Hello, Happy Sunday.
And thank you for the follow I am up to 10 followers again :)
One month later
"We were really lucky with the late summer weather, were we not Wendy?" Miss Abigail said.
Wendy smiled tiredly behind her teacup. "Yes, well, it is rather wrong, but I would have preferred hunting."
"Oh whatever for, my dear?" The Duchess asked and delicately put down her teacup. "There is no need for us to hunt and we can have a nice chat in the nice weather while the men have their fun."
"I suppose." Wendy smiled as she mirrored the duchess's actions. Her eyes glanced over the lush trees on the edge of the Briar estate's gardens. "But there is something freeing about riding in the forest, surrounded by the creatures."
Abigail giggled behind the hand. "I do believe you should write novels, Wendy. You make it all sound so amazing."
"Yes. I for one would not know what to do with myself if I were to step one foot out into those trees." Miss Elena said.
"Well, back then I was not dressed in this kind of attire." Wendy smiled and gestured to her elaborate dress and hair. "But there is a sense of freedom and calm that comes over you when you wander through the forest."
The women at the table chuckled at her.
"It seems like even though the young Branigan has found himself a fairy bride, he has yet to tame her completely." Melissa Parks chuckled and lifted her teacup.
In the beginning, Wendy did not understand why Melissa seemed so aggressive towards her, but then the Baroness informed her that Melissa had been in marriage talks with Eric, some years ago.
"My my, Abigail, who is that young man?" Miss Elena said and nodded towards the pathway into the garden.
Wendy looked in the direction and saw a young man around her own age, walking up the path towards the manor.
He was wearing fine clothes with frills on his shirt, but they still didn't look like that of a nobleman and his long black hair was tied back in a ponytail.
His skin was tanned, not as dark as Olympia's was, but it still made him look foreign. He absent-mindedly played with pencils in his hands, as he wandered past them. When he noticed them, he smiled and bowed to them and then moved along on his path.
Abigail giggled behind her hand again. "That is Elias. He is staying with us for the moment. He is a painter that Mother hired. Apparently, he's very good. He recently discovered some ruins on the edge of the forest and has been painting them as well."
"He looks rather foreign, does he not?" Melissa Parks commented.
"Oh he is." Abigail nodded excitedly. "His family is painters. They originated from Italian and he has traveled to many different countries and never stays in the same place for long."
The other women nodded, impressed, while Wendy furrowed her brows. "There are ruins in the forest?"
"Not fairy circle, I can assure you. One of my ancestors had a small terrace built in the forest, but it has long since been abandoned." Abigail reassured her.
"Never mind that Abigail, how do you know so much about the painter?" Elena smiled and the others chuckled.
Abigail managed to look both shy and proud at the same time. "He talks to Mother and me sometimes as he draws our portraits. I … have also followed him out to the ruins once or twice…"
The other women giggled, and Wendy understood why, but she was confused. Abigail was engaged.
"So tell us what happened next." Melissa insisted.
Abigail blushed. "He was the perfect gentleman."
Disappointed, most of the women rolled their eyes and drank from their cups.
"What a shame…" Elena said disappointed.
"Remember young ladies, Though they are nice to look at, it is best to keep your hands to yourselves when the creatives are involved." The Duchess said and Wendy looked at her in surprise. The older woman saw her look and smiled. "Oh, do not look at me like that, my dear. Everyone gets tempted every once in a while, especially by such a good-looking young man."
She looked longingly towards the path the painter had walked on.
"Madeline, do not lead the young woman astray. She already has an intended." An older woman from another table piped up.
"Well, she is not officially engaged yet," Melissa said and made eyes at Wendy.
Wendy tried not to look down on the ring shining on her finger. Because the proposal wasn't blessed by the Baron and Baroness at the time, it did count to Melissa ... and others.
"Neither am I," Elena said and waved as the painter came back down the path.
He politely greeted her with a gesture and bowed to the tables, then he continued walking.
"What a gentleman." A woman from another table sighed. "Handsome, foreign, and gentlemanly. I can imagine a lot of the young ladies' friends will ask to get portraits painted at themselves."
After tea, some of the women started playing cards and other games, but Wendy felt a bit stiff, so she decided to take a walk in the garden.
She managed to tell a servant without anyone overhearing so she could take her walk alone.
She had learned to enjoy the other women's company, but the quiet walks were sometimes still the best.
The garden was beautiful with manicured lawns and colorful flowers. The path ran so close to the forest that she could reach out her hand and touch a tree.
The urge to extend her walk into the forest came over her. The only problem was that if she did not return to the garden party in time, they would all assume something happened to her, and when they couldn't find her in the garden, panic and alarm would ensue.
Wendy looked up at the tip of her hat, that shaded her eyes. It was deep green and macthed her dress and shoes, on the front of it formed a tip like an arrow.
If she took that off and put it on the hedge in the direction of the forest, people would surely understand that she'd taken a stroll.
As she pulled out some of the pins that kept her hat on her head, She accidentally pulled some of the other hairpins out and a few curls sprang loose.
Wendy tried to comb them back into place, as she put the hat down on a nearby hedge in the direction she wanted to go.
She breathed in the forest air. It was the first summer in her life, she had barely spent time in the forest. Usually, every day had been riding through the forest hunting for dinner and playing with the fairies, but now every day was filled with lessons and parties and talks. She could count the number of times she had ridden a horse on one hand since coming here.
As the birds chirped, she found the ruined terrace that Abigail had spoken of. She could not see the painter, but she didn't pay that any mine.
