after an awkward, minute-long silence, and she flushes.
"I thought you were dead."
And I thought you had married Simon Middleton. What interesting, if not amusing scenarios.
"Well then, I am very sorry to have frightened you," I say, suddenly glad for her concern. "You'd best go, your friends have surely missed you by now."
Gemma rises with me, and before I can turn to perhaps give her a 'See you soon,' She hands me something heavy. Emily's parting gift: A tidy, ornate copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
"You forgot this," And as if just noticing the item, Gemma pulls it to her eyes, her face distorting curiously at the embossed title.
"Romeo and Juliet?" She sputters at me in genuine surprise, "I did not take you for a fan of romances."
A furious blush reaches the pale of my cheeks before I've the power to stop it.
"Oh…I am not. It is a gift from Emily…she suggested that if I were to visit London again, that she would read it to me…she also thought it would make a refreshing change from the 'The Odyssey'," My feet make small, uneven circles in the ground.
Gemma does not meet my uneasy eyes when she replies.
"I cannot say I do not agree with her. Good day, Kartik."
"Gemma—"
Gemma's eyes flash in warning, but I feel myself daring this evening, and do not care.
"Why do you not marry Simon Middleton?"
"You are much too forward," Gemma is waspish. It is rather obvious that she's been ask this a great many times, and to hear it from me, now and here, is beyond unforgivable.
"You've been evading the question for nearly a week," I press stubbornly,
"I don't recall you being party to my thoughts." She snaps, almost in disbelief at the cold ire that courses through her voice. I lower my gaze to the ground.
"I apologize. I merely wondered."
To my immense surprise, Gemma obliges me.
"There are things certain people in certain positions must learn to deny themselves."
I cannot help but want to think that it is me she is addressing—the one that she must try to deny herself of. The act of doing so repulses me.
"Do you think dear, well-sheltered Simon Middleton will take me if he knew who I was?"
Simon's name comes like a slap to my face.
It is not because of me that she turned down the perfectly romantic, lovely, gentlemanly Simon Middleton.
It was shameless to hope, and I want to kick myself for it.
"Everyone has things they cannot have," I state simply, and the truth nearly splits my heart with all its force.
Gemma seems to agree with me in silence, and we stand there, the cool dampening the little resolve in our spirits.
"I'd best go," Gemma says to me when it has begun to be unbearably cold, and I give her a quick nod, smiling a little as she makes her way hurriedly down the church path—only to be swallowed whole by the interminable grey of the fog.
Once I've a moment to gather my belongings, I begin quickly treading past the many scatterings of trees, the little light given by the moon caught easily by the interlaced branches that hang, swaying against the beat of the wind, above me.
It is soon nightfall, and I grope desperately for the sweet support of a nearby tree. I settle comfortably against its great gnarled roots, my tall, dark frame sagging in relief.
Dead husks of leaves swirl in quaint circles about my feet, seeming to tempt me into a lively dance. A gust carries them away from me, to an undecided future I know nothing about. The rush of the air stings my eyes.
There are things certain people in certain positions must learn to deny myself.
Gemma's words gather to form an endless loop within me, and I break.
The path that lies before me is so unclear, so uncertain…that the delicious comfort of all things unquestionable, and true binds me completely to this earth. And what I feel for Gemma is unquestionable…true.
But our case is an impossible one.
She will marry someone like Simon Middleton, who will provide her a most gratifying life of happiness and stability, and I shall be left, existing only to wonder all that could have been.
The feelings that stopped me from pursuing my place in the Rakshanna, are feelings that will never be returned. Only teased, and tantalized.
A shadow of our kiss on Christmas day still lingers like an etching over my chest...
And I know it will be like the grief of a wound I will have to bear all my life.