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Suffocating.
This was the first thought that came to his mind when he saw the high gilded ceilings supporting magnificent crystal chandeliers, the multitudes of imposing paintings depicting arrogant nobles with lofty features, the great marble staircases that went up and up without seeming to have any claim to an end.
This was the thought that lingered as he shook the hands covered in finery and powders that reached out to him, one after the other, without him being able to differentiate their owners.
This was the thought that haunted him as he tried to keep the smile on his lips intact, as he nodded at all the jokes of his hosts that passed through his ears without reaching him, stuck in a tails suit with a collar that was too tight and in shoes that were too narrow. It felt strangely hot in there, and it made him sweat terribly.
He was suffocating, suffocating under the mask of pretense that pressed down on the pores of his face, a mask that he struggled to keep intact and threatened to drip at the slightest passage of a dark, stormy cloud of his feelings. He was suffocating under the crushing weight of the responsibilities he was taking on, one after another, and which weighed down on his back and would make him fall to the ground if not for the strings his father was pulling; he was suffocating under the pressure of the eyes turned towards him, which crushed and examined him, and made him feel as if he were surrounded by vultures ready to pounce on their prey at the slightest opening.
He took a deep breath.
I'll be fine.
I just have to get through the evening.
"William, my son, come here!" waved his father briskly. The wedding ring that adorned his hand was glowing more brightly than usual, beneath the light of the flickering candles that stood on the chandeliers.
Beside him stood a young woman who could only be described as ravishing: her brown hair was delicately pulled up into an elaborate bun into which magnificent pearl ornaments had been plucked. Her long midnight blue dress, decorated with white floral motifs and made of several layers of satin, caressed her ankles with a perpetual movement and complimented her shape.
She was beautiful, that was a fact. And there was no doubt that such a person must have been the cause of plenty of heartbreaks.
William extended his hand towards hers courteously. He lowered himself to the level of her long, manicured fingers that settled into the hollow of his palm, and placed his lips on them briefly, taking note of the softness of her hands and the elegance of her every movement. She moved with admirable grace, each of her motions following an unerring choreography that did not look robotic in the least.
"Lady Darcy, you are as charming as ever."
That was not a lie.
She first smiled at him in response, and it was a smile that might rival the stars, drawing all the attention in the room like a source of light, or maybe a black hole, and suddenly everything seemed to revolve solely around her.
And when she answered him with a melodious voice, which echoed and repeated in his head like a heady rhyme that went round and round in circles and led to confusion, only to leave you more disoriented than the previous moment, and when, as she spoke, she was plunging her gaze into his, and her irises were fixing him and transcending him with their multiple violet and violent hues, he could only affirm that she was, indeed, the ideal woman.
But then, why couldn't he feel his heart beat in her presence?
"Father, how about I show William the gardens?" inquired Neyra at the end of the meal, the same dazzling smile from earlier plastered on her face.
As she spoke, she looked William straight in the eye, and though her expression at first glance might have seemed the same as it had since the beginning of the meal, calm and reserved in respect of etiquette, he believed he could see a small glimmer of mischief in her eyes, and then felt as if he was being drawn into a scheme in spite of himself.
William honestly didn't really care about the garden decorations, but any valid justification for getting out of this oppressive manor was enough for him now. Dinner had been an insurmountable ordeal, and he didn't think he could stand another second of nodding at their remarks and opinions for which he had no interest. He returned her smile and nodded in agreement.
"But of course, Neyra! You need to get some alone time between young people," he declared with a little smirk, which seemed to suggest that he had come to another conclusion about the purpose of this outing. The girl's smile did not falter, but she made no comment.
He felt the weight of his father's gaze on him, but he remained silent. Perhaps he had already gathered that he was not at all interested in the young lady, unlike her father, who already seemed overjoyed to have him as a son-in-law - or, more likely, to be able to finally get his hands on the family fortune. Perhaps he thought he could count on the maiden to change his mind.
Or perhaps, judging by the satisfied look that adorned his initially neutral face as he silently nodded to this proposal, he probably didn't care about the accounting of the two children.
William knew that his father was also involved in an arranged marriage. How did he react to this announcement? Was he as confused as he was now? Or perhaps he simply complied, without thinking twice, and expected his son to be able to do the same. He didn't know. He had never been able to understand his father's thought process. He always seemed to him like an over-oiled machine, programmed to make rational choices in all circumstances, and his dark, hard eyes never showed any emotion.
