Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Where have you been?” Emily whispered, as Juliette came to stand next to her at the edge of the ballroom.

“I was just in the powder room,” Juliette replied, and Emily raised her eyebrows.

“For nearly two hours? Your mother’s been looking everywhere for you. She had the poor man on a leash. He’s gone now, but she’s fuming,” Emily said, and Juliette smiled.

“Well… it was worth it,” she said.

But before Emily could ask any further questions, Juliette’s mother appeared at their side, glaring at Juliette, just as the last notes of the final waltz came to an end.

“Juliette, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been? You’ve embarrassed me terribly. I had to talk to Lord Faulkener for an hour - making excuses for you,” she said, but Juliette merely shrugged.

“I didn’t ask you to make excuses for me, mother. I didn’t come here to dance with anyone,” Juliette replied, and her mother raised her eyebrows.

“Juliette, I despair. I really do. Why can’t you be more like Emily?” she exclaimed, glancing at Emily, who blushed.

Juliette sighed. Her cousin had not had an easy life. Her mother - Juliette’s mother’s sister - had died when she was young, and her father was frail and confined to the care of a nurse at home. Emily had lived with Juliette as a sister for the past five years, and the two of them got on well. But as for being like her cousin…

“Emily isn’t… waiting, mother,” Juliette said, and her mother threw her hands up in despair.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Juliette? He’s not coming back. Not any time soon, at least. Put such thoughts out of your mind,” she said, shaking her head.

But Juliette could not put such thoughts out of her mind. She was waiting for Nicholas, and while she did so, no other man would compare. But the evening she had spent with the stranger had been something of a balm. Juliette had enjoyed their conversation, even as she knew it would be scandal to reveal it - even to Emily.

She wondered if she would see the stranger again, and now she looked around the ballroom for a sign of him in the flickering candlelight illuminating the room. But he was gone, and it was as though the whole thing had been a dream - a pleasant one, but a dream nonetheless.

“But I can’t put them out of my mind, mother. I can’t put him out of my mind,” Juliette replied, even as the longer she waited for Nicholas, the more she feared her mother might be right…

***

“Where did you really go, Juliette?” Emily asked, as the two of them were getting ready for bed that evening.

Juliette blushed. She had spent the carriage ride home enduring her mother’s continued berating over her disappearance, but the memory of the conversation had been pleasant enough to blot out her mother’s words, and the stranger’s face was still foremost in Juliette’s mind.

“I went to the orangery,” Juliette replied, for there was no harm in telling the truth about that.

“And just sat there,” Emily persisted.

“Yes… it’s a very pleasant place to just sit,” Juliette replied.

“And no one else came to sit with you? No one else talked to you?” Emily said, raising her eyebrows, and Juliette shook her head.

“No, no one came,” she said, and her cousin smiled.

“It’s just, I was talking to a man - well, he came to talk to me. We danced, and he said his friend had disappeared,” she said, and Juliette shrugged.

“I’m sure it was just a coincidence,” she said, rising from her dressing table to get into bed.

She was tired, but her mind was still filled with thoughts of the conversation she had enjoyed with the stranger - there had been something so liberating in it. It was how she imagined conversations with Nicholas - the freedom to say as she wished, to be listened to…

“Juliette, you do know your mother’s right, don’t you? About Nicholas, I mean,” Emily said.

Juliette’s heart sank. She did not want to think about it, or rather, she did not want to think other than she thought - that Nicholas would soon return, and everything would be as she dreamed.

“She’s not right, Emily. And I thought you’d be on my side in this,” Juliette replied.

Emily put her arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

“I am. You know, I am. But I’m also far less romantic and far more practical than you,” she replied.

Juliette smiled. In that, her cousin was right. Juliette was convinced Nicholas would return, and when he did, he would come at once to ask her to marry him. They would live happily ever after, as in a fairytale. That was what she liked to imagine, even as she knew she was foolish to do so. Real life was not like that. But a dream was often a better place to inhabit than the truth, and for that reason, Juliette would continue to believe Nicholas was soon to return.

