May's warmth was a sweet and tender kiss compared to the passionate flaring heat wave that was April. Flower buds that sat happily on trees were slowly blooming under the warm sunlight. The breeze that flowed through the air was cooling yet at the same time the warmth from the sun seemed to create the perfect equilibrium for beautiful weather that day.
Esmeralda watched the sunlight bounce off Enjolras' golden-curls, casting a warm halo around his crown. Would she be reprimanded harshly by the rest of the boys for making an angel pun? It seemed fitting at the moment. Enjolras' sun-kissed golden skin from April's generous warm weather sealed the deal, creating the perfect golden combination of his angelic ensemble. If Phoebus or Apollo was too great of a nickname for him then maybe Icarus was a fitting name. The thought however seemed to set a frown into Esmeralda's expression though, because if she recalled correctly Icarus' untimely death was since he tried to soar too high, too close to the sun, forgetting the limitations of his wax wings, which then lead to his plummet to the sea. She secretly hoped that Enjolras would have the ability to fly as high as he wanted without ever falling. She decided to stick with Apollo for now. Though Enjolras' romantic escapades were literally non-existent compared to the sun god he was aptly named after, he was still a true envision of the god himself.
It had been a solid month since they had that heart-wrenching talk about marriage; about Esmeralda's self-proclaimed duty to keep her father's mind at ease, even if it meant sacrificing her freedom. Their companionship only seemed to escalate from there, Esmeralda was more than just an odd woman that shared the same ideals as them now, she was part of them now. She was an academic peer as well as a friend they could confide to, she made forward-thinking ideas and contributed in each of the meetings with her wit and her estranged mind. It was extremely helpful to have a woman's perspective on the matter, Enjolras hadn't realized how many holes there were in his plan when it came to a woman's sense of rights and without Esmeralda there probably would've still been there.
Esmeralda's toes curled into the warm grass she sat on, the cherry blossom tree at her back providing shade over her and the rest of the Les Amis boys as their noses were buried in their studies. Her shoes were abandoned just outside of the small circle they all formed, almost as if they were waiting to get stolen. She had taken a break from her book that rest in her lap for a second, to watch and admire the boys in front of her. They all worked so incredibly hard on their studies and still seemed to make time to plan a whole rebellion, and the fact that all of them were still in their twenties never ceased to astonish her. They were definitely a group of brilliant young men.
Her eyes fell to the fallen cherry blossom branch next to her, and carefully picked off the bloomed flowers from each stem, before dropping the heap of flowers onto Enjolras' golden head. Courfeyrac, who's eyes had caught the action, snorted into his book, the noise causing other members to look up from the paper in front of them. Enjolras, who had obviously caught the retreat of her hands in the peripheral of his vision, merely gave her a glare before returning to his essay, making no real move to remove the flowers that adorned his head of curls for now. The glare he had given her held no real mirth to it, it didn't hold a candle to the glare he saved for the women that would unceremoniously approach him, despite the presence of Esmeralda or not. Esmeralda would hope that she would never ben on the receiving end of one of those glares to the day she passes into the afterlife.
Seemingly more taken with the flowers on the ground than her book, she carefully tucked each stem of the flower in the braid of her hair, creating a mosaic of wildflowers and cherry blossoms in her long braid.
"Must not be a very good book if you'd rather play with your hair then, Esmeralda."
The comment broke Esmeralda out of her flower trance, causing her to look up at Grantaire, who quietly sipped from his flask as he watched her.
"Actually, the books quite good, I'm simply taking a break." Her hands left her hair, and went down to resume the page she had bookmarked.
"What's the book about then?" Grantaire asked curiously.
The sudden conversation between the pair of the studying group had seemingly broken the concentrations of others from their studies, Combeferre had his glasses perched on the edge of his nose as he looked between the chatting pair.
"It's a tale of love and values in a class-conscious England." Enjolras' head slightly perked up as Esmeralda described her book to Grantaire. "It's by a female author, actually, and it's one of the reason's why I was quite drawn to it. The story is about a stubborn young woman, who really has an opinion about quite a lot including why she would not marry simply because of it is expected of her, despite being taught throughout her whole life by her mother that her one purpose in this world was to marry-"
"Sounds a lot like someone we know." Grantaire chuckled heartily.