And even when he left the manor for the gardens, and unintentionally breathed a brief sigh of relief, he still felt the weight of his inexpressive gaze on his shoulders.
The weather was particularly cold for a December month.
The sound of the snow on the path sinking under the heels of their shoes echoed throughout the backyard. As the wind stirred the few leaves that remained on their limbs, covered with a thin layer of frozen water, the snowflakes that still fell lightly from the sky intermittently covered the ground in a dense mass, forming a still opalescent carpet, visitors being very few and far between; and the weather only accentuated the reluctance to leave the house.
William noticed, however, that the garden was remarkably well kept, and that in the places where the greenery was still visible there were still traces of shoes that had trodden on the ground.
Someone must surely come here after all, he thought as he gazed around the garden. He assumed that it was the gardeners of the house who were tirelessly maintaining the vegetation of the place despite the freezing cold.
The snow was making the branches bend under their weight, and the few leaves that had not been buried by the snow were turning in continuous circles in the wind. The silence was so deafening that it was possible to hear the whistling of the air without even lending an ear. There was therefore a certain calm in the garden, which soothed William's senses.
It was strangely comforting to bask in this silence, broken only occasionally by simple conversation.
He bent over a pretty red flower that was still standing despite the unseasonably green weather, with heart-shaped petals so glossy they looked like they had been lacquered. The girl's eyes lit up at the sight of his gesture.
"You have good taste, William," she said, crouching down to the flower. He leant down to her level to hear her better. "It's an anthurium. It certainly looks like it's covered in lacquer, doesn't it? As if it were a fake. Ah, it symbolizes hospitality, among other attributes." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Rather ironic that such a flower would be found in a garden rather than in a house, isn't it? But I find it fitting."
As she spoke, her eyes stared intently at the flower, and though she was merely voicing her thoughts on a definition read in a gardening book, he suddenly felt as if he were entering into something deeply personal, and he looked away promptly.
"I like its significance very much, besides its beauty."
"It is magnificent, indeed. I would undoubtedly congratulate the gardener who maintains it if they were standing before me."
William could not see her face, but he could detect a hint of amusement in her subsequent reply.
"Fortunately, I don't think I'd have to pass the message on, since this gardener is standing in front of your eyes."
Surprised by her comment, he raised his eyebrows, then let out a small laugh.
"Well, if we weren't the only ones in the garden right now, I'd have been inclined to think it was anyone else but you," he admitted, as he held the back of his neck with a subtle grin. "I would have never thought you were into gardening, quite honestly."
She kept the same soft smile on her lips, seeming not to be offended in the least by the thought. She walked past him, smiling - still the same damned smile, calm and composed - and took a seat on a bench at the edge of the walkway.
"Why don't you sit next to me, William?" she suggested, tapping the icy wood with her fingertips to indicate his place.
He sat down in silence, and it lasted a long time. It wasn't the kind of oppressive silence that would urge you to initiate small talk, it was this sort of stillness that seemed to soothe the mind and the senses, and occupied enough space to fill the lack of interaction between the two individuals.
William, lost in thought, turned his gaze towards her.
He did not know what to think of this maiden, but he felt deeply apologetic for seeing her being robbed of a part of her life by binding herself to another, for depriving her of loving and, more importantly, of being loved in return. For even if she managed to avoid this marriage for once, William knew fully well that liaisons of reason were inevitable for a person of her standing, and that she could not pretend to escape them permanently.
She also appeared to be immersed in her memories, and he wondered what she thought about the whole matter. If he was the only one who saw it as a huge joke, a mockery of him thrown in his face, or if he was after all just a hopeless idealist trying to escape his responsibilities.
"I like coming to this part of the garden," she said after a while. "Everything is quiet and serene and no one ever comes to disturb me around here."
"Are you trying to make me understand that no one will come and overhear our conversation?" he replied with a joking tone.
She laughed softly but did not answer, looking straight ahead. And perhaps it was the veil of melancholy that seemed to cover her face for a brief moment, the way her eyelids had closed for a little too long, the way her irises seemed to focus only on passing memories, as if now that she was in her real home, she could no longer pretend to keep up this mask of pretense and of a calm, obedient young heiress, that gave him the bravery to ask the question that had been nagging at him.
"Are you really okay with all of this?"