“But I can’t let go of the hope,” Juliette said, and Emily smiled and patted her hand.

“You don’t have to. But perhaps it’s time to allow yourself to imagine the possibility of something else - with someone else. Be open to the chance of falling in love with someone else. Besides, how do you know Nicholas hasn’t done so? Goodnight, Juliette,” Emily said, and taking her candle, she left Juliette’s bedroom.

These last words caused Juliette to close her eyes and take a deep breath. The very thought of Nicholas falling in love with someone else filled her with a sense of dread. It was impossible - was it not?

“No, I know he wouldn’t,” she told herself, as she climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over herself.

But as she drifted off to sleep, Juliette's cousin’s words were a distinct possibility, and while she could resist her own feelings when it came to thoughts of other men, she had no control over those of Nicholas.

***

In the coming weeks, Juliette often found herself thinking of the stranger she had encountered in the orangery at Lady Rankin’s ball. She found herself recalling their conversation, and the way it had made her feel - the freedom she had felt in conversing with a man who had treated her as his equal. She still did not know his name, nor where he had come from.

At the balls and dinners she attended with her mother and cousin, Juliette would look vaguely for the stranger, hoping to bump into him again by accident. She did not know why she felt this way, but there was a curiosity in her mind, and a desire for that same feeling of freedom once again.

“Why do you keep looking around like that, Juliette? Are you waiting for someone?” her mother asked, when, one evening at a particularly dull dinner hosted by one of her mother’s friends, Juliette had been distracted by the sight of a man who she thought might be the stranger.

“I… I’m not, no. I just thought I saw… well, it doesn’t matter,” Juliette said, for as the man had turned, she had realized it was not the stranger from the orangery.

Her mother tutted.

“Are you expecting to see… Nicholas?” she asked.

Juliette shook her head. She was always expecting to see Nicholas - poised for his return. On waking each morning, she wondered if that day would be the day he returned or sent word. Whenever a letter arrived, she imagined it might be for her, but her sense of anticipation was always met with disappointment. In short, Juliette lived her life expectantly, and always with the sad, and ever-growing realization that perhaps Nicholas was never coming back.

“No, Mother,” Juliette replied.

“I fear for you, Juliette. I worry you’re going to end your days as an old spinster, regretting the fact you did nothing to help yourself on the path to marriage. Don’t you want children? A happy family?” her mother asked, shaking her head.

Juliette did want those things, and yet she had no intention of forcing the matter, or putting the fact of it ahead of her own happiness when it came to marriage. Why have children with someone she could not love? It seemed wrong, and now she merely shrugged and dismissed her mother’s comment without answering her question.

“I’m sure I won’t, Mother. I just… haven’t found the right man yet,” she replied, and her mother sighed and shook her head.

“Then I can only hope you do so soon, Juliette - for all our sakes,” she replied.

The days and weeks passed by, months turned into a year, a new season, and still there was no word. Juliette had given up asking Henrietta for news of her brother, for it seemed he had simply disappeared off the face of the earth.

“He’ll be far too busy enjoying himself,” Henrietta would say, whenever the tentative subject of Nicholas’ whereabouts was raised.

“Yes, enjoying himself without a thought to anyone else,” Juliette thought to herself, for an awful thought had occurred to her, waking her with a start in the middle of the night.

If Nicholas did not get in touch with her - and surely there had been some opportunity, at least - did that mean he had no feelings for her? It was a terrible thought, one she had tried to dismiss, telling herself it could not be the case - surely it could not be the case. But the seed was planted, and now it began to grow, her fears increasing by the day, until she had convinced herself it was certainly the case. Nicholas was not coming back.

He did not love her. He did not even care enough about her to contact her. Her heart was broken, and Juliette fell into a deep despair. But all that changed one afternoon, when Juliette least expected it - the arrival of a visitor, one she had not seen for a very long time.