"Yes- well, that's one of the reason why I'm enjoying it so, Elizabeth's a character that I relate very much to." Esmeralda explained.
More of the boys had their heads up and were listening to her curiously as she described the events of the book. It was only Enjolras, who's head was although down, but listening carefully next to her.
"Anyways, she meet's Mr. Darcy, who's a snobbish and too proud of a man for her liking and firmly believes in superior birth and she swears to loathe him till death-"
"Sounds like an arsehole."
"Oh, he was!" agreed Esmeralda, heartily. "But it was the fact that with the help of Elizabeth's harsh criticism of his person, he understands the reality of how his behaviour is perceived by others and has an enormous re-evaluation of his character. He becomes kinder, more gentlemanly after realizing how much of an arse he's been thanks to Elizabeth. Not everyone is born kind, nor are they born evil. It's not men like Mr Darcy who we need to get rid of, but in fact the men who can't learn from their mistakes and their actions. It's one of the reasons why Mr Darcy is such a brilliant character, he learns and through that Elizabeth accepts him as a man and as a husband."
Enjolras was now watching Esmeralda openly, along with all the other boys. How she managed to get so passionate about a book in a mere matter of seconds was incredible to him. Esmeralda had such a large heart, letting her be passionate over multitudes of ideas and different things.
It was a thing he envied.
He had grown to love her character, how her eyes would light up with passion and happiness when anything she was fond of was discussed. She was very much like Courfeyrac in a sense, her free-spirited nature rivalled the local Casanova's in a way that was slightly different. She didn't let other's judgement, change her mind or the decisions she'd make. She was her own person. She didn't pretend to be a rose hidden among wildflowers, she knew of her affect on people, especially men, and she 'strategically' used it to her advantage as she had once put it.
As much as Enjolras tried to ignore the fondness in his heart for Esmeralda, it was always there, lingering in the back of his mind, only making the odd appearance now and then despite his best efforts to hide it, like just then his mouth had tugged into a smile at Esmeralda's beautiful long rant about her book.
The rest of the boys were heartily amused by Esmeralda's soaring passion for her book, some of them letting an odd giggle escape their lips.
Although she was well sheltered beneath the cherry blossom tree, the few rays of sunlight that had managed to seep through the canopy were reflected gloriously off her shiny black hair.
The atmosphere was warm and cheerful, but soon something caught her eye that only made her lips turn down harshly. In the corner of her peripheral she saw her Papa, standing about twenty feet away, like he normally would, but only this time was he joined by two other men; one young, approximately the same age as the boys around her and a rather elderly man, who's top hat and expensive looking clothing suggested his extreme wealth and high class.
Her Papa had a polite smile on his face, but was adamantly shaking his head, as if he was telling them no but they kept on persisting. Finally, the elderly man handed her Papa a card, most likely contact information, and with a forced but polite smile the pair bid her father a goodbye. Esmeralda watched the pair walk out of sight, before glancing back at her Papa, who exhaled deeply before pocketing the piece of card he had received. Her Papa's eyes finally made contact with hers, and noticing her concerned and troubled expression he gave a kind smile and a nod, as if to say, "It's taken care of".
Ah, another marriage offer.
It seemed Combeferre had noticed Esmeralda's troubled expression and glanced back and forth between her and her father.
"Esmeralda is there something that's troubling you?" He asked concernedly.
Esmerelda responded with a smile that didn't seem to reach her eyes and gave a small assuring nod in Combeferre's direction.
"There's nothing to worry about Combeferre, it seems my Papa has given yet another rejection."
"Quite the ladies man, is he?" Courfeyrac joked merrily.
Esmeralda cleared her throat harshly before responding, "Actually he was rejecting on my behalf, it seems that it was another marriage proposal."
Esmeralda found herself flustered at the sudden deafening silence that laid like blanket around the group, with most of the boys staring at her, while Enjolras merely read his textbook.
"Do you… get those often?" Marius' voice was the first to break through tense air, as his hesitant and shy voice carried its way towards her.
"Now that I'm coming to my 18th year, they're becoming a lot more common." She sighed dejectedly. "It's not something I can help though, unfortunately."
"Well, we all know how fond you are of marriage." Courfeyrac's playful tone was comforting as they discussed the abhorred subject, making Esmeralda smile just slightly.