This time she turned to him, her irises brimming with intensity, deep and transcendent, contrasting with her everlasting smile. They reflected a collision, a fusion of strong emotions, an intense light from which one could not avert one's eyes, and which would leave in its wake black spots in the landscape, like when one has looked at the sun too much and tries to escape it. Some would say that her beauty resided in the way she took the place of the sun for a moment, attracting the gaze like a moth would be irremediably drawn to a beam of light, marking her path with a fiery glow that one would be tempted to pursue, to escape the darkness of a life in shades of grey that would only seem even blander after the passage of this star.
But as he looked at her, she who was a light, she who was the equal of the sun, he could only see another face that mirrored her own. A familiar, joyful, lively expression formed in his mind in spite of himself, eyes bright and ablaze with a will to live, to defy the norms, and a unique and true authenticity that was reflected in every subtle movement of the expression he imagined her to have; and this illusion then seemed to him a hundred times brighter than the young lady who was really sitting by his side.
Lady Neyra Elena Darcy was not as radiant as she was. The thought struck him instantly, just like a revelation. Darcy was a second sun; but she was not his, the one around which his existence revolved against all odds, this comforting source of warmth that this bubbly Sergeant radiated wherever she wandered, in an explosion of colours and sensations to which he could not help but be irrevocably drawn. Kym Ladell was his light, and he could only gravitate towards her.
"And what do you think of it?" she inquired.
This thought had been torturing him since the beginning of their meeting. Why didn't he agree with this marriage? Why did he find it so hard to accept this fate, this alliance of reason, when his partner had everything to please?
He unintentionally let out a small laugh of astonishment, as if a weight had just been lifted from his chest, as he realized that he could now answer this question. That it wasn't pity or sympathy at seeing her end up in an ill-fated marriage that bothered him, but that his dreams of insurgence were motivated by less noble, and certainly selfish causes in some ways.
"You are a charming person, but I don't believe you are my type."
She smiled at him once more, without any trace of offense, and William caught himself wondering how she could express so many nuanced emotions with the same redundant expression, which he had seen and admired from every angle.
"What a coincidence. We are thinking the same thing, then."
She marked the end of her answer with a brief pause, seeming to consider whether she should continue, and added:
"Actually, I already have someone I hold dear."
He raised his eyebrows slightly, somewhat surprised by this disclosure. He didn't think she would be the type to be in a relationship in secret. But then again, this wasn't his first peculiar discovery of the evening.
He thought about it, then replied.
"I think I like someone too."
Although her posture was as perfectly upright as always, a certain inquisitiveness seemed to light up in her eyes at his particular words.
"You aren't sure?" she asked openly.
He considered the question for a moment to answer properly, and before he knew it, a look of fondness came over his face.
"What I'm sure of is that she's someone I have a lot of affection for. Even if she does drive me crazy more often than not," he added with a frown.
"Oh? She seems to be an energetic person, in any case," she replied with an amused look.
"I suppose a person who insists on entering my house through the second-floor window instead of taking the door like any sane human being could be defined as energetic, indeed," he sighed with apparent exhaustion. He looked like a parent weary of scolding his child for his misdeeds.
She laughed at the sight of his dejected expression. A hair escaped from her perfect bun, but she didn't put it back this time, and he thought she looked more natural, less mechanical that way.
"The heart has its reasons that reason doesn't know about, I suppose," she added, her amusement still audible in her tone of voice.
"The person I love... We had a disagreement," she continued, sighing slightly. For the first time of the evening, she seemed genuinely downhearted, and even her smile could no longer hide it.
"Oh. My deepest condolences," he mused with an expression that was meant to be compassionate.
"Ah, no reason. After all, I'm largely at fault in the matter. I missed my chance even though I had them by my side, and I am suffering the consequences now."
She looked up to the sky, and William could tell, by the sight of her intense pupils softening as they gazed up at the stars, the amount of love she bore for this mysterious person.
"But if I could, I would take this person as my partner in a hundred lifetimes. Even if I was destined by the heavens never to reach that goal. Because they are worth it."
She stopped in her tracks, shivering.
"Ah, it's getting cold. We should head back inside."
He realised that the idea no longer gave him that intense choking sensation, and that he no longer felt the need to loosen his bow tie.
Perhaps it was the comfort of knowing that he was not alone in this after all. Or maybe it was the fact that he had had the opportunity to share what was weighing on his mind with someone so similar to him.
"You're right."
As they rose from the bench, Darcy grabbed the arm he was extending to her.
"Let's go back."