The Glow That Gave Us Away (#9)
Early July, 1912
The windows had been thrown open, though it did little good. The air inside was heavy with July — that familiar kind of heat that lingers not just on the skin, but beneath it.
We were gathered in the east drawing room of Lady Elowen’s summer estate — a salon-style gathering with music and fruit cordials and no real purpose but to look at one another and pretend to be interesting.
I had taken my place near the window, a fan in hand, a polite smile fixed to my lips. Lord Bergamot was not with me; he had declined the invitation, citing the heat and the dullness of conversation as reasons enough to remain home.
I did not argue. We’ve long since learned when to leave one another be.
Mr. Everett stood near the mantle, quiet as always but unmistakably there.
I refused to watch him directly, and yet I charted the space between us as carefully as if I’d drawn it myself.
Lady Ameline, who had arrived late in a silk the color of dried lavender, leaned down during the second reading and murmured, “If I don’t leave this room, I may burst into flame from boredom.”
I didn’t hesitate. I followed her out.
She steered me through a side corridor and out to the terrace, her posture impeccable even in defiance. The sun was lower now, making the stone warm beneath our slippers. We leaned against the balustrade, grateful for a breeze that never quite reached the drawing room.
“I was once like you,” she said, not looking at me. “Or perhaps I wasn’t. I had far less softness about me. But I was young. And alone. And beautiful in a way that made men generous and women careful.”
There was no preamble. No question. Just the honesty of a woman who had spent enough years in silence and decided, finally, to break it.
“My father drank through what little inheritance we had left,” she went on. “My mother wept herself into an early grave. I married the first man who offered me a name that didn’t come with scandal.”
She glanced at me then — not sharply, but with a kind of kindness that felt older than either of us.
“He was nearly thirty years my senior. Not unkind. Not even unhandsome, in the right light. But he was never truly interested in me — only in the version of me he could use to gild his evenings.”
I said nothing. My fan stilled in my lap.
“I threw parties,” she said. “I kissed cheeks. I stitched my name into thank-you notes and tea invitations. And I waited.”
“For what?”
She smiled. “For him to die.”
The bluntness shocked me. But she didn’t flinch.
“It took sixteen years. He choked on a grape at a luncheon.” She tilted her head. “I remember because I spilled champagne on my favorite violet silk — and didn’t even curse aloud.”
She paused. And then, almost as an afterthought, added:
“By then, the man I loved had already moved on. A respectable match. A northern heiress, I think. They named their second daughter after his wretched mother.”
Her voice didn’t tremble. If anything, it was steadier than before.
“But my heart remembered. Still does, in some forgotten corner. That’s how I knew what I was looking at just now — when I saw the two of you.”
She touched my hand — briefly, gently — and her tone softened.
“It’s subtle now — and, in fairness, I don’t think anyone else has noticed. But they will, dear — if you're not careful. People always claim they love a good romance… until it comes too close to their parlor. You think you're hiding it, and maybe you are. But that kind of fondness has a glow to it. And glows, darling, are not easy to contain on warm summer nights.”
She did not stay for long after. Said something about needing to catch the last light for her walk. Left me there with nothing but the echo of her voice and the salt of my own breath.
When I returned to the room, the light had changed — and so had I.
Mr. Everett was still by the mantle, speaking now to someone I didn’t recognize. But when I passed behind him, he turned — slightly — just enough for our shoulders to nearly brush. I felt it like an aftershock.
I did not turn back.
That night, I replayed her words.
Not the part about the grape.
But the part about being seen — about how quiet a woman must become before anyone notices she’s fading.
I do not know if I am waiting.
Or hiding.
Or hoping to be caught.
But I will remember the way Lady Ameline said it — not with sorrow, not even regret,
but with the strange, steady sharpness of someone who has already survived the thing I fear.
And now I wonder:
When does a woman stop being someone…
and start becoming something remembered?
—L.B.
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The Violet Letters Continue…
We do not speak in sentences. But oh, how we understand each other. This is the joy of raising my son, where words are not needed.