"Yes, I suppose you do." She chuckled softly. "But soon I'm going to reach a point where I can't run from it anymore, and I'll have to consider my options seriously."
Esmeralda acted like the mood setter of the group, if she was happy they were happy, but if she was troubled or sad, so were the rest of them.
"Just marry one of these chumps, Esmeralda." Grantaire said, taking another swig from his flask before laughing heartily. "I'm sure none of them would object."
Esmeralda opened her mouth, but then soon promptly closed it, like she was hesitating on what she was going to say next.
"Well… if you must know, I have pondered about it."
It was at that moment Esmeralda's words seemed to capture all the boys' attention, snapping their heads up from their studies to her, even Enjolras' pen had stilled on his paper as his eyes curiously gazed over at Esmeralda, who was bashfully chuckling under her hand.
"Really, now?" Courfeyrac was obviously pleased, his interest practically gleaming in his eyes.
"Yes, well you boys are probably the only men I get along with, let's not forget the only people I get along with." Esmeralda tucked a stray tuff of hair behind her ear. "I'd like to hope that when I do indeed marry, it'd be someone whose company I enjoyed, someone who wouldn't restrain me from being- well me."
The conversation was getting all too familiar for Enjolras' liking. His grip on his metal pen seemed to whiten has he was reminded of the extremely unpleasant talk they had had about a month ago about Esmeralda's marriage endeavours. He remembered vividly, the glistening moistness of her eyes as she talked about the duties she'd have to carry out before her father's untimely passing. It sickened him that such a trivial thing such as marriage had the ability to almost reduce one of the most strong-willed people he knew to tears.
As the rest of the boys joked merrily about who Esmeralda would choose out of all of them, she felt her gaze subconsciously drift to the man sat next to her. Enjolras' eyes were trained on the essay in his lap, however his pen wasn't moving. It was simply gripped in his hand as he pondered over his next words to scribble down. His sharp features like his cutting jawline and his high cheeks bones were accentuated in the light of the sun, making him look like a beautifully sculpted marble statue. Although many always compared Enjolras to a marble statue, saying that although his looks were parallel to an angel's, his heart was as cold and solid as marble. It was a statement that Esmeralda only agreed with partly. It was indeed true that his looks rivalled a beautifully sculpted marble statue, however his heart was very much human and very much made of flesh. His heart was his true attribute, he held so much passion within that heart of his, so much passion for his country, for his friends, for the revolution. Only a blind and deaf man would say Enjolras had no heart. Although the sole reason Esmeralda kept Enjolras' company the most wasn't the fact that he was extremely pleasing to look at, it certainly didn't hurt.
Esmeralda realised in that moment that although she was hauntingly similar to dear Elizabeth Bennet, Enjolras posed as a striking double for Mr Darcy. Like Mr Darcy, Enjolras was too handsome for his own good, and had flocks of women coming their way from all sorts of direction, however in order to send those girls scrambling back to their guardians all they needed was one look. Their personalities made others look upon them with disdain and contempt: "If only he was more amiable" they whispered, and their ideas on life and the social construct in general (although the two had very different opinions on the matter) made the majority grimace in horror. Both were stubborn as mules, Esmeralda comically thought, letting a tiny snort escape from herself. However in Mr Darcy's case we knew the happy ending, where in Enjolras' case we did not. Mr Darcy changed himself for the better for Elizabeth, her words making him realise that his outlook on life was simply to ancient for her to ever consider him as a husband, but for Esmeralda she wouldn't have Enjolras any different. He was perfection in it's finest form. All she could do was help him improve on becoming more of that.
She was openly looking at Enjolras, whether he knew it or not, he hadn't objected so far. Esmeralda tilted her head back and forth, trying to catch different angles of the sunlight bouncing off the Enjolras' golden head of curls. She supposed it wouldn't be bad to be married to Enjolras, no, it wouldn't be bad at all. However, she felt a smirk tug at the edge of her lips as she was reminded of how Enjolras would always brutally reject any woman that would come his way, but then again, she was a woman and here she was, sharing his company like no other woman has before. She had done the impossible, and had managed to get Enjolras to tolerate and some may even say enjoy her company.
What's to say that she wouldn't be able to take it the next step further?
Yes, she supposed it wouldn't be so bad being married to Enjolras at all.
She might as well let herself fall for the man along the way.