There was a small structure with benches and a table made of stone on the small terrace and a bird bath.
Wendy stepped up the stairs and explored. The stones seemed to have darkened, and many of them had cracks, both the structure and the birdbath were covered in vines - but it was oddly beautiful.
On the opposite side of the terrace, there was a small pond.
Wendy carefully lifted her skirt as she stepped down the stairs on the other side. The terrace must have been built to enjoy the pond and the little meadow.
Wendy caught her reflection in the pond. A few leaves had already fallen from the trees, even though it was still late August. Another one landed in the pond and drew small rings in the water.
Wendy smiled and remembered the old game she used to play with her brothers and Eva.
She daringly pulled up her skirts to just below her knee, so her shoes were free and stretched her foot out over the surface of the water.
Lightly she tapped the water and big rings echoed over the surface.
She laughed at herself and did it again, while a few more colorful leaves fell around her.
"Mesmerizing."
Wendy looked up at the sound of the voice and saw the painter standing by a tree along the edge of the little clearing she was standing in.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I did not mean to startle you."
He spoke in a rather odd way, like the words were just flowing from his lips, and he needed to be careful not to let too many escape his lips at once. And he looked at her like he was not entirely sure she was there.
He pushed off the tree trunk and slowly moved towards it like he was coaxing a horse. "I find this place rather magical…"
Wendy pulled her foot back from the water and turned to face him with a straight back, as the man in front of her kept fumbling with his words and making gestures with his hands.
"You look like you belong here, like a fairy that has just come into being. Playing in the water while civilization has crumbled around you." He said as he continued to move closer.
Wendy smiled at the compliment because it reminded her of the way the women in the high society often referred to her.
He pulled lightly at her skirt and courtesy to him. "Thank you. I am Wendy, the girl who danced with fairies."
When she looked up from having bowed her head, he smiled and his dark eyes glittered with playfulness.
He bowed deeply to her, as he had done to the rest of the women in the garden party, when he crossed their path. "I am Elias di Angelico, the painter. It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady."
Wendy smiled at him. Maybe it was because he wasn't in layers of clothes like Eric was - he always wore at least a shirt and a jacket - but this Elias seemed to move with an elegance she hadn't seen before.
"I do not have a title," Wendy said.
Elias blinked at her with interest. "Then are you have traveling performer by chance? A dancer, perhaps?"
Wendy smiled wider. "No, but I heard that you were."
A smile glided onto the man's lips. "Well, I would not call myself a performer. I am a traveler."
He reminded Wendy of the fairies, the way he moved. Everything was slowly and gracefully like he was simply moving with the flow of the wind.
"I myself have never travelled." Wendy said that Elias's eyes seemed to glitter with gold. It was dark as a tree trunk. "The only time I ever traveled far was when I went to the capital once."
"My, my. I have visited there too." Elias said, and closed the gap between them, so they now stood a bit at a respectable distance for a conversation. "But tell me, my lady of the fairies, you have no title, yet you stand in the forest of Briar. If you are not a fairy, who are you?"
Wendy laughed and when she did, she realized she hadn't laughed like that in a while.
"I am the fiancée of Baron Branigan's son, though I was born and raised out in the countryside. My father is an innkeeper." She smiled, a bit embarrassed.
"Then it seems the young Baron had the pleasure of managing to catch himself a fairy." The man in front of her laughed and lightly touched one of her loose sitting curls, and then retracted his hand like he wasn't sure he had felt her.
"Well, I have danced with faeries and they did teach me how to play a fiddle." Wendy smiled.
The young man seemed embarrassed, that he had touched her, but his eyes quickly found hers as they grew big. "Have you really?"
"Indeed." Wendy smiled as Elias reminded her more of a child with his big brown eyes. "I have met the Queen of all the forest creatures the elven queen."
The painter seemed lost for words for a moment and gently reached out as if to check she was really there.
He smiled apologetically and pulled his hand back. "How magical, I have always wanted to see some of them. My mother used to tell me stories of the nymphs that would inhabit waters like these back home in Italy…" He gestured to the small pond beside them. "But sadly, they have always eluded me and never shown themselves….
"I do not think that I have met a person here, who believed in the creatures of the forest…"
Elias made a gesture. "I have always found the mysteries and wonderful tales of the past, more alluring. I hope one day that I will be able to paint a portrait of a mystical creature. I hope I can do them justice." He gently took Wendy's hand and put it up to his lips. "In the meantime, my fairy lady, can I draw a picture of you?"
"Of me?" Wendy echoed his request.
He smiled charmingly up at her. "You are the closest thing I have ever seen to a real creature of the forest - you are breathtakingly beautiful, graceful as few and your laughter sound like churchbells. It will be an injustice not to."
Wendy blushed a little at the compliment.
They talked for a long time after that. Elias told her of Italy. It seemed like such a foreign place that it might as well have been the realm of the elven queen. He told her that the terrace and the structures on it had been inspired by his homeland and how the english people found things from there - and him - interesting. They had returned to the garden where they had wandered around together and talked about Wendy's childhood, her dancing, and her adventures in the forest, about Elias' travels throughout Europe and United Kingdom and the various people he had painted.
The conversation glided so easily from one topic to the next, that Wendy did not know it was time to go back until the Duchess came to find her.
She seemed very perplexed to see the two of them together.
As they parted, the painter bowed deeply to Wendy with the hope that they would see each other again.
Wendy responded in kind and smiled. She could not remember the last time she'd had a conversation so interesting. She could not wait to see him again.
Please tell me what you think.
the next chapter will come next week if we are lucky.